Guide to African American Resources in the State Library and Archives of Florida

Photographic Collections

The Florida Photographic Collection includes more than 1.5 million images and 7,000 movies and videotapes which together form the most complete visual portrait of Florida and Floridians available. Comprising photographs provided by hundreds of individual donors, the collection reflects the homes, families, work, pastimes, and social, cultural and natural environments of Floridians from the mid-1800s to the present.

The following collections are those that, due to their size or scope, form our best visual documentation of the experiences of Black Floridians, but this is not an exhaustive list of all such photographs in the State Archives. Collections below are described by their general scope, then by relevant materials within each collection, and then – except for General Photographic Collections M82-5 and N2018-14 – as constituting a Black Creator (BC) collection, Non-Black Creator (NBC) collection, or Hidden History (HH) collection.

M82-5

General Photographic Collection, 1845-2016 72,004 photographs

This collection of photographic images forms a comprehensive visual history of Florida. It contains photographs provided to the State Archives by hundreds of individual donors and reflects the homes, families, work, pastimes, and social, cultural and natural environments of Floridians from the mid-1800s to the present. Many of these images are accessible online through the Florida Memory website, FloridaMemory.com.

M82-30

Richard E. Resler Resler Photographs, 1898-1941 34 photographs

This collection contains 34 black-and-white images of people, places and activities in West Palm Beach.

Most of these photographs are of the Royal Poinciana Hotel in 1898, but some are images of The Styx, a temporary community for Black construction workers. When landowners forcibly removed these residents, they relocated to the northwest area of West Palm Beach, which served as the city’s all-Black community from 1894-1960. (HH)

M82-37

Leonard Darkin Darkin Family Photographs, 1880-1891 84 photographs

This collection contains photographs of the Darkins, a white family living in the Lake George area at the end of the 19th century. There are a small number of photographs depicting unidentified Black workers, often seen in the background. Photographs depict the Darkin family watching as three Black men dig a ditch, a Black woman driving a carriage, and a Black family with one white man on the front porch of their house, which was next door to the Darkin’s orange packinghouse. (HH)

M82-53

Winthrop Family Photographs, 1866-1968 1.25 cubic feet

This collection contains photographs of the Winthrop family of Tallahassee and their activities in north Florida. Most of this collection consists of photographs taken during a hunting trip along the Wacissa River in 1901, including some images of Black laborers setting up and transporting equipment. Some images in this collection are family photographs taken by Tallahassee photographer Alvan S. Harper, including two portraits of the family’s Black coachman, Mathew Merritt (pictured at right). (HH)

M82-57

Mark Frederick Boyd Florida Scenes Photographs, 1870-1950 190 photographs

This collection contains photographs of various Florida scenes collected by physician Mark Frederick Boyd. A majority of the scenes are Tallahassee buildings, parks and people photographed by Alvan S. Harper in March 1888, including albumen prints of Black citizens. (HH)

M82-73

Ignatz Nathaniel Gardner Tobacco Production Photographs, 1900-1915 100 photographs

This collection contains photographs of the Gardner and Wedeles family and the Taussic and Wedeles Tobacco companies of Gadsden County. Many of the images depict Black workers in various stages of tobacco production and in several group photos of the companies’ Black and white employees. (NBC)

M82-105

Jacksonville Area Photographs, circa 1890s-1930s 17 photographs

This collection contains photographs of people, scenes and events around Jacksonville in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There are scenes of encamped Spanish-American War soldiers, including Black soldiers; Jacksonville landmarks; agricultural scenes; a formal group portrait; a parade; the steamboat “City of Jacksonville;” and a shipyard. Ensminger Brothers Photography Studio of Sanford took all but one photo in this collection. (NBC)

M84-41

Monticello Photographic Collection, 1870-1890s 93 photographs

The collection consists of daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes and albumens of people in Monticello, particularly members of the Partridge family. Included is an 1850s hand-colored daguerreotype of Mollie, an African woman kidnapped by transatlantic slave traders. She was brought to South Carolina and sold to John and Eliza Partridge, who later

brought her to Jefferson County, Florida and referred to her as “Mauma Mollie.” This rare daguerreotype of a person of color is particularly notable for its hand-tinting. (HH)

M87-30

Alvan S. Harper Photographic Collection, 1884-1910 1,600 photographs

Alvan S. Harper was a Tallahassee-based photographer active from 1884 to his death in 1911. This collection consists of glass negatives recovered from Harper’s attic 35 years after his

death. While some images depict buildings and street scenes in the Florida panhandle, the

bulk of this collection consists of 1,300 portraits, mostly unidentified, of Florida men, women and children, including middle-class Black persons. (NBC)

M89-18

Emilie Blackburn Family Photographs, not dated 12 photographs

The collection consists of 10 portraits of unidentified Tallahassee residents, taken by photographer Alvan S. Harper between 1884 and 1911. Subjects are likely members of the Blackburn, Byrd and Yarbrough families. In addition, there are two 1905 photographs of Creasy Lloyd, a formerly enslaved Black woman who then served as a nanny to the Yarbrough family, as well as a colored pencil sketch of her from 1895. (HH)

M91-15

Richard Aloysius Twine Lincolnville, St. Augustine Photographic Collection, 1922-1927 103 photographs

The collection contains black-and-white images of the Lincolnville Community in the 1920s taken by local Lincolnville photographer Richard Aloysius Twine. Lincolnville is a district of Saint Augustine originally named “Africa” due to its founding by freed Black people in 1866. Many of the subjects in these photos are identified, including Twine and several of his family members. (BC)

M96-34

Photographs of Volusia County, 1880-1925 17 photographs

This collection consists of 16 black-and-white glass negatives depicting scenes in Volusia County and one mounted print of a Black couple in Glenwood. Volusia County images include Orange City, Blue Springs, Deland and the Trissel House. (HH)

M99-22

Photographs of East Florida Towns and Attractions, 1895 34 photographs

This collection consists of black-and-white images of various communities in east Florida, created between March and May of 1895. Images include workers in Enterprise, the Banana and Indian rivers, Merritt Island, the Jacksonville harbor, various attractions in St. Augustine, and Black families and homes in Brevard County, such as the Dazey family in Rockledge and Mr. Kimball and Mrs. Green in Lotus. (HH)

N2004-2

Bryant Grady Patton Apalachicola Seafood Industry Photographs, 1946 46 photographs

Bryant Patton, a war veteran and cattle rancher, started the Apalachicola Fish and Oyster Company in 1944. In 1946, he hired a photographer to take promotional photos of his business and employees. This collection contains black-and-white photographs from that promotional shoot, including various shots of Black employees, including children, cleaning the fresh caught seafood. These images also display a stark division of labor by race, as white employees are shown netting fish and operating a small plane. (NBC)

N2008-14

John Buckley Photographic Collection, 1969-1976 5,250 photographs

John Buckley was a white photographer interested in the protest movements of the 1960s. He attended protests for civil rights and the anti-war and anti-nuclear power movements and photographed the events and attendees. This collection consists of black-and-white negatives, slides and prints from demonstrations around Florida as well as in Washington, D.C. and Atlanta, Georgia. (NBC)

N2016-4

Gilbert Richard Ohmes Jefferson and Leon County Photographic Collection, circa 1960-1964 300 photographs

The collection contains black-and-white images documenting the Black experience in rural Leon and Jefferson counties, taken by white amateur photographer Gilbert Richard Ohmes. Ohmes was interested in the effect of integration on his local Black community and sought to represent living conditions, agriculture and residents of the area. (NBC)

N2018-14

General Photographic Collection, 1990-present Approximately 485 gigabytes

This collection comprises the “Digital Image Collection” component of the General Collection of photos. Hundreds of individual donors provided the images to the State Archives in digital form, and they depict the homes, families, work, pastimes, and social, cultural and natural environments of Floridians from the late 1900s through present day. (HH)

N2018-20

Bruce Mozert Photographic Collection, 1900s 25,000 negatives, 15,000 photographs, 300 film reels, 50 VHS tapes

This collection contains photographs, films, documents and artifacts relating to Bruce Mozert’s

work as a professional photographer from the 1930s to the early 2010s. Many of the photographs and films are of Silver Springs near Ocala, as well as Paradise Park, a segregated tourist attraction for Black visitors located downriver from the main 

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