South Florida summons tropical vacationland images--gleaming beaches, exotic foods, colorful costumes, and grand hotels. Yet beyond this facade teems a rich folklife that is the subject of this alluring book.
The three collaborating authors present south Florida folklife from the 1930s to the present in four parts: the Everglades and Gulf Coast, the Miami megalopolis, the Keys, and the seasonal residents and tourists.
Together, these create a mosaic of contrasts. South Florida embraces extravagant wealth and heartbreaking poverty, constant evolution and solid tradition, tropical peace and devastating storms, settled generations and the newest Americans. It is a folk region identified not by physical or political boundaries, but by its hot, sultry climate and the many people who interact with the land and with one another.
South Florida Folklife explores the area for the first time from a folklorist's perspective and firmly establishes it as a microcosm of the United States, an enticing example of the human diversity that characterizes life in this country.

South Florida Folklife (Folklife in the South Series)

History

Bucuvalas, Tina

Americas

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF MISSISSIPPI

Beginning in 1905, large numbers of Greeks from the Dodecanese and Saronic Gulf islands settled in Tarpon Springs to work in the sponge business. They significantly expanded the industry and changed Tarpon Springs forever. Greektown flourished with residences, stores, churches, restaurants, and recreational facilities stretching from the sponge docks to downtown. Sponge fishing and related activities served as the economic base for the community. By 1913, as many as half of Tarpon Springs residents were reputedly Greek, and many businesses displayed both Greek and American flags. Today, Tarpon Springs' Greek community preserves a strong ethnic and maritime heritage. While some major US cities have a larger Greek population, no other has a greater percentage with Greek heritage than Tarpon Springs.

Greeks in Tarpon Springs (Images of America)

Arts & Photography

Photography & Video

Arcadia Publishing

Florida has an abundance of excellent artists whose work reflects the traditions of their many diverse communities. Yet there has been, until now, no major publication that focuses on the state's visual folk arts and folk artists. 
 Just Above the Water: Florida Folk Art includes an overall view of folk arts in Florida and individual profiles of over seventy artists, including Mary Proctor, Mario Sanchez, Nicholas Toth, Ruby C. Williams, and Purvis Young. The work of painters, sculptors, master saddlemakers, iconographers, and instrument makers is illustrated here in more than 200 black-and-white and color photographs. 
 Some consider folk art to be art created by self-taught individuals working in an idiosyncratic style, while others believe it to be the expression of traditional cultural forms. Kristin G. Congdon and Tina Bucuvalas argue that artists of both types express innovation and tradition. In many instances, a close examination of the artists and their work reveals much about Florida's cultural history. The artists clearly are not naive, simple, primitive, or quaint. Like the work they produce, they are sophisticated, expressing their creativity in relation to complex cultural backgrounds.

Just Above the Water: Florida Folk Art

Congdon, Kristin G.

History & Criticism

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Books by Bucuvalas, Tina