Political Science

Between 1824 and 1840, Florida’s government functioned out of several log cabins and rented rooms in the newly established territorial capital of Tallahassee. In 1839, the federal government gave $20,000 to construct a permanent capitol building; the bones of the structure were laid by enslaved craftsmen. The first session took place in 1841, and additional funds requested each year ensured the capitol was complete when Florida entered the Union as the 27th state on March 3, 1845. Over the years, four significant capitol expansions reflected the needs of a growing state until a new and modern Capitol Complex, designed by architect Edward Durrell Stone, was completed in 1977. The aging former capitol was slated for demolition until the people of Florida spoke out in a successful campaign to save the historic building and restore it to its 1902 appearance. Highlighting the photographic collection of the State Archives of Florida, Florida’s Historic Capitol Building reveals stories about the state’s political past, the development of a capital city, and the legacy of an iconic Florida building.

Temperance workers had their work cut out for them in the Upper Peninsula. It was a wild and woolly place where moonshiners, bootleggers and rumrunners thrived.

Al Capone and the Purple Gang came north to keep Canadian whiskey passing through Sault Ste. Marie to Chicago and Detroit. Federal enforcement agent John Fillion double-crossed both his office and the bootleggers. The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island survived due to gambling and fine Canadian whiskey brought in by rumrunners, sometimes assisted by the Coast Guard. Author Russell M. Magnaghi dives into the raucous history of Yooper Prohibition.

If you lived in Hull, Massachusetts, during the first four decades of the twentieth century, you were susceptible to two forces: the political machinations of Boss John Smith and the vitriolic editorial columns of Hull Beacon publisher Floretta Vining. Smith ran the town with an iron fist through fixed elections, padlocked town meetings, kickbacks, graft and bribes. Vining reported on it all and fought it like no other Progressive Era woman could, using newsprint space to lash out at girls who chewed gum in public and small boys who made too much noise at night, and calling for old men over sixty years of age to simply be put to sleep. Hull Times contributor and local historian John Galluzzo brings back the days of Vining and Smith, of steamboats and trains, of Paragon Park and the grand hotels of Nantasket Beach. In this accessible history, the reader gets a ringside seat to some of the most heated political battles in the history of the South Shore, fought in town halls and occasionally spilling into the streets of the once quiet and peaceful Hull Village.

William Henry Jernagin was a devout Christian and fierce advocate for civil rights in the first half of the twentieth century. He was senior pastor of the Mount Carmel Baptist Church in the Mount Vernon Square neighborhood for more than forty-five years. His activism made him an internationally recognized figure. He was a foundational leader in the American civil rights movement. His residency allowed him to contribute to the collective action to abolish Jim Crow in the nation's capital. Through his office in the National Baptist Convention, he also identified the potential in a lesser-known leader of the time, Martin Luther King Jr. Jernagin's passion lifted him to leading positions in the National Baptist Convention and National Fraternal Council of Negro Churches, as well as close work with Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower. Author Ida E. Jones reveals the story of this often-overlooked leader and his fight for civil rights while living in the District of Columbia.

The nation's capital and the state of Virginia were a hotbed of political and social turmoil that marked the 1960s and 1970s. The area saw anti-Vietnam War protests, civil rights marches and students clamoring for a cultural revolution. Underground publications in D.C. and Virginia sprang up to document the radical change and question the "straight media." Off Our Backs led the charge for women's equality. The Gay Blade fought for the rights of homosexuals. Even the FBI began infiltrating the underground press movement by planting informants and creating fake magazines to attract suspicious "radicals." Join author and former underground editor Dale Brumfield as he traces the history of alternative press in the Commonwealth and the District.