Alachua County Transitions: From Eden of the South to Gator Country

FAIN: MC-50043-06

Alachua County Historic Trust: Matheson Museum, Inc. (Gainesville, FL 32601-5451)
Lisa Benkert Auel (Project Director: September 2005 to August 2007)

Consultation to plan an exhibition, a website, and related public programs about the evolution of Alachua County, Florida, from a post-Civil War agrarian area to an urbanized county that also contains a large university.

The Matheson Museum requests NEH support for a new interpretive exhibit, website, and related public programming focused on Alachua County's towns and cities. Gary Mormino in his recent work, "Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams," describes Floridians as struggling "every day to comprehend the powerful forces--immigration, migration, leisure, technological growth, civil rights, environmental and economic change--whiplashing Florida." This project defines the intellectual foundation to reveal Alachua County's transition from an agrarian into an urban society contending with these forces. While the program concentrates on the local area, its underlying story will be recognized as a particularly American experience.