Florida\u27s First Railroad Commission 1887-1891 (Part II)

The Florida Railroad Commission was created by the legislature in 1887, and by August of that year its activities were underway. The Commission, in March of 1888, transmitted its first report to Governor Henry L. Mitchell. Although the report was overly optimistic and somewhat exaggerated, it did show that procedure and precedent had been determined. The Commissioners, George McWhorter, Enoch Vann, and William Himes had energetically approached their assigned task, but despite hopeful predictions for a successful second year, the Commission discovered many obstacles in its way. The new year began with a policy which disappointed small companies which had believed that a regulatory agency empowered to set both minimum and maximum charges, could protect them from larger, more powerful corporations. In Circular 20, effective March 1, 1888, the Commission stated that the railroads could carry freight for less than maximum rates under certain conditions, if there was proper announcement or notice given before reducing or establishing such charges. There was no stipulation about minimum rates

The Open-Closed Shop Battle in Tampa\u27s Cigar Industry, 1919-1921

Labor problems in Tampa’s cigar industry began almost simultaneously with the beginning of the enterprise in 1885. Although the industry enjoyed phenomenal growth during its first fifteen years it suffered an expensive strike in 1901 when La Resistencia, the labor society of the Spanish-speaking workmen, demanded a union shop. La Resistencia lost the strike because of a lack of strike funds and because the Tampa Cigar Manufacturers’ Association and a group of businessmen calling themselves the Citizens Committee combined to fight the society. Following La Resistencia’s defeat local unions of the Cigar Makers’ International Union became the dominant labor group in the Tampa industry. Its demands for a “union shop” in 1910 produced a strike which lasted seven months and whose violence, murder, and lynchings attracted national attention. The demand for a union shop was again defeated, and the issue was laid to rest for nearly ten years

Key West and the New Deal, 1934-1936

Historians often point out that the depression which began for the rest of the United States in 1929, started in Florida much earlier. The final collapse of the real estate boom in Florida in 1926, was followed by serious fiscal difficulties for units of government-local and state-as well as for private citizens. Even nature seemed to conspire against the economic well-being of the state. The devastating hurricanes of 1926 and 1928 were followed by the invasion of the Mediterranean fruit fly in 1929, to add to the deepening financial and economic distress which many Florida communities were suffering in the late 1920s. Bank failures occurred at an astonishing rate between 1926-1929; 125 banks closed during this three-year period. Bank debits decreased steadily and construction was severely curtailed. Consequently the lumbering and naval stores market declined; citrus groves were neglected because of a shortage of capital; farm crops brought even lower prices as purchasing power steadily decreased; and Florida’s tourist trade declined each year to a level far below normal

Country livestock dealers and local markets in Missouri

Also available online.Digitized 2007 AES

Making of Modern Tampa: A City of the New South, 1885-1911

Historican have yet to devote the thought and research to urbanization in the South that the subject deserves. Coulter’s brief attention to the growth and role of cities and towns in the Reconstruction era, Van Woodward’s similarly brief concern with cities in his Origins of the New South, Ezell’s short treatment in his textbook survey, Park’s interpretative chapter in Couch’s Culture in the South, and Vance’s edited work on the recent South nearly exhaust the list of serious histories which offer even slight leads about southern urbanization. A survey of the Journal of Southern History and state historical journals is equally disappointing despite the fact that the larger changes of the South since the Civil War have been inextricably tied to the city. Only recently have students of the South’s history turned to examining the city as a topic deserving of as much attention as “Bourbons,” “Redeemers,” “Populists,” “Jim Crow,” and the politics of the “Solid South.” It could be that the lag in historical study reflects the lag of the section in comparing quantitatively with urbanization of other regions. But perhaps quantitative measurements, which place the South about fifty years behind other parts of the nation, do not necessarily indicate the degree of importance urbanization has played in the South since the Civil War. Nevertheless, as recently as 1967, a monograph on research needs in the South failed to include urban development as a separate topic