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the JF blog
@thejfblog.com
160 followers 48 following 52 posts
Published since 2011. https://thejfblog.com
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the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Jun 5
Henry Flagler is responsible for modern Florida.

His retirement from Standard Oil and creation of the Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) in 1885 set the stage for the incorporation of Miami city government in 1896, and the overseas railroad connecting it to Key West in 1912.
thejfblog.com the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Nov 16
“Data: Miami’s Boom and Flagler’s Folly”

Henry Flagler heralded boom time for Miami and its environs when his railroaders completed nearly seven years of work on the Miami to Key West extension of the Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) in 1912.
thejfblog.com/post/6493982...
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Reposted by the JF blog
thejfblog.com
the JF blog @thejfblog.com · 9d
“Miami Congressman Claude Pepper: Florida’s Lone Vote for Civil Rights”

Miami’s Black and African American urban core gained federal representation when local U.S. Rep. Claude Pepper was Florida’s lone vote for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
thejfblog.com/post/7978621...
Clipping of newspaper headline from the St. Petersburg Times, dated February 5, 1964, noting Claude Pepper as the only Florida representative in a dozen to vote for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (top), and U.S. Rep. Claude Pepper of Miami with President Lyndon Johnson, Ralph Abernathy, and Martin Luther King Jr. at The White House for the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (Claude Pepper Archives)
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thejfblog.com
the JF blog @thejfblog.com · 9d
“Miami Congressman Claude Pepper: Florida’s Lone Vote for Civil Rights”

Miami’s Black and African American urban core gained federal representation when local U.S. Rep. Claude Pepper was Florida’s lone vote for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
thejfblog.com/post/7978621...
Clipping of newspaper headline from the St. Petersburg Times, dated February 5, 1964, noting Claude Pepper as the only Florida representative in a dozen to vote for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (top), and U.S. Rep. Claude Pepper of Miami with President Lyndon Johnson, Ralph Abernathy, and Martin Luther King Jr. at The White House for the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (Claude Pepper Archives)
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thejfblog.com
the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Sep 25
“The Moral Integrity of Richard Nixon’s Resignation”

Richard Nixon was corrupt, but even he had enough sense to put the country before his ego.
thejfblog.com/post/7954110...
The 37th U.S. President Richard Nixon departs The White House on Army One, after his resignation on August 9, 1974. (Ollie Atkins)
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the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Sep 11
Data: The Great Okeechobee Tragedy
Hundreds of unidentified migrant workers died on the south shore of Lake Okeechobee when the 1928 hurricane swept across south Florida on Sunday, September 16, one of the deadliest hurricanes in U.S.....
thejfblog.com
thejfblog.com
the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Sep 11
“Data: The Great Okeechobee Tragedy”

Hundreds of Black and African American migrant farm workers drowned and were buried in unmarked mass graves in Belle Glade and surrounding areas when the Okeechobee hurricane came ashore Sunday, September 16, 1928.
thejfblog.com/post/6247251...
Top photo: Undated photo of Bahamian migrant worker in Palm Beach County. Bottom image: Map of the Lake Okeechobee region, circa early 1900s.
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thejfblog.com
the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Aug 27
“Data: Obama and Harris Florida Presidential Elections”

Kamala Harris increased Shirley Chisholm’s 1972 statewide vote share in Florida by 40 points during her 2024 run to become the first Black woman to ascend to the U.S. presidency.
thejfblog.com/post/7927902...
Official portraits of President Barack Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris. (The White House)
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thejfblog.com
the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Aug 1
“Data: ‘Magic City’ to ‘Miami Vice’”

Dade County became Miami-Dade County as its population doubled to two million in the late 20th century.
thejfblog.com/post/7905468...
Metrorail crossing the Miami River in downtown Miami, the Miami Tower and Southeast Financial Center visible in the background skyline (top), and Government Center station at the Stephen P. Clark Center (bottom), during the 1980s. (public domain)
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thejfblog.com
the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Jul 22
“Data: The State of Black Miami 50 Years of the Fair Housing Act (1970-2020)”

Black and African American Miamians had less economic mobility in the 2010s as they did in the 1980s and 1990s.
thejfblog.com/post/1715638...
Photo collage of Miami police officers in 1952 to the left, and Gwen Cherry and Shirley Chisholm in 1972 to the right.
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thejfblog.com
the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Jun 23
The Okeechobee hurricane struck just north of Miami in 1928, killing thousands along Lake Okeechobee’s south shore.

The tragedy inspired Harlem Renaissance literary Zora Neale Hurston to author the 1937 novel, “Their Eyes Were Watching God.”
thejfblog.com the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Nov 19
“Zora Neale Hurston: Florida Woman”

Zora Neale Hurston, the pride of the 1920s Harlem Renaissance, was a quintessential Florida woman.
thejfblog.com/post/6792729...
Zora Neale Hurston in Eatonville, Fla., 1935.
thejfblog.com
the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Jun 19
“Choom Gang and the End of Prohibition”

When Barack Obama admitted that he “inhaled frequently” in his youth, he inadvertently became a hero of the millennial stoner counterculture.
thejfblog.com/post/7867588...
Barack Obama in high school at Punahou School in 1979, and on the cover of Time magazine in 2006.
thejfblog.com
the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Jun 9
“Top 10 Summer of Love Hits of 1967”

1967 was a revolution in popular music, which coincided with a long, hot summer in the U.S., riots for civil rights, and protests against the draft for the Vietnam War.
thejfblog.com/post/7841800...
thejfblog.com
the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Jun 5
The Miami land boom of the 1920s was ended by a series of economic shocks, culminated by the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926, which came ashore in Miami Beach at South Beach, and decimated downtown.

Another hurricane ended FEC’s Key West service in 1935.
thejfblog.com the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Nov 20
“The Great Miami Hurricane of 1926”

Miami Beach and Downtown Miami were inundated when a major hurricane came ashore in South Beach, ending the Miami land boom of the 1920s.
thejfblog.com/post/6868147...
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the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Jun 5
Miami’s population soared in a few short years during the 1920s, from over 42,000 at the start of the decade to passing 100,000 by 1926, and suburbs, in Hialeah and Coral Gables, were developed.
thejfblog.com the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Nov 20
“Maps: Miami Urbanization in the 1920s”

In 1900, Dade County, Florida had a population of 5,000. By the 1920s, the number of its permanent residents mushroomed to 100,000 as a land boom flourished, prompting Miami to be nicknamed “The Magic City.”
thejfblog.com/post/7606666...
Aerial photographs of Downtown Miami, Florida in 1930. (G.W. Romer; uncredited)
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thejfblog.com
the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Jun 5
The 1920s coincided with the popular adoption of many consumer technologies in the U.S., including private automobiles and commercial radio.

Florida’s first radio station, WQAM, adopted its call sign in 1923.
thejfblog.com the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Nov 17
“Radio & TV in Florida: A Century of Broadcasting”

Commercial broadcasting in Florida began in radio with WQAM in 1921, and television with WTVJ in 1949.
thejfblog.com/post/1897093...
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thejfblog.com
the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Jun 5
Miami and South Florida were accessible to the continental U.S. after WWI, and in time for the Roaring Twenties, which brought with it the Miami land boom of the 1920s, which peaked from 1923 to 1925.
thejfblog.com the JF blog @thejfblog.com · May 27
“The Miami Real Estate Bust of 1925”

Miami’s reputation as a dreamer’s paradise was cultivated during the 1920s land boom.
thejfblog.com/post/7830402...
Aerial photographs of Downtown Miami and Miami Beach, Florida. (G.W. Romer; uncredited)
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thejfblog.com
the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Jun 5
The FEC reached Miami to service Flagler’s Royal Palm Hotel at the north bank of the mouth of the Miami River in 1896, opening up Miami to the nation.

The advent of the automobile connected Miami by road via the Dixie Highway system in 1921.
thejfblog.com the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Nov 16
“Map: Carl Fisher and Miami’s Main Highways”

Miami’s arterial coastal motorways were built during a transformative period, spanning the years 1896 to 1921.
thejfblog.com/post/7103833...
Photo of Carl Fisher in Elkhart, Ind., in 1915, and 1919 map of the Dixie Highway system in Florida.
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thejfblog.com
the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Jun 5
Henry Flagler is responsible for modern Florida.

His retirement from Standard Oil and creation of the Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) in 1885 set the stage for the incorporation of Miami city government in 1896, and the overseas railroad connecting it to Key West in 1912.
thejfblog.com the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Nov 16
“Data: Miami’s Boom and Flagler’s Folly”

Henry Flagler heralded boom time for Miami and its environs when his railroaders completed nearly seven years of work on the Miami to Key West extension of the Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) in 1912.
thejfblog.com/post/6493982...
1 1 2
thejfblog.com
the JF blog @thejfblog.com · May 27
“The Miami Real Estate Bust of 1925”

Miami’s reputation as a dreamer’s paradise was cultivated during the 1920s land boom.
thejfblog.com/post/7830402...
Aerial photographs of Downtown Miami and Miami Beach, Florida. (G.W. Romer; uncredited)
1
thejfblog.com
the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Jan 8
The port tunnel underwater, freight transport at a standstill, Brickell banks inaccessible due to storm surge, the vulnerability just to downtown and South Beach is catastrophe no one in Miami, except the very old, have experienced.
thejfblog.com
the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Jan 8
You don’t even need a Cat. 5. If a storm like the 1926 Miami hurricane, a strong 3, followed its same trajectory, landfall at Government Cut/Miami Harbor, the same outcome.
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thejfblog.com
the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Dec 30
“Frank Sinatra: Highlights from 1965-1968”

Frank Sinatra delivered his most indelible era of work as he turned 50.
thejfblog.com/post/7711861...
thejfblog.com
the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Nov 25
“Data: Miami Mid-Century Boom”

Dade County, Florida experienced explosive population growth in the middle of the 20th century, with a tenfold increase from 100,000 to one million residents from the 1920s to the 1960s.
thejfblog.com/post/7681176...
Miami skyline as seen from DuPont Plaza in Downtown Miami in 1967. (Charles Lee Barron)
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thejfblog.com
the JF blog @thejfblog.com · Nov 20
“Maps: Miami Urbanization in the 1920s”

In 1900, Dade County, Florida had a population of 5,000. By the 1920s, the number of its permanent residents mushroomed to 100,000 as a land boom flourished, prompting Miami to be nicknamed “The Magic City.”
thejfblog.com/post/7606666...
Aerial photographs of Downtown Miami, Florida in 1930. (G.W. Romer; uncredited)
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