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27968: Hermantin( annoucement)Smathers Library Caribbean Collecton at Historical Museum (fwd)




From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

SMATHERS LIBRARIES' CARIBBEAN COLLECTION HIGHLIGHTED AT HISTORICAL MUSEUM OF SOUTHERN FLORIDA
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"An exhibition of highlights from the University of Florida's George A. Smathers Libraries' Caribbean archival and library materials will open February 24 at the Historical Museum of Southern Florida in Miami. The exhibition, Caribbean Collage: Archival Collections and the Construction of History, spans five centuries of Caribbean history and focuses on the British West Indies, Haiti and Cuba from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century. The exhibition is presented in collaboration with the Department of Special and Area Studies Collections and the Map and Imagery Library. Materials for the exhibit were selected from the holdings of the Latin American Collection, Special Collections, and the Map and Imagery Library.

"Visitors to the exhibition will have an opportunity to examine first-hand accounts of some of the most dramatic events in Caribbean history and will be encouraged to construct their own interpretations of the region's past and its impact on the present," says Dr. Stephen Stuempfle, chief curator of the Historical Museum of Southern Florida.

Drawing on several archival collections and rare maps recently acquired by the libraries, Caribbean Collage will explore the Caribbean during a time of massive social change: slavery ended, new forms of agriculture developed and independent nation-states, with distinct creole cultures, emerged. The exhibition will examine these large-scale transformations through documents specific to people's lives: letters, diaries, ledger entries, business records, scrapbook clippings, photographs, drawings and similar items. Illustrated books and maps will provide additional perspectives.

Exhibition Highlights

Caribbean Collage includes an overview of the Smathers Libraries' vast collections, with material ranging from the early stages of European exploration to twentieth-century political events. Struggles for power within the region are highlighted in four focus areas: British Imperialism in the Caribbean (1756-1834), which covers the Seven Years' War through Emancipation; the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804); the Cuban Wars of Independence (1868-1898); and U.S. Imperialism in the Caribbean (1898-1934), which features the Spanish-Cuban-American War, U.S. political and economic domination of Cuba, and the American occupation of Haiti.

Visitors will first view a collage of digital images from the Smathers Libraries, produced by the Digital Library Center. Throughout the exhibition, visitors can examine the collection up close, which includes such items as handwritten correspondence and records of colonial officials in the British West Indies from 1779 to 1806; letters pertaining to the potential sale of plantations in St. Domingue (Haiti) from the 1780s; papers of the Spanish army in Cuba during the colony's first war for independence (1868-1878); records of the Taco Bay Commercial Company, an American-owned agricultural enterprise in Cuba during the early twentieth century; and notebooks with Vodou drawings and other cultural documentation by Frank R. Crumbie, a government official during the U.S. occupation of Haiti (1915-1934).

Other highlights include a 1534 book with maps of Hispaniola and Jamaica, the oldest item in the exhibition; a published justification by Sir Walter Raleigh for his voyage to Guiana, written in the Tower of London before his death in 1618; a list of Africans enslaved at the Rocheblave plantation in St. Domingue; letters from Haitian Revolutionary leaders Toussaint L'Ouverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines; and an 1891 book of poems written by José Martí, with a personal inscription. The largest item will be a 42 x 60 inch map of the Artibonite Valley in St. Domingue, showing landholdings, mountains and waterways in the eighteenth century.

For more information about the Caribbean Collage exhibition, call 305-375-1492 or visit www.historical-museum.org. The exhibition runs through June 4, 2006."
-From http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/news2/Caribbean_Coll.html