Tropical Dreams: A People's History of South Florida

Tropical Dreams explores South Florida history from prehistoric times to the present. Throughout the ages, the story has been characterized by arrivals—the immigration of people from many different places and cultures into the region—and by adaptation to the region's unique subtropical environment.

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Interama: Miami and the Pan-American Dream
June 21, 2008, through January 25, 2009

Walk into a re-creation of Interama—Miami’s futuristic fair of the Americas from the 1960s. Under development for decades, Interama was never built, but captured the imagination of planners, architects and public officials during an era when Miami increasingly perceived itself as a hemispheric crossroads.

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Anne Mergen: Florida Cartoons
June 21, 2008, through September 4, 2008

Ann Mergen was one of the first women in the United States to break into the male-dominated field of cartoon artistry.  Published in the Miami News, her work brought critical awareness to issues that affected Miami and all of Florida and eventually garnered national attention. On display will be over two dozen of Mergen’s original cartoon renderings from the 1940s and 1950s.

Necropolis Cristobal Colon
Photographs by Raul L. Rodriguez, A.I.A.
September 25, 2008, through January 25, 2009

Necropolis Cristobal Colon , in Havana, Cuba, is probably the largest and most spectacular cemetery in the Western Hemisphere.

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Black Crossroads: The African Diaspora in Miami
On display February 27, 2009 to January 24, 2010

Diverse groups of the African diaspora have come to settle,work and struggle for freedom in Miami since its incorporation in 1896 to the present day.

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Black Freedom in Florida, 1700-1865
On display February 27, 2009 to January 24, 2010

Black Freedom in Florida examines three ways in which Florida functioned as a unique haven for freedom-seeking African Americans from 1700 to 1865. Enslaved African Americans from the southern United States obtained freedom in Florida by running away to Spanish-occupied Florida, seeking refuge among free black and Seminole Indian communities and resisting re-enslavement through strategic military service and warfare both against and for the British, the Spanish and the Americans. African-Americans’ ability to defy re-enslavement in Florida enabled them to develop free black communities such as Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose near St. Augustine and Sarrazota in Tampa Bay which flourished during the mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. On display will be artifacts, advertisements, maps, military and court records representative of these free black communities and their struggles to obtain and sustain their freedom throughout the international battles waged for the control of Florida during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.