About the Project
In the fall of 1998, Florida House of Representatives Speaker John Thrasher invited a group of former legislators and staff to form an advisory committee charged with preserving the history and traditions of the Florida Legislature. Out of this committee, officially named the Florida Legislative Historic Preservation Corporation, came the Florida Legislative Research Center and Museum. This center was charged with collecting, preserving, and making available for research all significant materials connected with Florida's legislative history and legacy.
Originally located at Tallahassee Community College (TCC), the Center collected archival collections from former legislative leaders consisting of significant papers, photographs, and related materials. Unlike official materials generated by the Florida Legislature that are retained by the State Library and Archives of Florida for record keeping, these collections focused on personal papers from Florida lawmakers and other individuals such as lobbyists and prominent community members who have influenced legislation in Florida. The Center also concentrated on developing a significant oral history collection that includes interviews of former legislators and are made available to researchers both digitally and in person. At present there are over 150 oral histories in the collection.
In 2006, the Research Center moved from TCC to its current home at the Historic Capitol. Here its collections were merged with the Florida Historic Capitol Museum which falls under the purview of the Florida Legislature. Presently, the Museum's collections include both archival collections that were once part of the Florida Legislative Research Center as well as museum artifacts covering both Florida's political history as well as the history of the Legislature and the Historic Capitol building.
This website serves as a digital online finding aid for the archival collections currently housed at the Florida Historic Capitol Museum. While many of the collections had been processed and rudimentary finding aids created, none had been listed online and available to the general public. This resulted in most of the community being unaware of what collections were available and a significant low usage of the Museum's archival collections and oral histories.
As an archivist and collections manager for the Florida Historic Capitol Museum, my main concern is about access and availability of our collections. Therefore, when it came time to create a useful and practical capstone project to complete my Master's in History, I chose a digital project that would publicize the extensive collections the Historic Capitol possesses. This website attempts to inform researchers as well as Floridians to the wealth of knowledge currently being managed by the Museum. I chose to concentrate solely on the archival collections that are predominantly paper based or that were once collected under the Florida Legislative Research Center banner but the Museum also contains many artifacts reflecting Florida's political and legislative history as well as the history of the physical building.
Originally located at Tallahassee Community College (TCC), the Center collected archival collections from former legislative leaders consisting of significant papers, photographs, and related materials. Unlike official materials generated by the Florida Legislature that are retained by the State Library and Archives of Florida for record keeping, these collections focused on personal papers from Florida lawmakers and other individuals such as lobbyists and prominent community members who have influenced legislation in Florida. The Center also concentrated on developing a significant oral history collection that includes interviews of former legislators and are made available to researchers both digitally and in person. At present there are over 150 oral histories in the collection.
In 2006, the Research Center moved from TCC to its current home at the Historic Capitol. Here its collections were merged with the Florida Historic Capitol Museum which falls under the purview of the Florida Legislature. Presently, the Museum's collections include both archival collections that were once part of the Florida Legislative Research Center as well as museum artifacts covering both Florida's political history as well as the history of the Legislature and the Historic Capitol building.
This website serves as a digital online finding aid for the archival collections currently housed at the Florida Historic Capitol Museum. While many of the collections had been processed and rudimentary finding aids created, none had been listed online and available to the general public. This resulted in most of the community being unaware of what collections were available and a significant low usage of the Museum's archival collections and oral histories.
As an archivist and collections manager for the Florida Historic Capitol Museum, my main concern is about access and availability of our collections. Therefore, when it came time to create a useful and practical capstone project to complete my Master's in History, I chose a digital project that would publicize the extensive collections the Historic Capitol possesses. This website attempts to inform researchers as well as Floridians to the wealth of knowledge currently being managed by the Museum. I chose to concentrate solely on the archival collections that are predominantly paper based or that were once collected under the Florida Legislative Research Center banner but the Museum also contains many artifacts reflecting Florida's political and legislative history as well as the history of the physical building.