Pioneer Florida
In contemporary Florida, a state with the third largest population in the United States and a major tourism destination, you can still catch glimpses of pioneer Florida wherever you go.
From cattle ranching to folk songs, this guide explores the influence of the pioneer spirit on Florida’s history and culture.
Materials are generally available through interlibrary loan from the circulating collection of the State Library.
Links within the bibliographies take you to information in our State Library catalog or to more information on external sites.
Arts & culture
- Bucuvalas, Tina, ed. The Florida Folklife Reader. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2012.
- Burt, Al. The Tropic of Cracker. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1999.
- Congdon, Kristin G., and Tina Bucuvalas. Just Above the Water: Florida Folk Art. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2006.
- Eidse, Faith, ed. Voices of the Apalachicola. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2006.
- Oppel, Frank, and Tony Meisel, eds. Tales of Old Florida. Secaucus, NJ: Castle, 1987.
- Patterson, Bob. Forgotten Tales of Florida. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2009.
- Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan. The Yearling. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2002.
- Reaver, J. Russell (Joseph Russell), ed. Florida Folktales. Gainesville, FL: University Presses of Florida, 1987.
- Smith, Patrick D. A Land Remembered. Englewood, FL: Pineapple Press, 1984.
- State Archives of Florida. “Florida Folklife Collection.” Florida Memory. Florida Division of Library and Information Services.
- Ste. Claire, Dana. Cracker: The Cracker Culture in Florida History. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2006.
Daily life
- Denham, James M. “The Florida Cracker Before the Civil War as Seen Through Travelers’ Accounts.” Florida Historical Quarterly 72.4 (1994): 453–468.
- Denham, James M., and Canter Brown, eds. Cracker Times and Pioneer Lives: The Florida Reminiscences of George Gillett Keen and Sarah Pamela Williams. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2000.
- Denham, James M., and Keith L. Huneycutt, eds. Echoes From a Distant Frontier: The Brown Sisters’ Correspondence From Antebellum Florida. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2004.
- Hoffman, Paul E. Florida’s Frontiers. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2002.
- McGoun, William E. Southeast Florida Pioneers: The Palm and Treasure Coasts. Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press, 1998.
- Moore, Clarence B. “At the Home of a Florida Cracker.” Demorest’s Family Magazine (PDF). Feb. 1892.
- Moseley, Julia Winifred, and Betty Powers Crislip, eds. “Come to My Sunland:" Letters of Julia Daniels Moseley From the Florida Frontier, 1882-1886. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1998.
- Oesterreicher, Michel. Pioneer Family: Life on Florida’s 20th-Century Frontier. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1996.
- Pedersen, Ginger, and Janet DeVries. Pioneering Palm Beach: The Deweys and the South Florida Frontier. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2012.
- Ward, Glen, and Nettie Ward, eds. Old Pioneer Recipes. 2nd ed. Orlando, FL, 1993.
Ranching
- Adams, Alto, and Lee Gramling. A Florida Cattle Ranch. Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press, 1998.
- Akerman, Joe A. Florida Cowman: A History of Florida Cattle Raising. 6th ed. Madison, FL: Jimbob Printing Inc., 1989.
- Arnade, Charles W. Cattle Raising in Spanish Florida, 1513-1763. St. Augustine, FL: St. Augustine Historical Society, 1965.
- Dacy, George H. Four Centuries of Florida Ranching. St. Louis, MO: Britt Printing, 1940.
- Florida Cattlemen’s Foundation. Florida Cattle Ranching: Five Centuries of Tradition. Kissimmee, FL: Florida Cattlemen’s Foundation, 2013.
- Jordan-Bychkov, Terry G. North American Cattle-Ranching Frontiers: Origins, Diffusion, and Differentiation. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1993.
- State Archives of Florida. “Florida Cattle Ranching.” Florida Memory. Florida Division of Library and Information Services.
- Taylor, Robert A. “Rebel Beef: Florida Cattle and the Confederate Army, 1862-1864.” The Florida Historical Quarterly 67.1 (1988): 15–31.
- Tinsley, Jim Bob. Florida Cow Hunter: The Life and Times of Bone Mizell. Orlando, FL: University of Central Florida Press, 1990.
- Ward, Jr., Carlton, comp. Florida Cowboys: Keepers of the Last Frontier. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2009.
