A01=Harry A. Kersey
activist
Audubon Society
Author_Harry A. Kersey
Category=DNB
Category=NHB
child welfare
conservation
entrepreneurs
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Florida frontier
Florida Land Boom
founding family of Fort Lauderdale
Frank Stranahan
Friends of the Seminoles
Indian rights
Ivy Cromartie
Ivy Stranahan
National Historic Landmark
native Floridian
pioneers
plume birds
real estate
Seminole Indians
temperance
the Florida Federation of Women's Clubs
the New River settlement
venture capitalists
women's suffrage
Product details
- ISBN 9780813068916
- Weight: 151g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 19 Jul 2022
- Publisher: University Press of Florida
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Two individuals who shaped the development of one of Florida's
major urban centers
When they married in 1900, Frank and Ivy Stranahan began a life together on the Florida frontier that would shape and define the development of one of the state's most sophisticated urban centers. Pioneering spirit and economic enterprise linked them to Seminole Indians, venture capitalists, and colorful entrepreneurs along the New River settlement; today they're recognized as a founding family of Fort Lauderdale and their riverfront home has been restored and designated a National Historic Landmark.
Frank Stranahan came south from Ohio in 1893 to run an overnight camp on the stagecoach line carrying passengers from Lake Worth to the Miami area. He soon opened a trading post that thrived on commerce in pelts, plumes, and hides with Seminole Indians, who in turn purchased goods and groceries to take back to their camps in the Everglades. Stranahan's business interests expanded to include real estate and banking. An honest businessman, he became a respected political and civic leader, instrumental in the birth of Fort Lauderdale in 1911. When the Florida land boom collapsed and his bank closed, Stranahan's mental and physical health failed, and he committed suicide in 1929.
Ivy Cromartie, a native Floridian, was 18 when she arrived at the settlement as its first schoolteacher and met her future husband. Energetic and articulate, she focused her activities outside the home. Besides teaching, she was active in a variety of reform movements ranging from Audubon Society efforts to save the plume birds to temperance and women's suffrage, working mainly through the Florida Federation of Women's Clubs. She is best remembered for her role as an advocate for Indigenous American rights—especially education and child welfare—primarily with the Friends of the Seminoles, an organization she established in the 1930s. Before her death in 1971 she spoke frequently about her full life to reporters and historians and was interviewed extensively by Kersey.
When they married in 1900, Frank and Ivy Stranahan began a life together on the Florida frontier that would shape and define the development of one of the state's most sophisticated urban centers. Pioneering spirit and economic enterprise linked them to Seminole Indians, venture capitalists, and colorful entrepreneurs along the New River settlement; today they're recognized as a founding family of Fort Lauderdale and their riverfront home has been restored and designated a National Historic Landmark.
Frank Stranahan came south from Ohio in 1893 to run an overnight camp on the stagecoach line carrying passengers from Lake Worth to the Miami area. He soon opened a trading post that thrived on commerce in pelts, plumes, and hides with Seminole Indians, who in turn purchased goods and groceries to take back to their camps in the Everglades. Stranahan's business interests expanded to include real estate and banking. An honest businessman, he became a respected political and civic leader, instrumental in the birth of Fort Lauderdale in 1911. When the Florida land boom collapsed and his bank closed, Stranahan's mental and physical health failed, and he committed suicide in 1929.
Ivy Cromartie, a native Floridian, was 18 when she arrived at the settlement as its first schoolteacher and met her future husband. Energetic and articulate, she focused her activities outside the home. Besides teaching, she was active in a variety of reform movements ranging from Audubon Society efforts to save the plume birds to temperance and women's suffrage, working mainly through the Florida Federation of Women's Clubs. She is best remembered for her role as an advocate for Indigenous American rights—especially education and child welfare—primarily with the Friends of the Seminoles, an organization she established in the 1930s. Before her death in 1971 she spoke frequently about her full life to reporters and historians and was interviewed extensively by Kersey.
Harry A. Kersey, Jr. (1935-2021) was professor emeritus of
history at Florida Atlantic University. He is the author of several books,
including The Florida Seminoles and the
New Deal, 1933-1942 (UPF, 1989) and Pelts, Plumes, and Hides: White Traders among
the Seminole Indians, 1870-1930 and the coauthor of Buffalo Tiger: A Life in the Everglades.
