Blood and Oranges

Posted by Dan Weinfeld on Apr 29, 2013

Finding and Remembering Benjamin F. Livingston — Slave, Politician, Father to a Murdered Child

A couple of years ago, while googling background on Jackson County politician Benjamin Livingston, I came across an informative internet posting written by Odell Robinson. The Polk County researcher had discovered Livingston’s grave in Bartow’s historical Evergreen cemetery, picture in the featured image above. Robinson sought to direct well-deserved attention to the impressive, but unheralded and...

Read More
Posted by Billy Townsend on Apr 10, 2013

Wilson Cypress’ Final Whimper — The Sound of an Era Ending

If you live in one of the official “historic” neighborhoods at the heart of many Florida cities, you probably own or rent a home built during the land boom of the 1920s. My own house, in just such a neighborhood, was built in 1925. That was the peak of the boom. It collapsed in summer 1926, the same year and season that Florida’s protestant mob violence peaked. Much of the wood for these...

Read More
Posted by Dan Weinfeld on Mar 5, 2013

B&O Book Club: Devil in the Grove: chs. 3&4

Ok, after a prolonged hiatus while I finished up editing a manuscript, we can finally get back to the B&O Book Club’s examination of Gilbert King’s prizewinning Devil in the Grove. I’m not going to summarize the chapters , but instead comment on a few issues that interest me. How about the amazing photo that opens chapter 3? Willie Padgett and Sheriff Yates set the tone posing against...

Read More
Posted by Dan Weinfeld on Dec 28, 2012

Gun Control Laws in Florida – Reconstruction Style

In the 1860s, Florida had a very strict gun licensing law. Don’t be impressed: it only applied to black people. In January 1866, the Florida legislature passed Section 12 of Chapter 1466 of the laws of Florida, providing that ownership, use or possession of “any Bowie-knife, dirk, sword, fire-arms or ammunition of any kind” required a license issued by a Judge of Probate from the county where the...

Read More
Posted by Billy Townsend on Dec 14, 2012

Bleeding Marianna: “The City of Southern Charm”

Marianna is a city of about 6,200 people, the county seat of rural Jackson County in northwest Florida. It’s official nickname is “the city of southern charm.” If you drive I-10 quite a bit, as I do, it’s a place you know mostly by its name on the green highway signs. I’ve never been there, despite regularly traveling to nearby Tallahassee. But my co-blogger Dan has. His book,...

Read More

Articles by Date

What’s Right and Wrong with this Picture?

Posted by Billy Townsend on Sep 10, 2012 in About, Featured | 1 comment

Welcome to Blood and Oranges. When Dan Weinfeld and I first started kicking around the idea of an informal, provocative, online journal of Florida history, we went searching for an image that would match our...

Finding Florida? Adam Wasserman did it better than TD Allman

Posted by Billy Townsend on Apr 4, 2013 in Book Club, Book Review, History | 2 comments

As Dan Weinfeld and I quietly plod along peddling our humble contributions to Florida’s Reconstruction and Post Great War eras, we’ve both witnessed the power that major commercial publishing houses...