Collections

The collection of Dana A. Dorsey is comprised of the legal and financial records of his vast real estate holdings. Mortgages, leases, rental and loans agreements represent the focus of the collection. Of special interest to researchers are those documents which detail the growth of both black and white Miami, deeds which describe in detail the properties and location of what were the newly created sub-divisions in the city. In a period of racial segregation these documents show a blurring of racial lines as exemplified by Dana Dorsey business relations with the founding families of the city.

Records of the Daniel and Pollard families of Butler and Crenshaw Counties, Alabama, 1830-1927 including bills of sale for goods purchased in Montgomery and Greenville, Alabama; receipts for sale of cotton and payment of taxes, court summonses, church records, and related materials.

The Daniel M. Johnson Collection consists of approximately 5,200 books published between the 1780s to 2002 that are by and about Africans and people of African descent. The collection includes many first edition and signed copies as well as pamphlets, articles, letters and photographs. The major categories that Daniel M. Johnson delineated for his collection are: African-American literature and children's literature; African and Caribbean literature; African-American history and critical thought; African, Egyptian, and Middle-Eastern history; and African-American art, music, dance, and sports. The catalog includes 4164 nonfiction books and 907 fiction books.

The David Kirby Rare Book Collection contains literature, poetry, chapbooks, and literary magazines from the 19th, 20th, and 21st century. The collection includes first edition, inscribed, and autographed volumes. Authors and poets present in the collection include Janet Burroway, Rudyard Kipling, H.E. Bates, Bin Ramke, and Thomas Hardy, as well as a run of Apalachee Review (originally Apalachee Quarterly) from 1973-1987. The collection also contains letters written to David Kirby from 1967-2016 by authors and poets including Joyce Carol Oates, Leon Edel, and Bruce Jay Friedman.

The collection includes a variety of cartographic materials, antiquarian book and map dealer records, correspondence, published articles, bibliographic materials, newspaper clippings, and publications. Highlights of the collection include historical materials and correspondence related to early explorers in North America. Cartographic materials included in the collection consist of map facsimiles, slides, and photostatic reproductions.

This collection comprises supporting research material and manuscripts by the late horticulturalist Dr. David Sturrock. The collection contains a manuscript, research, maps and photos for his book, Trees for Southern Florida.  Also in the collection are first and second drafts of an unpublished manuscript entitled The Bahamas from the Viewpoint of a Horticulturalist, along with related research notes and correspondence.