Search

The Degen Resource Room has an extensive historic playbill collection. The collection consists of playbills of productions from all over the world beginning in 1873. The Degen Resource Room is continuing to catalog this massive collection, so the entire scope of this collection cannot yet be assessed. However, it is estimated that we hold one of the premiere playbill collections in the nation. As cataloging continues to take place, we will be able to ascertain the extent of this very special and unique collection.

This collection relates to Major General Delmar T. Spivey who was an U.S. Army Air Corps prisoner of war in Stalag Luft III in Germany from August 1943 until May 1945. Then Colonel Spivey was in charge of gunnery training for B-17 flight crews of the U.S. 8th Air Force based in England. He was sent to England with several other gunnery instructors to teach air gunnery to bomber flight crews who were being decimated by German fighter aircraft. He was participating in his first combat mission as a nose gunner/ observer on a bombing mission over Gelsenkirchen in the Ruhr Valley when his plane was disabled by anti-aircraft fire. After the plane crash landed, he was taken prisoner and sent to Stalag Luft III. This collection contains POW letters, documents, telegrams, and a published biography of his experiences in the POW camp.

This collection features memorabilia, photographs, and documents spanning two generations of the Llaneza and Llaneras families, beginning with Delfin Llaneza, Sr. and Miguel Llaneras. The bulk of the materials, however, pertain to Delphin Jr. Llaneza and his wife, Violet Marie Llaneras Hagler Llaneza, both natives of Ybor City who served in the military during World War II.

The Denis Lomax collection consists of photographs, photograph negatives, scrapbooks, printed materials, correspondence and writings that document the lives of filmmakers Leila Roosevelt and Armand Denis as well as their families. The collection contains materials related to Leila Roosevelt's parents, filmmaker, entrepreneur and sportsman Cornelius Louis André Roosevelt (Andre Roosevelt), as well as architect and artist Adelheid Lange Roosevelt. The collection highlights Leila Roosevelt and Armand Denis's travels and film productions such as the documentary film based on the Democratic Republic of the Congo entitled Dark Rapture (Magie Africaine) (1938) and a film based in Bali, Indonesia entitled Goona Goona (Love Powder) (1932). Materials documenting the Anthropoid Ape Research foundation in Dania Beach, Florida, founded by Leila Roosevelt and Armand Denis, along with personal papers of their families are also included in this collection.