VOLUMES
‘Land of Sunshine’
an alert history
Author provides interesting narrative of
Florida tourism through the years
BY JANIE GOULD
Until World War II, Florida was a
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sleepy backwater that was just
barely on the map, in more ways
than the obvious. Its population
of less than a million made it the smallest
state in the South. But over the next six
decades, Florida became an urbanized
megastate, attracting millions of newcomers
in search of waterfront living and a
year-round suntan.
“Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams: A
Social History of Modern Florida,” by historian
Gary Mormino, tells the amazing story
of Florida’s postwar transformation. Florida
had been a winter vacation spot for the
wealthy since the 19th century, but by 1945
peacetime prosperity opened it to the masses.
Paid vacations, good roads, new cars, and
inexpensive gasoline enabled working families
to head to the Sunshine State for vacations,
even before the Disney era.
The war effort exposed Florida’s charms,
Mormino writes. Thousands of soldiers,
sailors and airmen who had never been far
from home came to Florida for military
training. “The whole setup is a Paradise
beyond my fondest dreams,” an Army
recruit named John Armstrong wrote to his
parents. Armstrong’s “barracks” was the
Boca Raton Club.
“Never had so many impressionable
young adults visited Florida than in the
years 1940-45,” Mormino writes. Many of
them vowed to return to Florida some day.
Millions of people in search of what
Mormino calls the Florida Dream have
become permanent residents. The state now
has a population of more than 18 million.
“Generations of Americans, Europeans,
and Asians have invested in the Florida
Dream,” Mormino writes. “Unlike the esoteric
utopias described by Plato, Thomas
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