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Vol. 30:3 ISSN 0160-8460 September 2002
Images of South Florida Old and New
by Steven Davidson
Ralph Renick of television station WTVJ reporting on the Korean War, 1951. Photograph courtesy of the Florida Moving Image Archive.
Local television newsfilm and videotapes constitute some of the most pervasive and fundamental records of 20th-century American life. The value of these collections lies in both the content of the images and in the more intangible moods, beliefs, and attitudes that they reflect. For viewers, the images provide a collective awareness. Although we may not like to admit it, our connection with society and our history is often through the television set. For archivists, researchers, and scholars, preserving these materials, particularly at the local level, is vital.
Television newsfilm and videotape collections contain unique images that document and reflect the time they were recorded in and are an invaluable record of day-to-day experiences and specific events. From the most ordinary news stories to those that have changed lives, local television programs and newsfilm provide a daily chronicle of history and culture. They also provide regional perspectives on national and international events. And they often provide detailed coverage of issues before they become part of the national agenda.
On the local level, stories are often reported on or examined in greater detail and in different ways by stations with a direct community connection. The collections containing them are also large in size, often ranging in the millions of feet and thousands of hours of videotape. Once preserved and made accessible, they are invaluable primary source materials for researchers, scholars, and the public at large. Such images provide the chance to relive, or to see and hear for the first time, the issues and events that impacted communities and shaped their history and culture.
Beyond the content of a particular story, the sheer power of the visual image and the nuances of voice and facial expression can open up entirely new areas for analysis. So too does the careful examination of editing techniques and other aspects of local television news production over the decades.
Ironically, despite their importance for research and study, local television newsfilm and videotapes are also among the most endangered of moving images. Seen as ephemeral and not important enough to save, local television newsfilm and videotapes were routinely discarded, erased, or recycled around the country. This is still sometimes the case today. Such attitudes can be traced back to the earliest days of the medium, when there were doubts and questions about television's value in the scheme of things.
In South Florida, there was much speculation about the role television would play before the new medium even began broadcasting. An article in the February 14, 1948, Miami News observed that television "... comes to Miami like some spectacular circus clown- it is bubbling with optimism and it is certain to provoke curiosity." Similar speculation has continued over the years, and the debate is still ongoing. Since those first test patterns were beamed into the relatively few television sets in Miami, television news has come of age, reporting and documenting the evolution and development of this community, and with it South Florida's remarkable growth and transformation.
When television arrived on the scene in Miami in 1949, Florida's population ranked 27th in the nation. A recent article in the Miami Herald reporting on the 2000 census noted the dramatic growth of Florida's population. The state is now the 4th most populous in the nation. In the past half-century, the state's dramatic growth and change has been in South Florida, and all of it has been documented by local television. South Florida is a relatively young region. The cities of Miami, Miami Beach, and Coral Gables were incorporated in 1896, 1915, and 1925, respectively. Television has been around for most of the region's history.
Much of South Florida's visual record, as documented on newsfilm, kinescopes, and videotape, is now being preserved by the Florida Moving Image Archive, thanks to the generous support of the NHPRC. As an institution, our history with the NHPRC dates back to our first television newsfilm project in 1989. Experience from that grant, to preserve what was at the time one of the largest single collections of television newsfilm, was the basis for a second NHPRC-sponsored project in 1995, a collaborative effort with the National Center For Film and Video Preservation to produce the publication The Administration of Television Newsfilm and Videotape Collections: A Curatorial Manual.
Ron Kovic, author of Born on the Fourth of July, and other veterans protest the Vietnam War outside the Miami Beach Convention Center, site of the 1972 Republican National Convention. Photograph courtesy of the Florida Moving Image Archive.
Our current project, which began on July 1, is to preserve and make accessible 1.1 million feet of 16mm newsfilm; 300 kinescopes of news and public affairs programs dating from 1950 through the mid-1970s; and 1,843 3/4-inch videocassettes of news stories, air-checks, and complete programs dating from the mid-1970s through the late 1980s. The materials are from WCKT, which began broadcasting in 1956; WPLG, which began broadcasting in 1957; and WTVJ, the oldest television station in Florida, and one of the oldest stations in the country, its first broadcast dating from March 1949. In particular, these records chronicle the impact and influence of Cuba and Latin America on Miami, from the waves of immigration beginning in 1959 through the 1970s, the Mariel Boatlift in 1980, and South Florida's gradual emergence as a center of Latin population, culture, and commerce.
For researchers, scholars, film and video makers, and the general public, these preserved and accessible materials will be a visual treasure trove. Although all the newsfilm and videotape is local, the images provide a Florida perspective on national events and news. The records contain information on such social topics as immigration, urbanization, integration, public housing, race relations, tourism, agriculture and the citrus industry, retirement, and senior citizens. Political topics include the Vietnam War, the rash of aircraft hijackings in the late 1960s, the Middle East conflict, the space program from its earliest days through the introduction of the Space Shuttle, the 1972 Democratic and Republican Conventions, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Cold War.
Among the political leaders and notable personalities represented are Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Robert F. Kennedy; Fidel Castro; Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali; the Beatles; Jackie Gleason; Dante Fascell; Claude Pepper; Marjorie Stoneman Douglas; and Janet Reno. There is material on neighborhoods and municipalities from the Everglades to Tallahassee, but all parts of South Florida are well represented, including Miami Beach's Art Deco district, Little Havana, and Key Biscayne. Florida's diverse population and growth is well documented, from Native Americans (the Seminoles and Miccosukes) to the immigration of citizens from all parts of the United States and the Western Hemisphere.
The materials also document changes in broadcast styles, the evolution of new technologies and their effect on news gathering, editorial style, and changes in the newsroom and in the field, such as the shift from largely white male staffs to more diverse ones that include African Americans, women, and Hispanics. In summary, the materials covered by the current NHPRC grant will provide an important resource for the study of history, social science, politics, economics, science and technology, the arts, cultural influences, urbanization, and immigration, with the emphasis on those fields within the South Florida area.
A representative listing of some of the kinescope titles to be preserved and made accessible further demonstrates the diversity and scope of the collection and its potential for scholarly research, public access activities, and general interest. "Crisis Amigo," produced by WCKT in 1960, took a critical look at the influx of Cuban exiles into Miami and the difficulty of the new arrivals' adjustment. "FYI: Miami Hits a Million," produced by WTVJ in 1962, profiled Miami's population on the basis of the 1960 census, recounted Miami's history, and heralded a landmark event, the population of Dade County reaching the one-million mark. "FYI: Miami, City of a Million Faces" (WTVJ, 1962) presented a breakdown of Miami's population based on regional origins, ethnic heritage, and occupation.
"Kennedy Assassination Special" (WCKT, 1963) provided perspectives of the Kennedy family's strong ties to South Florida. "This Is Wayne Farris: Moscow" (WCKT, 1959) chronicles reporter Wayne Farris' travels with a group of South Florida citizens on a fact-finding mission to the Soviet Union, and compares life in Miami with life in Moscow. "FYI: Scandal of Our Slums" (WTVJ, 1961) examined living conditions in several neighborhoods in South Florida. "Integration, Florida's Conflict Ahead," (WCKT, 1962) dealt with the civil rights movement and the racial situation in Florida.
This somewhat blurry photograph of a 1959 lunch counter sit-in at W.T. Grant's in downtown Miami was taken from newsfilm now being preserved by the Florida Moving Image Archive.
The collection consists of news stories, features on public affairs, and cultural and documentary programs, all of which provide irreplaceable information on the social and political landscape of South Florida over the past five decades. Upon completion of the preservation process and production of Betacam SP and VHS reference copies, the collection will be a readily available visual record of the evolution of Miami and South Florida from small-town rural life into a regional powerhouse of finance, industry, and culture.
Steven Davidson is director of the Florida Moving Image Archive, formerly the Louis Wolfson II Media History Center, in Miami, Florida.
