Paradise for Sale: Florida's Booms and Busts - Tapa blanda

Internationally publicized as the happiest place on earth decades before Disney arrived, the Sunshine State experienced a brief and wondrous economic boom in the mid-1920s. Entrepreneurs and real estate developers became overnight millionaires as they created luxury seaside resorts, golfing communities and country clubs. Greats, near greats, the famous, the infamous, movie stars, politicians, athletes, ne'er-do-wells, preachers, foreign royalty, con artists, educators, labor leaders, union members, every element of American and world society flocked to the Pleasure Paradise of the World."? Florida was a perpetual motion machine, destined to go on forever. But in 1926, small bank failures led to panic, the new federal income tax law led to bankruptcy and a series of hurricanes decimated the tourist trade. Florida's great boom had gone bust, not to recover until World War II. However, Floridians remained optimistic that the sun of prosperity would rise again."

Nick Wynne is executive director emeritus of the Florida Historical Society. He obtained his PhD in history from the University of Georgia (1980) and taught at several southern universities. He has published seven books on Florida history, many of them with Arcadia Publishing, including Tin Can Tourists of Florida, Florida in the Civil War, Florida's Antebellum Homes and Golf in Florida, 1886, 1950. In addition, he has won several awards for his books, including the James J. Horgan Award for Best Florida Fiction for Juveniles. He is also the author of a forthcoming novel, Pirkle Hall or Sister Mary Magdalene and the Church of the Archangel Rodney. He and his coauthor, Richard Moorhead, are proud graduates of Telfair County High School in McRae, Georgia, class of 1961. Richard Moorhead is a retired sales executive with the Ethicon, Inc. division of Johnson and Johnson. He currently is president/CEO of Richard Moorhead Associates, LLC, a medical sales, sales management and marketing executive search firm. A graduate of Valdosta State University and Webster University, he lives with his wife, Sandy, in Winter Park. An avid golfer, he is the coauthor of Golf in Florida, 1886, 1950. Along with Nick Wynne, he is the coauthor of Floating Fortress: Florida in World War II, which will be published by The History Press in 2010.