Digital Collections Center at FIU Libraries

06/05/2026

Some local history for National Hot Air Balloon Day:
Before he built Miami Beach, Carl G. Fisher was one of America's earliest licensed balloon pilots. His papers, held by the Museum of Miami and hosted on dPanther, include a remarkable 1925 letter in which Fisher describes a near-fatal balloon flight over Chattanooga — and shares his theory about what brought down the USS Shenandoah, one of the deadliest aviation disasters of the era. The letter was addressed to General Billy Mitchell, later portrayed by Gary Cooper in the 1955 film "The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell".
Fisher's parting request: "I do not want any publicity from this letter."
Explore more here: https://dpanther.fiu.edu/record/8053

06/04/2026

Happy National Hug Your Cat Day! Today's photo comes from the Abril Lamarque Collection:
Abril Lamarque (1904-1999) came to New York from Cuba at age 12 and by 23 was art director at Dell Publishing. He later redesigned the New York Times Magazine and New York Times Book Review, ran his own graphic design studio with clients like Bacardi and Con Edison, and taught publication design across the US and Canada. The man shaped how Americans saw the printed page for most of the 20th century.
He was also, apparently, a cat person.
This photo is part of the Abril Lamarque Collection at FIU Special Collections and University Archives Browse the collection here: https://dpanther.fiu.edu/record/72691

06/03/2026

Happy birthday to George Merrick, born June 3, 1886! He grew up on his family's citrus grove just outside Miami - and turned that land into one of the first major planned communities in the United States. He donated land for what would become the University of Miami and was celebrated nationally as a visionary urban planner way ahead of his time.
Check out this photo from the Coral Gables Memory collection, courtesy of the City of Coral Gables - Government: https://dpanther.fiu.edu/record/12065

05/21/2026

Happy !
The Red Cross has always depended on the people who show up locally — organizing neighbors, building chapters, and doing the on-the-ground work that makes the mission real. In Miami, that person was Florence Gaskins.
Gaskins arrived in Miami in 1896 as a laundress and built herself into one of the city's most consequential civic organizers. Among her lasting contributions: establishing a Red Cross auxiliary in Overtown that became a platform for addressing child mortality and public health crises.
This 1910 photograph comes courtesy of Museum of Miami: https://dpanther.fiu.edu/record/19652

05/21/2026

Check it out at: https://www.archivozmagazine.org/en/the-caribbean-in-the-open-inside-the-digital-library-of-the-caribbean/

dLOC was featured today in Revista Archivoz, an online publication dedicated to topics related to archives and document management. Check it out via the link in our stories!

05/18/2026

Miami Beach has been a working film city for decades, and the archives are there to document it!
In the summer of 2000, Miami Beach stood in for Palm Beach, and Gene Hackman showed up in pink trousers and a Panama hat. This photo from the City of Miami Beach Digital Archives captures Hackman on location on Star Island during production of Heartbreakers (2001), a con-artist caper directed by David Mirkin and starring Sigourney Weaver, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Ray Liotta alongside Hackman as to***co tycoon William B. Tensy.
https://dpanther.fiu.edu/record/86729

05/15/2026

Before the group selfie, there was the studio portrait. In honor of International Family Day, four families from partner collections in dPanther, FIU's digital repository.
https://dpanther.fiu.edu/

05/14/2026

Before Key West was a tourist destination, it was a cigar‑making powerhouse.
This 1908 postcard shows the Havana‑American Cigar Factory at the height of Florida’s Cuban‑American to***co industry.
By the first decade of the 20th century, cigar manufacturing in Florida reached its peak, relying on skilled Cuban and Cuban‑American labor and purpose‑built factories like this one. At the time, the Havana‑American Cigar Factory was among the most substantial industrial sites in Key West, employing hundreds of workers and reflecting the city’s central role in hand‑rolled cigar production before the industry’s shift toward Tampa’s Ybor City and eventual decline.
From the Mile Markers: Linking Keys History collection, courtesy of the Monroe County Public Library System (May Hill Russell Library – History Department): https://dpanther.fiu.edu/record/91947
Florida Keys History & Discovery Center

05/13/2026

We are so happy to have Laura on our team!

📆 Another day, another new face to celebrate in our Week of Welcome.

Joining the FIU Libraries team as our Digital Initiatives Librarian with the Unique Collections service area is Laura Capell.🎊

Capell joins us from the private sector, previously working with our friends and colleagues at the University of Miami.

05/13/2026

On this day in 1949: The Riviera‑Times reported that a pre‑dawn fire gutted three floors of the Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ. Investigators traced the blaze to a short‑circuited attic fan, with flames racing through the west wing before firefighters brought it under control.
Explore this issue and more in the Coral Gables Memory's Coral Gables Newspapers digital collection: https://dpanther.fiu.edu/record/24171