The Online Catalog allows searching and browsing of information about the Florida State Archives’ holdings of over 48,000 cubic feet of state and local government records and historical manuscripts. The catalog provides descriptions of over 3,400 collections and lists the contents of containers and folders in many of those collections. For assistance with accessing and using State Archives collections, call our Reference Staff at 850.245.6719 or email us at archives@dos.myflorida.com.
Legislation in 1979 (79-322, SB 1208) transferred the Florida Folk Arts component of the Stephen Foster Memorial to the Florida Department of State. Operating as the Bureau of Florida Folklife Programs from ca. 1985 until 1995, the Bureau coordinated the annual Florida Folk Festival and directed such programs as Folk Arts Apprenticeships, Folk Arts in Education, Folk Heritage awards, annual research surveys, and numerous other projects and programs. From 1995 through June 30, 2021, the renamed and reorganized Florida Folklife Program continued the majority of these operations from within the Division of Historical Resources, Bureau of Historic Preservation in Tallahassee. During the 1995 reorganization, the State Archives of Florida acquired the Florida Folklife Collection from the Bureau of Florida Folklife Programs’ previously maintained Florida Folklife Archives. Legislation in 2021 (2021-71, L. O. F., HB 909) transferred the Florida Folklife Program and its operations from the Division of Historical Resources to the newly renamed Division of Arts and Culture, previously the Division of Cultural Resources, effective July 1, 2021. The program is charged to "identify, research, interpret, and present Florida folk arts, artists, performers, folklore, traditions, customs, and cultural heritage and make folk cultural resources and folklife projects available throughout the state."
The MOSAIC Project was organized to document the history of Jews and Jewish life in Florida. Initially formed as a local project in 1984, it was expanded to a statewide effort in 1986 with funding from the Florida Legislature and grant funding from state agencies. MOSAIC, Inc. was incorporated as a non-profit organization in 1989 "to retrieve, document, preserve, and display for the public benefit - photographs, documents and artifacts depicting the Jewish experience in Florida."
MOSAIC was a joint project of the University of Miami Judaic Studies Program, the Soref Jewish Community Center (Ft. Lauderdale), and the Central Agency for Jewish Education, in association with the Florida Department of State and the Florida Endowment for the Humanities. The main focus of the project was development of a traveling exhibit portraying Jewish life in Florida, along with community education programs to augment the impact of the exhibit. The exhibit opened in Miami in October 1990 and traveled to ten other Florida cities through 1993; in 1994 the exhibit traveled nationally. In 1995, MOSAIC found a permanent home with the opening of the Sanford L. Ziff Jewish Museum of Florida in Miami Beach.
MOSAIC assembled over 6,000 items and donated negatives of many of the photographs collected during the project to the Florida State Archives.
Summary:
This series consists of files accumulated by Florida Folklife Programs Bureau Chief Ormond Loomis in his capacity as consultant to the MOSAIC Project documenting history of Jews and Jewish life in Florida. Included are a grant proposal to the National Endowment for the Humanities detailing proposed project plans and activities; MOSAIC Advisory Committee memoranda regarding meetings,funding, planning, etcetera; and newsletters and other publications of Florida Jewish congregations and organizations.
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Folder listing available.
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For related photographs, see M88-77, MOSAIC Project Photographic Collection. Additionally, the MOSAIC Photo Collection, part of the Florida State Archives Photographic Collection, contains 650 images of Jewish life in Florida from the 1880s through the 1960s collected for the MOSAIC Project. Five-thousand additional MOSAIC project photographic images, as well as artifacts and other materials collected for the project, now reside in the Sanford L. Ziff Jewish Museum of Florida, Miami Beach.
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Subject Access Fields:
Loomis, Ormond
MOSAIC, Jewish Life in Florida (Organization)
Jews Florida
Newsletters. aat
Added Entries
Loomis, Ormond
MOSAIC, Jewish Life in Florida (Organization)
for detailed listing.