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Everglades and Brinkley family video and photographic collection, ca. 1920-1992.
Amount:
2.5 cubic ft. 5 films : 16 mm 12 compact disks 1 DVDs 3 video tapes (2 VHS and 1 Beta)
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Biographical/Historical:
Homer Augustus Brinkley (1904-1992) was born in Sumter County, Georgia, to Mack Homer and Gussie Stokes Brinkley. Homer grew up in Colquitt County, Georgia; as a young boy he worked on the family farm and by the age of 15 began working on a neighboring farm, saving his earnings to pay for a barbering course. Homer became a barber in 1918, then traveled the eastern seaboard from Booth Bay Harbor, Maine to the Everglades in Florida, working as a "tramp barber." During the 1920s he lived and worked in Everglades City, operating a barber shop there for four years. Meanwhile, Homer also worked as an itinerant barber in Brinson and Pelham, Georgia and in Naples, Florida.
In 1933, Homer hitch-hiked to Tallahassee, where he continued working as a barber and eventually became the owner of the Palace Barber Shop. Homer later owned a chain of barber shops and beauty salons on several of Florida's military bases. At one point, it is estimated that he employed as many as 80 people in his various barber and beauty shop businesses. In the mid-1940s, Governor Millard Caldwell appointed Homer Chairman of the Florida Barber's Sanitary Commission; Homer also served as president-elect of the National Barber's Examiners of America. Homer retired from the barbering business in 1948.
While living and working in south Florida, Homer financed and produced a motion picture of the Everglades that included images of wildlife, vegetation, and early film footage of the Seminole Indian culture. Homer married his childhood sweetheart, Irma Pauline Wamble, daughter of Thomas Wiley Allen and Mary Lou Wamble, on June 7, 1928. Soon after their marriage, both of them traveled around Georgia and Florida showing the film in a traveling show that included a caged live black bear and Homer dressed as a Seminole Indian. The traveling shows ended after a car accident destroyed the film projector.
Homer ultimately became a dominant force in the development of Tallahassee after World War II, becoming a realtor, real estate developer, and a prominent Tallahassee businessman. On December 10, 1946, he and his brother Robert formed the Brinkley Brothers real estate firm, which played a central role in the development of the Waverly Hills neighborhood in Tallahassee. He was a founder of Leon Federal Savings & Loan, a director in the Capital City Bank Group, a founding director of the Guaranty National Bank and the Tallahassee Northside Rotary Club, director of the Tallahassee Junior Museum (now the Tallahassee Museum of History & Natural Science), and co-founder of Northside Baptist Church in Tallahassee.
Summary:
This collection documents the personal and business activities of Homer Augustus Brinkley. It consists of personal love letters, post cards, and greeting cards written between Homer and Irma Brinkley prior to their marriage in 1928; correspondence between Irma and Homer when he was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota for surgery on a fistula; Homer's poetry; photographs of family, friends, business acquaintances, vacation retreats in the mountains of North Carolina and trips to various countries around the world; copies of the 1928 film "Scenes of the Everglades" in several formats (16 mm, videotape, BETA, and DVD); newspaper clippings regarding Springtime Tallahassee; and a video showcasing Homer's involvement with Rotary International for 50 years.
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Folder listing available. 0
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Subject Access Fields:
Brinkley, Homer Augustus, 1904-1992.
Barbers Florida Family Florida Farms Florida Motion picture industry Florida. Real estate development Florida Real estate investment Florida. Seminole Indians. Traveling exhibitions Florida
Audio cassettes. aat Audio recordings. Letters. aat Motion pictures. aat Photographs. aat Poems Postcards. aat Sound recordings. aat Videocassettes. aat Video recordings. aat
Everglades (Fla.) Florida. Georgia. Tallahassee (Fla.)
for detailed listing.