Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center

 Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center

St. Augustine, Florida

March 24, 2022

In 1866, black men and women created a community called Lincolnville that preserves the rich black history is St. Augustine. The Lincolnville Museum was originally the first black high school in St. Augustine and the building was preserved in order to preserve the stories and lives of black folks who lived here. Black history is often overlooked in St. Augustine despite all of the major historical events that have taken place here. The Old Town Trolleys don't even drive by the Lincolnville Museum or any of West St. Augustine, where black families have lived throughout the past. Currently the museum is a space to learn about significant events and people that changed the way that their community is preserved. The museum is also a space of cultural inclusion, with jazz music and more preserved factors of black lives in St. Augustine.

https://www.lincolnvillemuseum.org

Exterior Picture 1

The outside of the Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center with the original sign from when Excelsior High School was the first black high school in St. Augustine.

Exterior Picture 2

Artifact Picture 1

This is an image of a red flapper dress on loan from a resident of St. Augustine's black community. In the 1920s young women started to display a careless, free, and independent attitude. The young women were called flappers and they pushed the limits and challenge every aspect of life from social barriers to political issues, as well as economic stigmas. The flappers of the 20s were considered the first free women in America due to their efforts in creating a new approach to how people visualize women. 

Flappers wore these extravagant dresses as a symbol of their freedom because these dresses were used as a statement for open sexuality and high fashion. The dresses were shorter which was considered rebellious because women weren't supposed to show too much skin. The flappers were a huge turning point in the development on women behavior in America's history.

Artifact Picture 2

The counter top showed at this diner is significant to the history of colored people in St. Augustine. Woolworth lunch counter on March 15, 1960 is where Florida Memorial College Students would have held a sit-in to protest against the racism occurring across the country. College students all over the country help sit-ins in protest, however this diner was one of the most well known sit-in locations in St. Augustine between 1960 and 1963.

Image 1 In Conversation

https://www.jwpepper.com/American-Voices/10317459.item#.YjzRZi9h1-U

American Voices is a play created to celebrate the American Century. Being a world leader in the late 1800s, the 20th century of America was looking bright. It touches on the new found patriotism from the end of World War I, the hard work involved during the Great Depression, and the pastimes that Americans enjoyed. Jazz music, singing, dancing, flappers, social and cultural change, and much more.

In third grade my entire class performed this play and this museum brought back memories of the songs that I had to memorize. Martin Luther King Jr., flappers, Elvis Presley and Louis Armstrong, are all people that were significant in the new frontier of American pastimes. I remember the play doing a great job of including the high points, such as jazz, and the low points with the Great Depression and racism. However, the play itself is directly correlated to the Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center as it touches on many cultures of the 20th century.

Image 2 In Conversation

https://www.npr.org/2019/06/22/732675892/satchmo-in-his-adolescence-1915-film-clip-may-show-young-louis-armstrong

Louis Armstong is the most influential artist in the history of jazz music. His music played on the trumpet is how jazz is now considered a fine art. He transformed the way that music was classically made, by following notes. Louis was known for improvising solos and his solos created a focal point on the music he played. Now, jazz is most notably known for the instrumental solos that hit a wide variety of notes composed perfectly.

Literature In Conversation

Excerpt from Poetry of St. Augustine by Ann Browning Masters

"My version of this time period, however, represents a pre-memory and memory of the people and situations around me and is not representative of every lived experience of the time. Some of the oral traditions and stories made up and embellished by the tellers, passed along in ears long gone, changed eventually by a telephone game's reputation. Some known-for-a-fact events are occasionally described differently by two different Floridanos, Menorcans, or Crackers. The poetry of place sings here, but not always with the same words for everyone."

Ann Browning Masters is a poet that writes about Menorcan history in St. Augustine from a Menorcan perspective. With the oral history that she does have, she puts together a narrative of what most reliably happened and what life was like. Masters is attempting to preserve the history that wasn't documented by the Menorcans or any witnesses. Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center is carrying out the same acts of preservation for the black community in St. Augustine, as Ann Browning Masters has done for the Menorcan community. Like the Menorcans, black history in St. Augustine has been poorly recorded and preserved. With only oral histories, we make the inferences and stories from the black community as Ann Browning Masters has done for the Menorcans. 

Creative Component

These boots are exhibited in the Lincolnville Museum. They belong to J. Edgar Hoover, the founder and first Director of the FBI in 1935. Hoover has also made a number of modernizations to police technology including fingerprint files and forensic labs.