Higher education for white students also expanded, with institutions such as the East Florida Seminary in Gainesville and the Florida Agricultural College in Lake City (the predecessor to the University of Florida).
Cultural life thrived in unexpected ways. Local newspapers proliferated, chronicling everything from politics to social events. Chautauqua assemblies, traveling performers, and church revivals brought entertainment and moral instruction to small towns. Communities held fairs, picnics, and horse races, preserving traditions even as modernity encroached.
Politics and the People’s Voice
The 1890s in Florida marked a turbulent political landscape. The Democratic Party held dominance, but internal divisions and the rise of populism began to challenge the old order. Farmers, struggling under debt and low crop prices, organized into alliances demanding reform.
The Populist movement, inspired by national trends, gained traction among smallholders and laborers. They opposed corporate monopolies and sought fairer treatment from railroads and land companies. Although the Populists never seized control in Florida, their influence reshaped local politics and gave voice to working-class grievances.
Voting restrictions—through poll taxes and literacy tests—began to disenfranchise large segments of the Black population and poor whites alike. By 1890, the groundwork for decades of racial segregation and political exclusion was being laid. shutdown123