‘St. Petersburg and the Florida Dream, 1888-1950’

St. Petersburg and the Florida Dream, 1888-1950 chronicles the early history of St. Petersburg and the lower Pinellas Peninsula. A forerunner of the modern Sunbelt city, early St. Petersburg successfully mixed southern and northern cultures and used vigorous public relations and advertising to promote itself. By the mid-twentieth century, the "Sunshine City" had developed into one of the most important resort communities in the United States, a self-styled subtropical playground that stood tantalizingly apart from the mainstream of urban America. Before the age of expressways, heat pumps, fast-food restaurants, and suburban shopping malls, local life revolved around institutions and traditions long associated with the Florida Dream - the centuries-old promise of perpetual warmth, health, comfort, and leisure. Arsenault describes these institutions and many of the personalities that enlivened them.