Janet Snyder Matthews

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Janet Snyder Matthews
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Janet Snyder

Janet Snyder Matthews is an American historian and author. She is known for her work on historical places in Florida.

Contents

Early life and education

Matthews grew up in Ohio. She has a bachelor's degree from Kent State University and a master's degree from Ohio State University. [1] She earned a second master's degree [2] and a Ph.D. from Florida State University. [3] [4]

Career

Matthews worked as the director of Florida's Division of Historical Resources. [4] [ when? ] and was named the head of the state's Bureau of Historical Preservation in 1999. [5] In 2002 she joined the National Park Service's advisory board, [6] and in 2004 she moved to the National Park Service where she was associate director for cultural resources and the keeper of the National Register of Historic Places. [7] [1]

She appeared on C-Span in 2005 when she was an official with the National Park Service. [8] In 2009 she returned to the University of Florida, first to teach classes on historic preservation [1] and then to work in the communications regarding historic properties in Florida. [9]

Matthews writes about historically-important places. In 1987, the town of Venice, Florida commissioned her to write [10] what would become Venice, Journey from Horse and Chaise. [11] She also wrote Edge of Wilderness, a Settlement History of Manatee River and Sarasota Bay 1528-1885 (1983), [12] and Sarasota: Journey to Centennial (1985) [13]

Awards and honors

She received the Senator Bob Williams Award, given for exceptional service in historic preservation in Florida, in 2016. [1]

Personal life

She married lawyer A. Lamar Matthews Jr., [4] whom she met while he was in law school and she was working at University of Florida. [3]

Books

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manatee County, Florida</span> County in Florida, United States

Manatee County is a county in the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the population was 399,710. Manatee County is part of the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its county seat and largest city is Bradenton. The county was created in 1855 and named for the Florida manatee, Florida's official marine mammal. Features of Manatee County include access to the southern part of the Tampa Bay estuary, the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, and the Manatee River.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarasota County, Florida</span> County in Florida, United States

Sarasota County is a county located in Southwest Florida. At the 2020 US census, the population was 434,006. Its county seat is Sarasota and its largest city is North Port. Sarasota County is part of the North Port–Bradenton–Sarasota, FL metropolitan statistical area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palmetto, Florida</span> City in Florida, United States

Palmetto is a city in Manatee County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was listed as 13,323, up from 12,606 at the 2010 census. It is part of the North Port–Bradenton–Sarasota, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarasota, Florida</span> City in Florida, United States

Sarasota is a city in and the county seat of Sarasota County, Florida, United States. It is located in Southwest Florida, the southern end of the Greater Tampa Bay Area, and north of Fort Myers and Punta Gorda. Its official limits include Sarasota Bay and several barrier islands between the bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Sarasota is a principal city of the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area. According to the 2020 U.S. census, Sarasota had a population of 54,842, up from 51,917 at the 2010 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venice, Florida</span> City in Florida, United States

Venice is a city in Sarasota County, Florida, United States. The city includes what locals call "Venice Island", a portion of the mainland that is accessed via bridges over the artificially created Intracoastal Waterway. The city is located in Southwest Florida. As of the 2020 Census, the city had a population of 25,463, up from 20,748 at the 2010 Census. Venice is part of the North Port–Bradenton–Sarasota, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gamble Plantation Historic State Park</span> Florida State Park in Ellenton, Florida

The Judah P. Benjamin Confederate Memorial at Gamble Plantation Historic State Park, also known as the Gamble Mansion or Gamble Plantation, is a Florida State Park, located in Ellenton, Florida, on 37th Avenue East and US 301. It is home to the Florida Division United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarasota metropolitan area</span> Metropolitan area in Florida, United States

The Sarasota metropolitan area is a metropolitan area located in Southwest Florida. The metropolitan area is defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as the North Port–Bradenton–Sarasota Metropolitan Statistical Area, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) consisting of Manatee County and Sarasota County. The principal cities listed by the OMB for the MSA are North Port, Bradenton, Sarasota, Lakewood Ranch, and Venice. At the 2020 census, the MSA had a population of 833,716. The Census Bureau estimates that its population was 891,411 in 2022.

Old Miakka is a census-designated place in Sarasota County, Florida, United States. It is located at the bend of County Road 780, where it changes from running north–south to east–west. The population was 1,743 at the 2020 census. The community is part of the North Port–Bradenton–Sarasota, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Tallevast is an unincorporated community in Manatee County, Florida, United States. It is part of the Bradenton–Sarasota–Venice Metropolitan Statistical Area. The ZIP Code for Tallevast is 34270.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Whitaker (pioneer)</span> Early settler of Sarasota, Florida

William Henry Whitaker was an American Seminole War veteran and pioneer who, under the provisions of the Armed Occupation Act, established the first permanent settlement in what is now Sarasota, Florida. There he traded mullet with Cubans to bring the first groves of economically important oranges to the state. He later married Mary Jane Wyatt and with her raised Nancy Whitaker, the first child recorded in what now is the county of Sarasota and a family of eleven children. His father-in-law, William Wyatt, was a constitutional delegate who helped to originate, and signed, Florida's first constitution. At the end of the Civil War, he helped Judah P. Benjamin escape to London.

Myakka City is an unincorporated community in southeastern Manatee County, Florida, United States. It lies along State Road 70 near the city of Bradenton, the county seat of Manatee County. Its elevation is 43 feet (13 m), and it is located at 27°20′59″N82°9′41″W. Although Myakka is unincorporated, it has a post office, with the ZIP code of 34251; the ZCTA for ZIP code 34251 had a population of 6,351 at the 2010 census. up from 4,239 in 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kafi Benz</span> American artist (born 1941)

Kafi Benz is an American author and artist who began participation in social entrepreneurship through environmental preservation and regional planning in 1959 as a member of the Jersey Jetport Site Association, which opposed plans by the New York Port Authority to found a new airport in the Great Swamp, the central feature of a massive 55 square mile watershed in New Jersey bounded to the south and east by the Watchung Mountains, 25 miles west of Manhattan.

Friends of Seagate Inc. was founded in the late 1980s by Kafi Benz as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in Sarasota, Florida. The historic preservation group lead local efforts protect historic property in the Sarasota-Bradenton area from commercial development. The group later expanded its scope to include environmental conservation. Its most notable project was the preservation of Seagate, the former home of Cincinnati, Ohio, industrialist Powel Crosley Jr. and his wife, Gwendolyn, and its later owners, Mabel and Freeman Horton. In 2002 the organization tried to secure Rus-in- Ur'be, an undeveloped parcel of land in the center of the Indian Beach Sapphire Shores neighborhood, as a local park; however, as of 2014, real estate developers intend to build condominium units at the site.

State College of Florida Collegiate School (SCFCS) is a public charter school in Florida, United States. Established in 2010, it is part of and operates on State College of Florida's Bradenton and Venice campuses. It was created through a charter with the School District of Manatee County.

The Sarasota Assassination Society, also known as the Sarasota Vigilance Committee, was a late 19th-century secret organization established by Alfred Bidwell, Dr. Leonard Andrews and Jason Alford in Manatee County, Florida. The organization, which was estimated to include twenty to twenty-two members, was purported to be a political social group or a Democratic Club. The true aims of the group were chronicled in the February 2, 1885 New York Times article; "This organization is supposed to exist for the purpose of the secret murder of political opponents, and is composed of 20 members, bound together by terrible oaths to perform the bloody work of the band and to keep its secrets inviolate."

The earliest known identification of the area known today as Sarasota, Florida, was identified on a sheepskin Spanish map from 1763 with the word "Zarazote" written over the location of present-day Sarasota and Bradenton. A 1776 British map by Bernard Romans lists a "Boca Sarasota" in the local area.

Angola was a prosperous community of up to 750 maroons that existed in Florida from 1812 until Florida became a U.S. territory in 1821, at which point it was destroyed. The location was along the Manatee River in Bradenton, Florida, near Manatee Mineral Springs Park. The exact location is expansive, ranging from where the Braden River meets the Manatee River down to Sarasota Bay; archaeological research focuses on the Manatee Mineral Spring—a source of fresh water and later the location of the Village of Manatee two decades after the destruction of the maroon community. Archaeological evidence has been found and the archaeology report by Uzi Baram is on file with the Florida Division of Historical Resources of the Florida Department of State. In 2019, the National Park Service added the excavated location at Manatee Mineral Springs Park to the Network to Freedom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seagate (Manatee County, Florida)</span> Historic house in Florida, United States

Seagate, is located along Sarasota Bay in Manatee County, Florida, and was the former winter estate of Powel Crosley Jr., a noted Cincinnati, Ohio, industrialist and entrepreneur. Crosley had the 11,000-square-foot (1,000 m2), Mediterranean Revival-style home built in 1929 for his wife, Gwendolyn, on 45-acre (18-hectare) of land along Sarasota Bay that was platted in 1925 for a failed subdivision. New York architect George Albree Freeman Jr. designed the home; Ivo A. de Minicis, a Tampa, Florida, architect, drafted the plans; and Paul W. Bergmann, a Sarasota contractor, reportedly built the two-and-a-half-story, cast-stone-and-stucco home in 135 days.[citation needed] Gwendolyn Crosley died at Seagate in 1939. After allowing the Army Air Corps to use the home for airmen who were training at a nearby airbase during World War II, Crosley sold the property in 1947.

John Charles Casey was an American military officer, professor, and Indian Affairs official. He was involved in the removal of Seminoles from Florida. Casey Key is named for him. Fort Casey was named for him.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Putterman, Samantha (May 26, 2016). "Local historian Janet Snyder Matthews honored". Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  2. "Sarasota's past holds writer's future". The Tampa Tribune. 1985-08-17. p. 32. Retrieved 2023-12-09.
  3. 1 2 Djinis, Elilzabeth (March 9, 2022). "Longtime Sarasota lawyer, mentor, advocate Lamar Matthews dies". Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Retrieved 2023-06-12.
  4. 1 2 3 "JANET SNYDER MATTHEWS BOOK IS BACK! – Friends of the Venice Public Library, Inc". Archived from the original on March 19, 2021.
  5. Stockbridge-Pratt, Dorothy (31 Aug 1999). "Historian accepts Florida positions". Sarasota Herald Tribune ; Sarasota, Fla. pp. 3B via Proquest.
  6. "Historic challenge ; How to bring the past alive under current conditions?". Sarasota Herald Tribune ; Sarasota, Fla. 21 April 2002. pp. F2 via Proquest.
  7. Goodnough, Abby (January 4, 2010). "For Cape Cod Wind Farm, New Hurdle Is Spiritual". The New York Times .
  8. "Janet Snyder Matthews | C-SPAN.org". www.c-span.org.
  9. Chun, Diane (1 Apr 2014). "Giving a "remarkable city" its due". Gainesville Sun; Gainesville, Fla. via Proquest.
  10. Mudge, Bob (2017-11-08). "Venice historian headlines library luncheon". Port Charlotte Sun. pp. 10A. Retrieved 2023-12-09.
  11. Review of Venice
  12. Review of Edge of Wilderness
  13. Review for second edition of Sarasota
    • Stockbridge-Pratt, Dorothy (22 Dec 1997). "JOURNEY TO CENTENNIAL SKETCHES ADD COLOR TO ACCOUNT". Sarasota Herald Tribune; Sarasota, Fla. pp. 1B via Proquest.