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Digital Collections Blog Logo

Preserving Miami-Dade County’s History

5/23/25

The Library’s Digital and Special Collections are cornerstones of Miami-Dade County’s historical archives. Through our Community Memory Project, residents have a unique opportunity to share, spotlight and preserve their personal histories by digitizing family photos, treasured items and important artifacts.

On Saturday, May 10, the Library had the pleasure of taking part in the third annual History Collaborative – an event organized by the Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources’ Office of Historic Preservation – where we had the opportunity to gather stories and materials to add to our Community Memory Project.  Various Miami-Dade County organizations were invited to help preserve, share and celebrate our local history.

Images of speakers and participants at the Third Annual History Collaborative

Third Annual History Collaborative at Everglades Farm Village, 2025

During last year’s event, our Digital Collections team interviewed families from Miami’s Goulds community who shared deeply-rooted, generational stories from more than 50 years ago when settlers first arrived near the old Florida East Coast Railroad stop.

This year, in partnership with HistoryMiami Museum and Plusurbia Design, we connected with the surrounding communities of the Everglades Farm Village to capture the shared histories of Miami-Dade’s migrant workers.  As part of this work, the Digital Collections team digitized two scrapbooks of local newspaper clips from the Rural Neighborhoods Collection, provided by the Fernando Pro, Jr. Archive. The addition of their stories provides an insightful look at local events and everyday life for migrant farm workers during the 1960s.

Newspaper clipouts
Newspaper articles pasted onto a scrapbook
Newspaper clipouts on a scrapbook

The History Collaborative brought together organizations with different areas of focus, each contributing in meaningful ways. HistoryMiami promoted its Miami Stories project, collecting oral histories and firsthand accounts from influential community members,  while the Office of Historic Preservation focused on highlighting its Historic Heritage Survey, which reviews and studies historic buildings and sites from the 1940s to the 1980s – including old migrant farmworker homes, churches and stores.

You can explore these stories and many others in our Community Memory Project – a growing digital archive where we collect, share and preserve the history of people throughout Miami-Dade County for generations to come.