1. Photograph, by Chamberlain, J. W., ], Historical Association of Southern Florida, Negative No. 66–2–1, Miami, Florida.Google ScholarSewell, John, Miami Memories, introduced by Arva Moore Parks, reprint (Miami, Fla., 1987), pp. 43–44. Sewell, Memories, p. 43. The four men soon after opened, in turn, a men's clothing store, a drug store, a general store, and a contracting business. The photograph was so important to John Sewell as a representation of the city's founding, and his role in it, that twenty-five years later he commissioned the same photographer to take another picture at the site. That time, however, only three of the seventeen men who were there in 1896 appeared—Sewell, his brother E. C, and J. E. Lummus. All three were southern mainline Protestants. All had become successful businessmen and prominent citizens. Lummus had served as alderman, and the Sewell brothers both had been mayor.Google ScholarOn interpreting photographs see Trachtenberg, Alan, Reading American Photographs: Images as History: Mathew Brady to Walker Evans (New York, 1989).Google Scholar

2. The first scholar to talk about the “Protestant establishment” was Baltzell, E. Digby in The Protestant Establishment in America (New Haven, Conn., 1964). Since then a number of other studies have appeared.Google ScholarAmong the most useful is Hutchison, William R., ed., Between the Times: The Travail of the Protestant Establishment in America, 1900–1960 (New York, 1989). Hutchison defined the establishment as a set of denominations and personal networks, and I apply that understanding here.Google ScholarOn “power” see Giddens, Anthony, The Constitution of Society (Berkeley, Calif., 1984), p. 257.Google ScholarOn recent developments in Miami, including the rise of “parallel social structures,” see Portes, Alejandro and Stepick, Alex, City on the Edge: The Transformation of Miami (Berkeley, Calif., 1993).Google ScholarTo extend this further, there might be multiple “public spheres,” as Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks reminds us in her discussion of the Black Church, Righteous Discontent (Cambridge, Mass., 1993), pp. 7–13.Google Scholar

3. Goldfield, David R., “The Urban South: A Regional Framework,” Journal of American History 86 (1981): 1009–1034. Miami has had influences from a number of regions and nations.CrossRefGoogle ScholarOn Miami as part of the “Sunbelt” see Mohl, Raymond A., “Miami: New Immigrant City,” in Searching for the Sunbelt, ed. Mohl, Raymond A. (Knoxville, Tenn., 1990), pp. 149–175.Google ScholarFor an overview of recent developments in urban history see Blumin, Stuart M., “City Limits: Two Decades of Urban History in JUH,” Journal of Urban History 21 (1994): 7–30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarEspecially helpful is Wade's, Richard C.The Urban Frontier: The Rise of Western Cities, 1790–1830 (Cambridge, Mass., 1959). Since then a number of studies have explored urban frontiers in America and elsewhere.Google ScholarOne of the most useful is Hamer, David, New Towns in the New World: Images and Perceptions of the Nineteenth-Century Urban Frontier (New York, 1990). Hamer, New Towns, pp. 10–11.Google Scholar

4. Doyle, Don Harrison, “Social Theory and New Communities in Nineteenth-Century America,” Western Historical Quarterly 8 (1977): 151–165.CrossRefGoogle ScholarTurner, Frederick Jackson, The Frontier in American History (1920; New York, 1962), pp. 1–38.Google ScholarSee also Jacobs, Wilbur R., On Turner's Trail: 100 Years of Writing Western History (Lawrence, Kans., 1994);Google Scholarand Barth, Gunther, Instant Cities: Urbanization and the Rise of San Francisco and Denver (Albuquerque, N.M., 1988).Google Scholar

5. All population figures listed here for Miami are from the United States Census Office. The population when the railroad arrived was estimated at 260 in a number of sources. For example, see Miami Daily Metropolis, 16 October 1915, p. 23.Google Scholar

6. Lummus, Mrs. J. N. [Lulu], Sanford Chronicle (05 1896).Google ScholarReprinted in Kleinberg, Howard, ed., Miami: The Way We Were (Miami, Fla., 1985), p. 87.Google Scholar

7. For example, the two Methodist communities had six ministers between them from 1897 to 1901. The Baptists had no regular minister from 1898 to 1900. The Presbyterians had four ministers between 1896 and 1898. See Cohen, Isidor, Historical Sketches and Sidelights of Miami, Florida (Miami, privately printed, 1925), pp. 149–150.Google ScholarBlackman, E. V., Miami and Dade County, Florida: Us Settlement, Progress, and Achievement (Washington, D.C., 1921), p. 27.Google ScholarOn Blackman as the “East Coast Liar” see George, Paul S., “Passage to the New Eden: Tourism in Miami from Flagler through Everett G. Sewell,” Florida Historical Quarterly 59 (1981): 446. Some information about religions in early Miami is found in memoirs, especially Sewell, Memories, pp. 121–43. Much of the information I offer here and below on the local churches, however, was mined from the archives of Miami congregations, especially First Presbyterian, First United Methodist, and First Baptist.Google Scholar

8. For evidence that some wanted to name the city “Flagler” see “Our Mail Service,” Miami Metropolis, 19 June 1896, p. 4.Google Scholar

9. On Flagler's “wards” see Flagler, Henry to Stevens, Charles S., 4 September 1904, Flagler Papers, The Henry Morrison Flagler Museum, Palm Beach, Florida. On Flagler's attitudes toward wealth see also Blackman, Miami, p. 51.Google Scholar

10. Sewell, , Memories, p. 128; “Municipal Officers,” Miami Metropolis, 26 June 1896, p.Google Scholar

11. Sewell, , Memories, p. 129; Blackman, Miami, p. 115; Sewell, Memories, pp. 1, 17.Google Scholar

12. As in most southern cities, Miami's women's clubs seemed uninterested in women's suffrage. On those clubs see Peters, Thelma, Miami 1909, with Excerpts from Fannie demon's Diary (Miami, Fla., 1984), p. 101;Google ScholarKirkley, Evelyn A., “ ‘This Work is God's Cause’: Religion in the Southern Woman Suffrage Movement, 1880–1920,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 59 (1990): 507–522. The coverage of women in the newspaper also reflected traditional values; see “The New Woman,” Miami Metropolis, 17 June 1896, p. 10. For the traditionalist views of a pioneer woman, see Mary Barr Munroe, “Pioneer Women of Dade,” Miami Metropolis, 3 July 1909.CrossRefGoogle ScholarCompare Turner, Elizabeth Hayes, “Episcopal Women as Community Leaders: Galveston, 1900–1989,” in Episcopal Women, ed. Prelinger, Catherine M. (New York, 1992), pp. 72–110;Google ScholarBrereton, Virginia Lieson, “United and Slighted: Women as Subordinated Insiders,” in Between the Times, ed. Hutchison, , pp. 143–167;Google ScholarWood, Jane, “Mary Bulmer Brickell: A Mother of Miami,” Miami Daily News, n.d. [July 1958], in Flagler Papers, Box 2C, Flagler Museum; and “The Mother of Miami: Mrs. Julia Tuttle,” Miami Daily News, 29 July 1958. On Tuttle's business ventures in Miami see Carson, “Miami 1896 to 1900,” p. 9. On her role at the bank, see Sewell, , Miami Memoirs, p. 80. For the agreement with Flagler see Henry Flagler to Julia Tuttle, 22 April 1895, Flagler Papers.Google ScholarFor Rockefeller's account of Flagler's meticulousness in business see Rockefeller, John D., Random Reminiscences Men and Events (New York, 1909), pp. 10–17. On respect for Tuttle see Cohen, Sketches, p. 136.Google Scholar

13. Akin, Edward N., “The Cleveland Connection: Revelations from the John D. Rockefeller- Julia Tuttle Correspondence,” Tequesla 42 (1982): 57, 58, 60.Google ScholarOn her connections to Rockefeller see “How J. D. Rockefeller Began,” Miami Metropolis, 7 August 1896, p. 2.Google Scholar

14. Gee, Connie, “ ‘Mama’ Cohen Recalls Early Miami,” Miami News, 19 12 1965.Google Scholar

15. On Southern Catholicism see Catholics in the Old South, ed. Miller, Randall M. and Wakelyn, Jon L. (Macon, Ga., 1983).Google ScholarOn Florida see Gannon, Michael V., The Cross in the Sand (Gainesville, Fla., 1983)Google Scholarand McNally, Michael J., Catholicism in South Florida (Gainesville, Fla., 1982).Google Scholar

16. On the first masses see Miami Metropolis, 25 September 1896, p. 1. On Reilly's real estate work see J. B. Reilly to J. E. Ingraham, 30 April 1896, Flagler Papers. For members of local organizations see Official Directory of the City of Miami and Nearby Towns (Miami, Fla., 1904); Sewell, Memories; and Cohen, Sketches.Google Scholar

17. Ira M. Sheskin and Henry Green, “The New Diaspora: The Jews of South Florida,” Proceedings of the Canada-Israel Conference on the Social-Scientific Approaches to the Study of Judaism, Montreal, Canada, May 1989. On the earliest Jewish communities in the South see Dinnerstein, Leonard and Palsson, Mary Dale, eds., Jews in the South (Baton Rouge, La., 1973), introduction.Google ScholarSee also Schmier, Louis, “Jews and Gentiles in a South Georgia Town,” in Jews of the South, ed. Proctor, Samuel and Schmier, Louis, with Malcolm Stern (Macon, Ga., 1984), pp. 1–16.Google ScholarOn Jews in early Miami see Marks, “Jewish Pioneers,” and Tebeau, Charlton W., Synagogue in the Central City: Temple Israel of Greater Miami (Coral Gables, Fla., 1972), pp. 28–43.Google ScholarFor a comparative study focusing on the post-World War II period see Moore, Deborah Dash, To the Golden Cities: Pursuing the American Jewish Dream in Miami and L.A. (New York, 1994).Google Scholar

18. Cohen, , Sketches, pp. 14–15.Google Scholar On Cohen and the new city charter see Blackman, Miami, p. 165. On his role in the 1950 celebration see Marks, Henry S., Who Was Who in Florida, s.v. “Cohen, Isidor” (Huntsville, Ala., 1976).Google Scholar

19. Tebeau, , Synagogue, p. 36; Sewell, Memories, p. 140; Tebeau, Synagogue, pp. 33, 36. Cohen, for instance, sent his children to the Sunday School at Trinity Methodist Church when they studied the Old Testament since no other instruction was available. Gee, “ ‘Mama’ Cohen.”Google Scholar

20. Jennie Ullendorff's affiliation with the local Methodist church is noted in the congregational records. On Ida Cohen's and Jessie Sewell's work for the schools see Cohen, Sketches, p. 140. For Cohen's report of his participation see Sketches, p. 21. For a list of the prominent members of the Masons, see Cohen, Sketches, pp. 66–67. Cohen's assessment of fraternal orders is in Sketches, p. 63.Google ScholarOn their social function in another city, see Fels, Tony, “Religious Assimilation in a Fraternal Organization: Jews and Freemasonry in Gilded Age San Francisco,” American Jewish History 74 (1985): 369–403.Google Scholar

21. Miami Metropolis, 21 August 1896, p. 1. Peters, Miami 1909, pp. 32–33.Google Scholar

22. For an account of an incident in which Sewell coerced residents to form a “make-shift congregation” for a visiting bishop, see Sewell, Memories, pp. 121–123, 132.Google Scholar

23. “The Catholic Church Fair,” Miami Metropolis, 30 10 1896, p. 5;Google ScholarAkin, Edward N., Flagler: Rockefeller Partner and Florida Baron (Kent, Ohio, 1988), pp. 184, 129, 208.Google Scholar There is evidence that Flagler's ecumenical concerns, and interest in Catholicism, extended to his private life. See Henry Flagler to J. A. McDonald, 5 November 1908, Pero Papers, Historical Museum of Southern Florida. To some observers, Flagler seemed a bit too tolerant. One traveler offered him some friendly business advice in a letter mailed in 1898, complaining that he employed too many Irish Catholics in his hotels. See Henry Flagler to J. A. McDonald, 5 November 1908, Pero Papers. Anonymous to Henry Flagler, 28 March 1898, Pero Papers.

24. Barth, , Instant Cities, pp. 171, 172.Google Scholar

25. Shils, Edward, “Center and Periphery,” in Center and Periphery: Essays in Macrosociology (1961; Chicago, 1975), p. 10.Google Scholar

26. Sewell, , Memories, p. 145.Google Scholar

27. The diary excerpts are in Cohen, Sketches, pp. 21–22.Google Scholar

28. George, Paul S., “Colored Town: Miami's Black Community, 1896–1930,” Florida Historical Quarterly 56 (1978): 432–447; transcript, Interview with Kate Dean and Louise Davis, members of pioneer black families, conducted by the Miami-Dade County Library and Dade Heritage Trust, 29 May 1973, Miami, Historical Association of Southern Florida, pp. 1–6, 11–12, 14–17, 19; George, “Colored Town,” p. 433. On Brown see Official Directory, 1904, pp. 236, 239, and George, “Colored Town,” p. 438. On Dorsey see the biographical material in the Black Archives, Joseph Caleb Community Center, Miami. The most useful source is “Dana A. Dorsey Was Shrewd Businessman,” Miami Times, 4 November 1982, p. 17. See also George, “Colored Town,” p. 438.Google Scholar

29. Cowgill, Donald O., “Trends in Residential Segregation of Non-Whites in American Cities, 1940–1950,” American Sociological Review 21 (1956): 43–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarSee also Mohl, Raymond A., “Shadows in the Sunshine: Race and Ethnicity in Miami,” Tequesta 49 (1989): 71–72, n. 16, 79.Google ScholarMiami Metropolis, 31 July 1896, p. 1. See “Robbery at Coconut Grove,” Miami Metropolis, 7 August 1896, p. 8; “Worse Than Sandbagging,” Miami Metropolis, 15 May 1896, p. 10; “He Got it in the Neck,” Miami Metropolis, 21 August 1896, p. 5; “George Grandberry's Necktie,” Miami Metropolis, 28 August 1896, p. 8. For a particularly gruesome incident in which the paper defended the lynchers by dismissing overwhelming evidence see “Negro Killed at Snake Creek,” Miami Metropolis, 2 October 1896, p. 5.Google ScholarFor an overview of these issues see George, Paul S., “Policing Miami's Black Community, 1896–1930,” Florida Historical Quarterly 57(1979): 434–150.Google ScholarMiami Metropolis, 23 October 1896, p. 4. As late as 1910, blacks made up 41.3 percent of Miami's population. According to census figures, they constituted 29.7 percent of the Dade County population in 1920, 18.5 percent in 1940, and 16.6 percent in 1960. The proportion of African Americans has remained approximately the same since 1960. On Tuttle” restrictions see Miami Metropolis, 15 May 1896, p. 6. Henry Flagler to J. R. Parrott, 20 June 1902, Flagler Papers. Henry Flagler to J. A. McGuire, 10 June ?,Google Scholar Flagler Papers. Sewell, Memories, p. 54. See also Sewell, Memories, pp. 11–12, 17. Sewell, Memories, pp. 149–150.

30. On the Seminoles, and the natives of the Southeast, see Hudson, Charles, The Southeastern Indians (Knoxville, Tenn., 1976).Google ScholarFor evidence of native-“pioneer” contacts and local attitudes toward the Seminoles see Mrs. Trapp, Harlan, My Pioneer Reminiscences (Miami, Fla., 1940), pp. 2–3.Google ScholarSee also Maxwell, Cora S., Miami of Yesterday (Miami, Fla., 1956), pp. 12–13.Google ScholarOn Tuttle's early connections with the Seminoles see “Julia DeForest Tuttle,” typed biographical sketch, Tuttle Papers, Historical Museum of Southern Florida. On the views of Native Americans see “Indians Quiet and Peaceful,” Miami Metropolis, 12 June 1896, p. 7; “In the Everglades,” Miami Metropolis, 19June 1896, p. 5; and “A Seminole Tradition,” Miami Metropolis, 17july 1896, p. 2. Cohen, Sketches, p. 27.Google Scholar

31. The strong representation of evangelical Protestantism, especially Baptist and Methodist piety, among the local public leaders and church members suggests significant parallels with the wider history of religion in the South. See Mathews, Donald G., Religion in the Old South (Chicago, 1977).Google ScholarOn religious life in Florida as part of the southern region, see Hill, Samuel S., “Florida,” in Religion in the Southern States: A Historical Study, ed. Hill, Samuel S. (Macon, Ga., 1983).Google Scholar

32. On church membership in Dade County, see U.S. Bureau of the Census, Religious Bodies: 1906 (Washington, D.C., 1910), 1:302.Google ScholarOn religious affiliation in the South, see U.S. Census, Religious Bodies: 1906 (Washington, D.C., 1910), 1:46–47.Google ScholarSee also the table in Grantham, Dewey W., Southern Progressivism (Knoxville, Tenn., 1983), p. 20.Google Scholar

33. Peters, , Miami 1909, pp. 174–181.Google ScholarOn Ida Nelson, see the biographical portrait, “MrsNelson, Edwin,” typescript, archives, First United Methodist Church, Miami. George, Paul S., “Bootleggers, Prohibitionists, and Police: The Temperance Movement in Miami, 1896–1920,” Tequesta 39 (1979): 34–41.Google Scholar

34. Several fine historical and sociological studies of urban religion have appeared. Among them are Hackett, David G., The Rude Hand of Innovation: Religion and Social Order in Albany, New York, 1652–1836 (New York, 1991)Google Scholarand Demerath, N. J. III and Williams, Rhys H., A Bridging of Faiths: Religion and Politics in a New England City (Princeton, N.J., 1992).Google Scholar Here I use two works in particular to illumine developments in Miami and identify transregional patterns: Engh, Michael E., Frontier Faiths: Church, Temple, and Synagogue in Los Angeles, 1846–1888 (Albuquerque, N.M., 1992)Google Scholarand Lewis, James W., The Protestant Experience in Gary, Indiana, 1906–1975: At Home in the City (Knoxville, Tenn., 1992).Google ScholarOn Los Angeles see also Singleton, Gregory H., Religion in the City of Angels: American Protestant Culture and Urbanization, Los Angeles, 1850–1930 (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1979).Google ScholarI also consulted Cristiano's, Kevin J.Religious Diversity and Social Change: American Cities, 1890–1906 (Cambridge, U.K., 1987). Lewis, Protestant Experience, p. 16.Google Scholar