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THE SWAMP PEDDLERS
April 19, 2023 @ 11:30 am - 1:00 pm
FreeJoin us at Michael’s On East for our fourth annual Nature Lecture! This event brings a noted mission-relevant speaker to Sarasota. Past speakers include noted Florida photographer, Clyde Butcher; author, Andrea Wulf; and world-renowned entomologist, Dr. Jack Longino.
This year’s speaker is award-winning author and historian, Jason Vuic.
THE SWAMP PEDDLERS
How Lot Sellers, Land Scammers, and Retirees Built Modern Florida and Transformed the American Dream
Originally from Punta Gorda, FL, Jason Vuic is a graduate of Wake Forest University, and holds an M.A. in history from the University of Richmond and a Ph.D. in history from Indiana University Bloomington. His first book, The Yugo: the Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History, received rave reviews in over 100 print and web-based publications, and in 2016, his book The Yucks! Two Years in Tampa with the Losingest Team in NFL History, garnered wide acclaim from several dozen media outlets and publications.
In 2021, Vuic published The Swamp Peddlers, a tale of misguided land development in Florida during the grow-at-any-cost 1950s and ’60s, which won the Phillip and Dana Zimmerman Gold Medal Prize for Florida Nonfiction at the 2021 Florida Book Awards, as well as the 2021 Charlton Tebeau Award for outstanding general interest book from the Florida Historical Society.
In this lecture by the same name, Vuic dives into the history of the “installment land sales industry,” which seemingly appeared out of nowhere to sell billions of dollars of Florida residential property, sight unseen, to retiring northerners. For only $10 down and $10 a month, working-class pensioners could buy a piece of the Florida dream: a graded homesite waiting for them in a planned community when they were ready to build. The result was Cape Coral, Port St. Lucie, Deltona, Port Charlotte, Palm Coast, and Spring Hill, among many others–sprawling exurban communities with no downtowns and little industry but millions of residential lots. These communities allowed generations of northerners to move to Florida cheaply, but at a price.
We hope you’ll join us for what promises to be a captivating program.
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