In 1900, Florida was largely agricultural and frontier, most Floridians lived within 50 miles of the Georgia border. The population grew from only 529,000 in 1900 to 18.3 million in 2009. The population explosion began with the great land boom of the 1920s as Florida went from an undiscovered frontier to a land speculator’s paradise. When the Crash came in 1929, prices of houses plunged (as they did again in 2007–09), but the sunshine remained. Hurt badly by the Great Depression and the land bust, Florida kept afloat with federal relief money under the Roosevelt Administration.
Florida’s economy did not fully recover until the buildup for World War II. The climate, tempered by the growing availability of air conditioning, and low cost of living made the state a haven. Migration from the Rust Belt and the Northeast sharply increased the population after the war. In recent decades, more migrants have come for the jobs in a developing economy. With a population of more than 18 million according to the 2010 census, Florida is the most populous state in the Southeastern United States, the second most populous state in the South behind Texas, and the fourth most populous in the United States.
Race relations
The remains of Sarah Carrier’s house after the Rosewood massacre
After World War I, there was a rise in lynchings and other racial violence directed by whites against blacks in the state, as well as across the South and in northern cities. It was due in part from strains of rapid social and economic changes, as well as competition for jobs. Whites continued to resort to lynchings to keep dominance, and tensions rose. White mobs committed murders, accompanied by wholesale destruction of black houses, churches and schools, in the small communities of Ocoee, November 1920; Perry in December 1922; and Rosewood in January 1923. The governor appointed a special grand jury and special prosecuting attorney to investigate Rosewood and Levy County, but the jury did not find sufficient evidence to prosecute. Rosewood was never resettled.
To escape segregation, lynchings, and civil right suppression, 40,000 African Americans migrated from Florida to northern cities in the Great Migration from 1910–1940. That was one-fifth of their population in 1900. They sought better lives, including decent-paying jobs, better education for their children, and the chance to vote and participate in political life. Many were recruited for jobs with the Pennsylvania Railroad.[21]
Boom of 1920s
The 1920s were a prosperous time for much of the nation, including Florida. Florida’s new railroads opened up large areas to development, spurring the Florida land boom of the 1920s. Investors of all kinds, mostly from outside Florida, raced to buy and sell rapidly appreciating land in newly platted communities such as Miami and Palm Beach. Led by entrepreneurs Carl Fisher and George Merrick, Miami was transformed by land speculation and ambitious building projects into an emerging metropolis. A growing awareness in the North about the attractive south Florida winter climate, along with local promotion of speculative investing, spurred the boom.[22] A majority of the people who bought land in Florida were able to do so without stepping foot in the state, by hiring intermediaries. By 1924, the main issues in state elections were how to attract more industry and the need to build and maintain good roads for tourists.[23]
By 1925, the market ran out of buyers to pay the high prices, and soon the boom became a bust. The 1926 Miami Hurricane further depressed the real estate market.[24]
Prohibition
Prohibition had been popular in north Florida, but was opposed in the south, which became a haven for speakeasies and rum-runners in the 1920s. During 1928–32 a broad coalition of judges, lawyers, politicians, journalists, brewers, hoteliers, retailers, and ordinary Floridians organized to try to repeal the ban on alcohol. When the federal government legalized near beer and light wine in 1933, the wet coalition launched a successful campaign to legalize these beverages at the state level. Floridians subsequently joined in the national campaign to repeal the 18th Amendment, which succeeded in December 1933. The following November, state voters repealed Florida’s constitutional ban on liquor and gave local governments the power to legalize or outlaw alcoholic beverages.[25]
Great Depression
The Great Depression occurred in 1929. By that time, the economy had already declined in much of Florida from the collapse four years earlier of the land boom.[citation needed]
The New Deal (1933–40) changed and reaffirmed the physical and environmental landscape of south Florida. Sewers, roads and schools were built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). There were work camps for the young men of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).[citation needed]
Anticipating war, the Army and Navy decided to use the state as a primary training area. The Navy chose the coastal areas, the Army, the inland areas.[26]
In 1940, the population was about 1.5 million. Average annual income was $308 ($4,823.87 in 2012 dollars). [26]