A transformational gift received in 2023 was the catalyst for the Allen Lastinger Center for Florida History, which held its grand opening in the fall of 2025. It is an interdisciplinary center for academic excellence housed within University of North Florida’s Thomas G. Carpenter Library. It houses the Lastingers' donated collection of unique and historic Floridian artifacts, books, and maps. Most of the collection will be digitized and globally available to UNF faculty and students and audiences outside of UNF who wish to learn about Florida history. The Allen Lastinger Center for Florida History collects primary and secondary source material related to the state of Florida's transportation and economic industries, from Precontact to the present, placing Florida history within the larger context of the history of the United States and Atlantic world. Comprised of books, maps, manuscripts, postcards, and other ephemera, the Center’s foundational collection has a strong focus on banking, tourism, cartography, and trade.
We are located in the Thomas G. Carpenter Library on the second floor. We are open to the UNF community as well as the public. Please see the Visiting tab for further details.
Mission
It is the mission of the Allen Lastinger Center for Florida History to provide an open and supportive space for the study, use, and stewardship of historical materials related to the history of the state of Florida; supporting student and faculty success as well as the larger community of those interested in the materials.
Vision
The Allen Lastinger Center for Florida History aims to be a global resource for scholars and community members who seek to expand their knowledge about the state of Florida, through both in-person and digital platforms.
Values
Allen Lastinger’s fascination with Florida history sparked while he was delving into his great-grandfather’s past, who had settled in what is now Jefferson County in the 1820s. During his research, Allen stumbled upon unfamiliar locations and place names that were absent from modern maps. This discovery ignited his curiosity, leading him to amass a growing collection of maps. He began seeking out maps from both before and after Florida achieved statehood, eager to understand the state’s and region’s transformation over time.
Allen’s passion for collecting soon expanded beyond maps to include books, prints, and various ephemera related to Florida’s towns, cities, counties, inhabitants, and even Barnett Bank.
In 2023, Allen donated his extensive collection to the Thomas G. Carpenter Library at the University of North Florida, ensuring that others could benefit from his efforts. This generous donation, plus an additional significant financial contribution, led to the establishment of the Allen Lastinger Center for Florida History. Allen hopes that the center will inspire a deeper interest in Florida’s history and encourage further research into the state’s and region’s rich past.
The Allen Lastinger Center for Florida History is fortunate to have an advisory council of interested faculty, whose academic fields of interest align with the center's mission. These individuals give their time to provide guidance and subject matter expertise to the Librarian. The 2024-2025 council is made up of the following faculty:
Keith Ashley (Ph.D. University of Florida, 2003) is an archaeologist and associate professor of anthropology. His current research focuses on the Indigenous peoples and histories of southeastern North America, particularly Florida. Presently, he is exploring the involvement of St. Johns River fisher-hunter-gatherers in the broader world of Indigenous farmers during the 10th through the 13th centuries CE. His research also delves into the 16th and 17th century social landscape of the Indigenous Timucua-speaking Mocama. He is actively involved in archaeological excavations with UNF students throughout northeastern Florida.
Christopher Baynard is an associate Professor in Geospatial Technologies in the Department of Economics and Geography. He joined the Coggin College of Business in 2008, where he teaches courses in GIS (Intro and Intermediate), GIS and economic geography, remote sensing and aerial photography and mapping, as well as directed independent study classes. Additionally, Professor Baynard has developed and led Study-Abroad courses focused on the wine industry, renewable energy, and natural resource management in Argentina and Chile, Spain and Portugal, Holland and Germany.
James Beasley is an associate professor at the University of North Florida where he teaches rhetorical history, theory, and research. His work has been published in CCCC, Rhetoric Review, and Enculturation. He is the author of Rhetoric at the University of Chicago and the co-author of Dramatism and Musical Theater: Experiments in Rhetorical Performance with Kimberly Eckel Beasley, both published by Peter Lang Publishing.
Denise Bossy is an associate professor of history at the University of North Florida and North American editor-in-chief of the Ethnohistory journal. She received her BA from Princeton University and her PhD from Yale University. Her teaching and research focus on Florida, local Indigenous history, public and digital humanities, and the Native South. Her award-winning publications include The Yamasee Indians: From Florida to South Carolina (University of Nebraska Press 2018). Her forthcoming book, Yamasee: Indigenous Mobility and Power in the Early South, is under contract with the Omohundro Institute at the University of North Carolina Press. She is currently working with Dr. Keith Ashley on a public-facing book and digital humanities site that examine the deep history of the Mocamas, Guales, and Yamasees of Northeast Florida. This work is being funded by a 3-year National Endowment for the Humanities Collaborative Research grant. For more see https://indigenousflorida.domains.unf.edu/
P. Scott Brown is professor of Art History and interim dean of the Dean of the Hicks Honors College at UNF.
Charles Closmann is an associate professor of History at UNF.
Ian Carey received his BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago and his MFA in Painting and Drawing from Illinois State University. He also earned a BAS in Anthropology and Political Science from the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana. Ian has taught painting, drawing, and Museum Studies courses at Illinois State University, Illinois Wesleyan University, and California State Polytechnic Humboldt. He has served as the Merwin and Wakeley Galleries director at Illinois Wesleyan University and, most recently, as the Permanent Art Collection Curator at Indiana State University, teaching Political Philosophy and Museum Studies coursework. Ian is a working artist and has had the opportunity to exhibit his work nationally and internationally.
Laura Heffernan is professor of English and one of the founding directors of the Digital Humanities Institute at UNF. Her research focuses on literary and archival histories of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She is co-author, with Rachel Sagner Buurma, of The Teaching Archive: A New History for Literary Study (University of Chicago Press, 2021), an award-winning disciplinary history of English that draws on archival evidence of teaching practice gathered from dozens of university and college archives in the US and the UK. At UNF, Dr. Heffernan has helped to elevate the study of local history by establishing curriculum and training for UNF students to learn archival processing and complete internships with local historical societies and museums. In 2021, along with UNF colleagues Dr. Tru Leverette-Hall and Dr. Clayton McCarl, Dr. Heffernan secured funding from the National Endowment of the Humanities to complete the Viola Muse Digital Edition. She is currently at work on a book about Muse and the other men and women who formed the Negro Writers Unit of the Florida Federal Writers project (1936-40) here in Jacksonville.
