Sunday, April 27, 2025, 2 – 3 p.m.
Orlando may be the least understood world-famous city in the United States. Its theme parks draw millions, but relatively few of them realize it also boasts a history that goes back long before Walt Disney World opened in 1971. For most of that history, photographers and artists have documented life in Florida’s largest inland city. In this illustrated talk, designed to complement the History Center’s latest special exhibition, Orlando Collected, longtime Central Florida history writer Joy Wallace Dickinson traces the trajectory of Orlando’s last 150 years through favorite images of the city and some of the fascinating folks who have called it home.
This program is free with registration.
About the Speaker
Joy Wallace Dickinson grew up in Orlando, where she remembers seeing at least one alligator in the lake across from her childhood home in Thornton Park. She has edited historical books at the Institute of Early American History in Williamsburg, Virginia, and Stanford University Press in Palo Alto, California. From 2000 to 2023, she wrote the weekly “Florida Flashback” feature in the Orlando Sentinel about aspects of Central Florida’s past. She’s also the author of three nonfiction books about Central Florida’s past, including Orlando: City of Dreams, and a mystery novel set in Orlando in the late 1940s titled Secrets of the Flamingo Café.
About the Brechner Series
The History Center’s Brechner Speaker Series honors the late Joseph L. Brechner, a longtime journalist, Central Florida community leader, and television pioneer who is also remembered as one of Orlando’s first clear public voices for civil rights. The son of Eastern European immigrants, Brechner believed deeply in American democracy and citizens’ responsibilities to be informed and participate. The museum’s research center, home to the archival collection and historical of the Historical Society of Central Florida, also bears Brechner’s name.
