by Jeff Zines
FIU’s Special Collections staff have recently completed the processing of the Mickey Wolfson Theater Collection.
About the Donor:
Mitchell "Mickey" Wolfson was born in 1939 and raised in Miami Beach and Asheville, NC. His parents were Frances Cohen (December 16, 1906– May 9, 1980) and Mitchell Wolfson (1900–1983). His father was the founder of Wometco Enterprises in 1925 and served as the first Jewish mayor of Miami Beach in 1943. His older brother, Louis Wolfson II, was a Florida state representative from Dade County from 1963–1973. Mickey Wolfson is a graduate of the Lawrenceville School, Princeton, and Johns Hopkins. He is an American businessman and collector who founded the Wolfsonian Museum in Miami Beach and Genoa, Italy.
In 1986, Wolfson established The Wolfsonian Foundation, a research center and museum in Miami Beach; and in 1997, he donated his collection, estimated at 80,000 objects, as well as the state-of-the-art museum to Florida International University. It was the basis for establishing the Wolfsonian Museum-FIU.
About the Collection:
The collection reflects Mr. Wolfson’s many interests and passions in theater and performance arts. It contains nearly 20 linear feet of material. The bulk of the collection includes playbills, programs, and other ephemera from U.S. and international performances from the later 1940s through the mid-2010s. A little over a quarter of the collection is focused on South Florida, with performances dating back to the 1960s. Of special note in the broader collection are playbills from Soviet ballet and theater troupes that performed in the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s, arguably one of the “chillier” periods of the Cold War. Also notable are original playbills from some of Broadway’s best-known performances of the mid-twentieth century, including “How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying,” and “Hair.” However, there is more to this arrangement of playbills and programs than meets the eye.
There are two aspects of this collection that really stand out and make it attractive to students across several disciplines. The first is the amount of languages present in the collection. While English, German, and Italian are the most numerous representations, one can find materials in Afrikaans, Bulgarian, Chinese, and over a dozen other languages. (SPC staff became very familiar with Google Translate and other language apps!) The other interesting aspect is the advertising present in most of the materials. The ads from the 1960s have a definite "Mad Men" feel to them, and one gets a sense of what kind of cars, whiskey and cigarettes the patrons of the arts preferred in that era.
This is an extensive collection of an unique subject. It is now available to the public, and we hope that many scholars will stop by the Green Library and check it out. For more information about the collection and to view the collection finding aid visit Mickey Wolfson Theater Collection. We look forward to your visit and invite you to schedule an appointment or class presentation by contacting us at spcoll@fiu.edu.
