MIAMI \u2014 The next big artifact documenting South Florida\u2019s past probably isn\u2019t behind glass, it\u2019s likely forgotten, collecting dust. <\/p>\n
Maybe it\u2019s sitting in a closet. Maybe it\u2019s tucked away in a garage. Wherever it is, whatever it is, the team at Wolfson Archives<\/a> wants to find it \u2014 preserving history while adding to it.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of those home movies chronicle places that no longer exist,\u201d said Lou Kramer, archives manager at the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives. \u201cYou see people on vacation. You see family events. You see the crazy things that families do when a camera is pointed at them.\u201d<\/p>\n The archives<\/a>, a division of Miami Dade College, houses one of the largest collections of moving images of South Florida. They want to digitize it all and make it accessible to the public. Inside its temperature controlled vault is millions of feet of local film and thousands of hours of tape already. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a project that you want to be a part of,\u201d Kramer said. \u201cWe are safeguarding history. We are safeguarding the past,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n Many of those recordings came from ordinary families, documenting milestones and moments of shared tradition and social life. From pool days at the Venetian in the 1920s in Coral Gables, to quincea\u00f1eras in Miami, circa 1966, and big birthdays decades later \u2014 it\u2019s all restored and saved online. <\/p>\n The team at Wolfson Archives carefully cleans and digitizes aging film reels and videotapes that are donated by families and local news organizations. Local 10\u2019s archival footage makes up a massive part of this collection used by researchers, students, historians, filmmakers, and the public to experience and learn from. <\/p>\n WATCH: Major videotape donation by WPLG to Wolfson Archives 2007<\/a><\/p>\n CLICK HERE <\/a>to search the Wolfson archives.<\/p>\n For family films, search \u201chome movies\u201d \u2014 then enter a year and a keyword \u2014i.e \u201c1940, birthday.\u201d <\/p>\n Together, the footage creates a visual timeline of the region \u2014 from major headlines to everyday moments that reveal how communities lived, celebrated and evolved.<\/p>\n To donate your film to the archive or to request help with old reels, click here.<\/a><\/p>\n To submit an idea for What Connects Us, email whatconnectsus@wplg.com<\/a>. <\/p>\n Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n