Cori, you’ve spent many years interpreting the Florida Keys through the lens of maritime history and museum curation. How did your academic path and international museum experience lead you to the Key West Art & Historical Society, and what drew you specifically to the cultural heritage of the Keys?
In 2000, I made the best decision of my life - I moved to Key West. The history, architecture, culture, people, and food immediately captured my heart, and I’ve been fascinated by the Keys ever since.
My academic background in maritime history, including a master’s from the University of Greenwich and a Ph.D. from the University of Exeter, naturally shaped the way I came to understand this place. My doctoral research focused on British seamen in the West Indies, and my work with the P&O Heritage Collection in the UK gave me valuable experience in museum collections and interpretation.
But Key West was different. Here, maritime history isn’t just something in a collection - it’s woven into the community’s identity. Since moving here, I’ve devoted much of my research to the fascinating and diverse history of the Florida Keys, and I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to preserve and share those stories through the Key West Art & Historical Society.
When you look across the Society’s four sites — from the Gilded Age Custom House to the Civil War-era Fort East Martello and the Tennessee Williams Museum — how do you decide which stories to foreground so that visitors grasp the depth and diversity of Florida Keys cultural heritage rather than just its tourist image?
I think the key is to show visitors that there isn’t one single Florida Keys story. Our four museum sites allow us to tell very different stories - from architecture and maritime history to military history, art, literature, and the people who shaped this community.
We try to look beyond the familiar tourist narrative and ask: Whose stories haven’t been told? What can our collections and historic sites reveal about the people who lived, worked, and created here?
Whether we’re interpreting the art and history of the Florida Keys at our flagship Key West Museum of Art & History, exploring stories of resilience at the Key West Lighthouse, examining military history at Fort East Martello, or sharing Tennessee Williams’ life and work, we’re always looking for connections to the larger history of Key West and the Keys. The goal is to give visitors a deeper understanding of this place - to leave knowing there is far more to the Florida Keys than what they see on the surface.
You’ve curated more than 50 exhibitions on art and historical themes. Could you walk us through a specific exhibition or project in the Keys where you felt you truly ‘activated’ local heritage — transforming archives, artifacts, or architecture into something that changed how residents or visitors understood this place?
One exhibition that stands out is Suzie dePoo: The Art of Hand Printing. Suzie Zuzek dePoo was a remarkable Key West artist who became the lead designer for Key West Hand Print Fabrics and Lilly Pulitzer, creating colorful, Caribbean-inspired designs that became part of the visual identity of Key West.
What fascinated me was that this wasn’t simply a story about beautiful fabrics. Key West Hand Print was once the island’s largest private employer, with more than 200 people working there. So the exhibition became a way to explore art, entrepreneurship, local industry, and the people behind an iconic piece of Key West culture.
For me, that’s what it means to activate heritage: taking something people may remember as a familiar piece of the island’s past and revealing the much bigger story behind it. The fabrics weren’t just souvenirs. They represented creativity, community, and an important chapter in Key West’s economic and cultural history.
The Custom House and the recently restored Key West Lighthouse & Keeper’s Quarters are themselves major historic artifacts. What have been the biggest intellectual and practical challenges in restoring and interpreting such landmark buildings, especially when balancing historical accuracy, modern conservation standards and visitor expectations?
The biggest challenge is recognizing that historic buildings are living documents. They have often been altered, repaired, and adapted many times over their history, so deciding which period or story to emphasize can be surprisingly complex.
There’s also a constant balance between historical accuracy and the realities of conservation, safety, accessibility, and modern visitor expectations. We want people to experience these buildings as authentically as possible, but we also have a responsibility to preserve them for future generations.
The Key West Lighthouse is a wonderful example. Its restoration gave us an opportunity to look closely at the building itself, not simply as an iconic landmark, but as a place where generations of lighthouse keepers and their families lived and worked. Those human stories help transform the architecture from something visitors simply look at into something they can connect with.
Ultimately, our goal is preservation with purpose: protecting these remarkable places while making sure they continue to tell meaningful stories to the community and to the visitors who come through our doors.
Through initiatives like “Happy Hour with the Historian” and your talk on the history of Florida Keys tourism, you work at the intersection of scholarship and public outreach. How do you adapt complex or sensitive stories — such as military history, economic hardship or the commercialization of the Keys — so they are both rigorous and genuinely engaging for a broad audience?
I think the key is to tell good stories. Scholarship gives us the research and the facts, but storytelling is what allows people to connect with them. I try to take complex subjects and find the human experiences within them: the people, choices, challenges, and sometimes contradictions that make history relevant.
I also don’t shy away from difficult or uncomfortable parts of our history. Military history, economic hardship, and the commercialization of the Keys all have complicated stories behind them, and I think our role as historians is to present those stories honestly while giving audiences the context to understand them.
Programs like 'Happy Hour with the Historian' give me the opportunity to make that scholarship accessible and conversational. If someone leaves a program curious enough to ask another question, look something up, or see Key West a little differently on their walk home, then I feel we’ve done our job.
Key West and the wider Keys are facing rapid environmental and socio-economic changes. Looking ahead 10–20 years, how do you imagine the role of institutions like the Key West Art & Historical Society evolving in safeguarding, interpreting and sharing local cultural heritage in the face of sea level rise, tourism pressures and demographic shifts?
I think our role will become even more important. Cultural heritage isn’t just about preserving buildings and objects. It’s about preserving the stories, traditions, and sense of place that make the Keys unique. As the community changes, some of those stories and traditions are at risk of being lost.
Museums have an important role to play in documenting that change as it happens. We need to collect not only historic objects, but also the voices and experiences of the people who are living through these changes. Oral histories, photographs, personal archives, objects, and community stories can become incredibly important records for future generations.
At the same time, we have to think practically about how we protect our historic buildings and collections from sea level rise, increasingly severe weather, and other environmental challenges. For me, the next 10 to 20 years will require us to be much more intentional about documenting a community in transition - preserving the cultural heritage we have today while recognizing that the story of the Keys is continuing to change.
For people who love the Florida Keys beyond the postcard image, what concrete actions — whether they’re locals, repeat visitors or distant admirers — would you recommend they take to help ensure that the region’s art, history and everyday stories continue to be preserved and valued for future generations?
The simplest thing is to be curious and engaged. Visit the museums, go beyond the familiar tourist attractions, attend local lectures and programs, and take the time to learn the stories behind the places you think you already know.
For locals and repeat visitors especially, I’d encourage them to share their own histories. Old photographs, family stories, letters, business records, and personal recollections can be incredibly valuable to museums and researchers. What may seem ordinary today can become an important piece of the historical record tomorrow.
And perhaps most importantly, support the organizations and individuals doing this work. Museums, archives, historic sites, artists, and cultural organizations all need community support to preserve and interpret the Keys’ heritage.
You don’t have to be a historian to help preserve history. Sometimes it starts simply with recognizing that your own story, or your family’s story, is part of the larger story of the Florida Keys.
Learn more: https://www.kwahs.org/