For Sale - American Paradise : How Our Nation Was Sold an Impossible Dream in Florida

The true story behind Florida's role in the American Dream is shared through the experiences of American icon William Jennings Bryan, journalist Edwin Menninger, and others who shaped the image of Florida that we know today and who sold that image as America's paradise. Influencers including the Marx Brothers, Thomas Edison, Al Capone, and a pack of backwoods bandits known as the Ashley Gang poured their dreams and their cash into Florida in the roaring, raucous 1920s. Florida's image as a paradise without any rules and where only winners go to play was formed at the dawn of consumerism, a time where Americans wanted to make lots of money and have fun, and millions of them thought Florida was the perfect place to do exactly that. Book jacket.