The Visionaires was founded in February 1938 by eight women who sought to establish a community organization that could foster civic, cultural, and social affairs for African American women in Gainesville, Florida.  Regular meetings were held every other Thursday night and dues were 25 cents per month.  Meetings were held in members' homes, in alphabetical order.  

The group was organized into three committees: Program (for literary affairs), Social (social functions for meetings and special events), and Civic (programs that promoted the welfare of the African American community) committees.

The Visionaires Collection consists of minutes of their meetings, records of financial transactions, photographs, and materials that document the organization's participation in school and community activities (e.g., an annual achievement award based on scholastic performance by African American high school graduates).


The records of the Visionaires are a part of the Department of Special and Area Studies Collections and its African American History Collections at the University of Florida Libraries. This digital collection is part of a larger corpus of African American Collections in the Department, and of a much larger Florida Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Collections.