Ruskin is an unincorporated census-designated place in Hillsborough County, Florida. The area was part of the chiefdom of the Uzita at the time of the Hernando de Soto expedition in 1539. The community was founded August 7, 1908, on the shores of the Little Manatee River. It was developed by Dr. George McAnelly Miller, an attorney and professor at Ruskin College in Trenton, Missouri, and Addie Dickman Miller. It is named after the essayist and social critic John Ruskin. Miller established the short-lived Ruskin College. It was one of the Ruskin Colleges.

The Ruskin Colleges were a group of American colleges founded in the early 20th century by the socialist philanthropist Walter Vrooman, the college administrator George McAnelly Miller, and others, in the same spirit as the British Ruskin College, which Vrooman had cofounded. A core idea was for students to gain vocational training and earn their way through college by working in a cooperative business associated with the college. Ruskin Colleges were founded in Missouri, Illinois, and Florida.