Centering floating divs within another div

First, remove the float attribute on the inner divs. Then, put text-align: center on the main outer div. And for the inner divs, use display: inline-block. Might also be wise to give them explicit widths too.

<div style="margin: auto 1.5em; display: inline-block;">
  <img title="Nadia Bjorlin" alt="Nadia Bjorlin" src="headshot.nadia.png"/>
  <br/>
  Nadia Bjorlin
</div>

With Flexbox you can easily horizontally (and vertically) center floated children inside a div.

So if you have simple markup like so:

<div class="wpr">
    <span></span>
    <span></span>
    <span></span>
    <span></span>
    <span></span>
</div>

with CSS:

.wpr
{
    width: 400px;
    height: 100px;
    background: pink;
    padding: 10px 30px;
}

.wpr span
{
    width: 50px;
    height: 50px;
    background: green;
    float: left; /* **children floated left** */
    margin: 0 5px;
}

(This is the (expected - and undesirable) RESULT)

Now add the following rules to the wrapper:

display: flex;
justify-content: center; /* align horizontal */

and the floated children get aligned center (DEMO)

Just for fun, to get vertical alignment as well just add:

align-items: center; /* align vertical */

DEMO

I accomplished the above using relative positioning and floating to the right.

HTML code:

<div class="clearfix">                          
    <div class="outer-div">
        <div class="inner-div">
            <div class="floating-div">Float 1</div>
            <div class="floating-div">Float 2</div>
            <div class="floating-div">Float 3</div>
        </div>
    </div>
</div>

CSS:

.outer-div { position: relative; float: right; right: 50%; }
.inner-div { position: relative; float: right; right: -50%; }
.floating-div { float: left; border: 1px solid red; margin: 0 1.5em; }

.clearfix:before,
.clearfix:after { content: " "; display: table; }
.clearfix:after { clear: both; }
.clearfix { *zoom: 1; }

JSFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/MJ9yp/

This will work in IE8 and up, but not earlier (surprise, surprise!)

I do not recall the source of this method unfortunately, so I cannot give credit to the original author. If anybody else knows, please post the link!

The following solution does not use inline blocks. However, it requires two helper divs:

1. The content is floated
2. The inner helper is floated (it stretches as much as the content)
3. The inner helper is pushed right 50% (its left aligns with center of outer helper)
4. The content is pulled left 50% (its center aligns with left of inner helper)
5. The outer helper is set to hide the overflow

.ca-outer {
  overflow: hidden;
  background: #FFC;
}
.ca-inner {
  float: left;
  position: relative;
  left: 50%;
  background: #FDD;
}
.content {
  float: left;
  position: relative;
  left: -50%;
  background: #080;
}
/* examples */
div.content > div {
  float: left;
  margin: 10px;
  width: 100px;
  height: 100px;
  background: #FFF;
}
ul.content {
  padding: 0;
  list-style-type: none;
}
ul.content > li {
  margin: 10px;
  background: #FFF;
}

<div class="ca-outer">
  <div class="ca-inner">
    <div class="content">
      <div>Box 1</div>
      <div>Box 2</div>
      <div>Box 3</div>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>
<hr>
<div class="ca-outer">
  <div class="ca-inner">
    <ul class="content">
      <li>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.</li>
      <li>Nullam efficitur nulla in libero consectetur dictum ac a sem.</li>
      <li>Suspendisse iaculis risus ut dapibus cursus.</li>
    </ul>
  </div>
</div>