Marjory Stoneman Douglas (April 7, 1890 – May 14, 1998) was an American journalist, author, women's suffrage advocate, and conservationist known for her staunch defense of the

Everglades The Everglades is a natural region of flooded grasslands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large drainage basin within the Neotropical realm. The system begins near Orlando with the K ...

against efforts to drain it and reclaim land for development. Moving to Miami as a young woman to work for ''

The Miami Herald The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by The McClatchy Company and headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Founded in 1903, it is the fifth-largest newspaper in Florida, serving Miami-Dade, Broward, and Monroe countie ...

'', she became a

freelance writer ''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance w ...

, producing over one hundred

short stories A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...

that were published in popular magazines. Her most influential work was the book '' The Everglades: River of Grass'' (1947), which redefined the popular conception of the Everglades as a treasured river instead of a worthless swamp. Its impact has been compared to that of

Rachel Carson Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist, writer, and conservation movement, conservationist whose sea trilogy (1941–1955) and book ''Silent Spring'' (1962) are credited with advancing mari ...

's influential book ''

Silent Spring ''Silent Spring'' is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson. Published on September 27, 1962, the book documented the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of DDT, a pesticide used by soldiers during World War II. Carson acc ...

'' (1962). Her books, stories, and journalism career brought her influence in Miami, enabling her to advance her causes. As a young woman, Douglas was outspoken and politically conscious of the

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...

and

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' political freedom, freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and ...

movements. She was called upon to take a central role in the protection of the Everglades when she was 79 years old. For the remaining 29 years of her life she was "a relentless reporter and fearless crusader" for the natural preservation and restoration of

South Florida South Florida, sometimes colloquially shortened to SoFlo, is the Regions of the United States#Florida, southernmost region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is one of Florida's three most commonly referred to directional regions; the two others are ...

.Grunwald, p. 204. Her tireless efforts earned her several variations of the nickname "Grande Dame of the Everglades" as well as the hostility of agricultural and business interests looking to benefit from land development in Florida. She received numerous awards, including the

Presidential Medal of Freedom The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, alongside the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by decision of the president of the United States to "any person recommended to the President ...

, and was inducted into several halls of fame. Douglas lived to 108, working until nearly the end of her life for Everglades restoration. Upon her death, an obituary in ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' in London stated, "In the history of the American environmental movement, there have been few more remarkable figures than Marjory Stoneman Douglas."

Early life

Marjory Stoneman was born on April 7, 1890, in

Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

, the only child of concert violinist Florence Lillian Trefethen (1859-1912) and Frank Bryant Stoneman (1857–1941). One of her earliest memories was her father reading to her ''

The Song of Hiawatha ''The Song of Hiawatha'' is an 1855 epic poem in trochaic tetrameter by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow which features Native American characters. The epic relates the fictional adventures of an Ojibwe warrior named Hiawatha and the tragedy of his lo ...

'', at which she burst into sobs upon hearing that the tree had to give its life in order to provide Hiawatha the wood for a canoe.Douglas, p. 42. She was an early and voracious reader. Her first book was ''

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (also known as ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English Children's literature, children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics university don, don at the University of Oxford. It details the story of a ...

'', which she kept well into adulthood until "some fiend in human form must have borrowed it and not brought it back". She visited Florida when she was four, and her most vivid memory of the trip was picking an orange from a tree at the

Tampa Bay Hotel Tampa ( ) is a city on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. Tampa's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and t ...

. From there she and her parents embarked on a cruise from

Tampa Tampa ( ) is a city on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. Tampa's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and t ...

Havana Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Duncan, Scott (May 15, 1998). "Marjory, we loved you so." ''The Miami Herald''; Commentary. Marjory's parents separated when she was six. Her father endured a series of failed entrepreneurial ventures and the instability caused her mother to move them abruptly to the Trefethen family house in

Taunton, Massachusetts Taunton is a city in and the county seat of Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. Taunton is situated on the Taunton River, which winds its way through the city on its way to Mount Hope Bay, to the south. As of the 2020 United States ...

. She lived there with her mother, aunt, and grandparents, who did not get along well and consistently spoke ill of her father, to her dismay. Her mother, whom Marjory characterized as "high-strung", was committed to a mental sanitarium in Providence several times. Her parents' separation and the contentiousness of her mother's family caused her to suffer from

night terror Night terror, also called sleep terror, is a sleep disorder causing feelings of panic or dread and typically occurring during the first hours of stage 3–4 non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and lasting for 1 to 10 minutes. It can last longe ...

s. She credited her tenuous upbringing with making her "a skeptic and a dissenter" for the rest of her life. As a youth, Marjory found solace in reading, and eventually, she began to write. At sixteen she contributed to the most popular children's publication of the day, '' St. Nicholas Magazine''—also the first publisher of 20th-century writers F. Scott Fitzgerald,

, and

William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer. He is best known for William Faulkner bibliography, his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in fo ...

—with a puzzle titled "Double Beheadings and Double Curtailings". In 1907, she was awarded a prize by the ''

Boston Herald The ''Boston Herald'' is an American conservative daily newspaper whose primary market is Boston, Massachusetts, and its surrounding area. It was founded in 1846 and is one of the oldest daily newspapers in the United States. It has been awarde ...

'' for "An Early Morning Paddle", a story about a boy who watches a sunrise from a canoe. As her mother's mental health deteriorated, Marjory took on more responsibilities, eventually managing some of the family finances and gaining a maturity imposed upon her by circumstance.

Education and marriage

Marjory left for college in 1908, despite grave misgivings about her mother's mental state. Her aunt and grandmother shared her concerns, but recognized that she needed to leave in order to begin her own life. She was a straight-A student at

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a Private university, private Women's colleges in the United States, historically women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henr ...

,"Marjory Stoneman Douglas."
Friends of the Everglades website. Retrieved on December 17, 2007. graduating with a BA in English in 1912. She found particular success in a class on

elocution Elocution is the study of formal speaking in pronunciation, grammar, style, and tone as well as the idea and practice of effective speech and its forms. It stems from the idea that while communication is symbolic, sounds are final and compel ...

, and joined the first suffrage club with six of her classmates. She was elected Class Orator but was unable to fulfill the office since she was already involved in other activities. During her senior year while visiting home, her mother showed her a lump on her breast. Marjory arranged the surgery to have it removed. After the graduation ceremony, her aunt informed her it had metastasized, and within months her mother was dead. The family left the funeral arrangements up to Marjory. After drifting with college friends through a few jobs to which she did not feel well-suited, Marjory Stoneman met Kenneth Douglas in 1914. She was so impressed with his manners and surprised at the attention he showed her that she married him within three months. He portrayed himself as a newspaper editor, and was 30 years her senior, but the marriage quickly failed when it became apparent he was a con artist. The true extent of his duplicity Marjory did not entirely reveal, despite her honesty in all other matters. Douglas was married to Marjory while already married to another woman. While he spent six months in jail for passing a bad check, she remained faithful to him. His scheme to

scam A scam, or a confidence trick, is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their Trust (emotion), trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using a combination of the victim's credulity, naivety, compassion, vanity, confidence ...

her absent father out of money worked in Marjory's favor when it attracted Frank Stoneman's attention."Marjory Stoneman Douglas."'' Newsmakers 1998'', Issue 4. Gale Group, 1998. Marjory's uncle persuaded her to move to Miami and end the marriage. In the fall of 1915, Marjory Stoneman Douglas left New England to be reunited with her father, whom she had not seen since her parents' separation. Shortly before that, her father had married Lillius ("Lilla") Eleanor Shine, a great-great-granddaughter of

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...

(her grandfather was Francis W. Eppes). Marjory later wrote that Shine "remained my first and best friend all my life in Florida." After moving to Florida in 1915, Marjory rarely returned to Massachusetts, but she retained affection for it; her 1987 memoir ''Voice of the River,'' is dedicated "To Massachusetts, with love."

Writing career

''The Miami Herald''

Douglas arrived in South Florida when fewer than 5,000 people lived in

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

and it was "no more than a glorified railroad terminal". Her father, Frank Stoneman, was the first publisher of the paper that later became ''

''. Stoneman passionately opposed the governor of Florida, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, and his attempts to drain the Everglades. He infuriated Broward so much that when Stoneman won an election for circuit judge, Broward refused to validate the election, so Stoneman was referred to as "Judge" for the rest of his life without performing the duties of one. Douglas joined the newspaper's staff in 1915. She began as a society columnist writing about tea parties and society events, but news was so slow she later admitted to making up some of her stories: "Somebody would say, 'Who's that Mrs. T.Y. Washrag you've got in your column?' And I would say, 'Oh, you know, I don't think she's been here very long'". When her father went on vacation less than a year after her arrival in Miami, he left her the responsibility of the editorial page. She developed a rivalry with an editor at '' The Miami Metropolis'' whose greater familiarity with Miami history gave her cause to make fun of Douglas in writing. Her father scolded her to check her facts better. Douglas was given an assignment in 1916 to write a story on the first woman from Miami to join the US Naval Reserve. When the woman did not show up for the interview, Douglas herself joined the Navy as a Yeoman (F) first class. It did not suit her; she disliked rising early and her superiors did not appreciate her correcting their grammar, so she requested a discharge and joined the

American Red Cross The American National Red Cross is a Nonprofit organization, nonprofit Humanitarianism, humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief, and disaster preparedness education in the United States. Clara Barton founded ...

, which stationed her in Paris. She witnessed the tumultuous celebrations on the Rue de Rivoli when the Armistice was signed and cared for war

refugee A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...

s; seeing them displaced and in a state of shock, she wrote, "helped me understand the plight of refugees in Miami sixty years later". After the war, Douglas served as assistant editor at ''The Miami Herald''. She gained some renown for her daily column, "The Galley", becoming something of a local celebrity. She amassed a devoted readership and attempted to begin each column with a poem. "The Galley" was topical and went in any direction Douglas chose. She promoted responsible urban planning when Miami saw a population boom of 100,000 people in a decade. She wrote supporting women's suffrage,

, and better sanitation while opposing

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic b ...

and foreign trade tariffs. Some of the stories she wrote spoke of the region's wealth as being in its "inevitable development", and she supplemented her income with $100 a week from writing copy advertisements that praised the development of South Florida, something she would reconsider later in her life. In the early 1920s she wrote "Martin Tabert of North Dakota is Walking Florida Now", a ballad lamenting the death of a 22-year-old

vagrant Vagrancy is the condition of wandering homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants usually live in poverty and support themselves by travelling while engaging in begging, scavenging, or petty theft. In Western countries, ...

who was beaten to death in a

labor camp A labor camp (or labour camp, see British and American spelling differences, spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are unfree labour, forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have ...

. It was printed in ''The Miami Herald'', and read aloud during a session of the Florida Legislature, which passed a law banning

convict leasing Convict leasing was a system of forced penal labor that was practiced historically in the Southern United States before it was formally abolished during the 20th century. Under this system, private individuals and corporations could lease la ...

in large part due to her writing. "I think that's the single most important thing I was ever able to accomplish as a result of something I've written", she wrote in her autobiography.

Freelance writer

After quitting the newspaper in 1923, Douglas worked as a freelance writer. From 1920 to 1990, Douglas published 109 fiction articles and stories. One of her first stories was sold to the

pulp fiction ''Pulp Fiction'' is a 1994 American independent crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino from a story he conceived with Roger Avary.See, e.g., King (2002), pp. 185–7; ; It tells four intertwining tales of crime and violence ...

magazine '' Black Mask'' for $600 (equivalent to $ in ). Forty of her stories were published in ''

The Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine published six times a year. It was published weekly from 1897 until 1963, and then every other week until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely circulated and influ ...

''; one, "Story of a Homely Woman", was reprinted in 1937 in the ''Post's'' best short stories compilation.Mason, Kathy. "Marjory Stoneman Douglas." ''The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives'', Volume 5: 1997–1999. Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002. Recurring settings in her fiction were South Florida, the Caribbean, and Europe during World War I. Her protagonists were often independent, quirky women or youthful underdogs who encountered social or natural injustices. The people and animals of the Everglades served as subjects for some of her earliest writings. "Plumes", originally published in the ''Saturday Evening Post'' in 1930, was based on the murder of Guy Bradley, an Audubon Society game warden, by poachers. "Wings" was a nonfiction story, also first appearing in the ''Post'' in 1931, that addressed the slaughter of Everglades wading birds for their feathers. Her story "Peculiar Treasure of a King" was a second-place finalist in the O. Henry Award competition in 1928. During the 1930s, she was commissioned to write a

pamphlet A pamphlet is an unbound book (that is, without a Hardcover, hard cover or Bookbinding, binding). Pamphlets may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths, called a ''leaflet'' ...

supporting a

botanical garden A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is ...

called "An argument for the establishment of a tropical botanical garden in South Florida." Its success caused her to be in demand at garden clubs where she delivered speeches throughout the area, then to serve on the board to support the Fairchild Garden. She called the garden "one of the greatest achievements for the entire area". Douglas became involved with the Miami Theater, and wrote some one-act plays that were fashionable in the 1930s. One, "The Gallows Gate", was about an argument between a mother and father regarding the character of their son who is sentenced to hang. She got the idea from her father, who had witnessed hangings when he lived in the West and was unnerved by the creaking sound of the rope bearing the weight of the hanging body. The play won a state competition, and eventually $500 in a national competition after it was written into three acts. With William W. Muir, husband of reporter Helen Muir, she authored "Storm Warnings", a play loosely based on the life of mobster

Al Capone Alphonse Gabriel Capone ( ; ; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American organized crime, gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-foun ...

. Some of Capone's henchmen showed up at the theater, "add ngan extra tingle for the audience that night", though no actual problems arose. Douglas wrote the foreword to the

Work Projects Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...

's guide to Miami and environs, published in 1941 as part of the

Federal Writers' Project The Federal Writers' Project (FWP) was a federal government project in the United States created to provide jobs for out-of-work writers and to develop a history and overview of the United States, by state, cities and other jurisdictions. It was ...

American Guide Series The American Guide Series includes books and pamphlets published from 1937 to 1941 under the auspices of the Federal Writers' Project (FWP), a Great Depression, Depression-era program that was part of the larger Works Progress Administration in the ...

. Retrieved on June 15, 2015. Douglas served as the book review editor of ''The Miami Herald'' from 1942 to 1949, and as editor for the

University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private university, private research university in Coral Gables, Florida, United States. , the university enrolled 19,852 students in two colleges and ten schools across over ...

Press from 1960 to 1963. She released her first novel, ''Road to the Sun'', in 1952. She wrote four novels, and several nonfiction books on regional topics including Florida

birdwatching Birdwatching, or birding, is the observing of birds, either as a recreational activity or as a form of citizen science. A birdwatcher may observe by using their naked eye, by using a visual enhancement device such as binoculars or a telescop ...

and

David Fairchild David Grandison Fairchild (April 7, 1869 – August 6, 1954) was an American botanist and plant explorer. Fairchild was responsible for the introduction of more than 200,000 exotic plants and varieties of established crops into the United Stat ...

, a biologist who imagined a botanical park in Miami. Her autobiography, ''Marjory Stoneman Douglas: Voice of the River'', was written with John Rothchild in 1987. She had been working on a book about W. H. Hudson for years, traveling to Argentina and England several times. It was incomplete when she died in 1998.

''The Everglades: River of Grass''

Early in the 1940s, Douglas was approached by a publisher to contribute to the Rivers of America Series by writing about the Miami River. Unimpressed with it, she called the Miami River about "an inch long”, but in researching it she became more interested in the Everglades and persuaded the publisher to allow her to write about the Everglades instead. She spent five years researching what little was known about the ecology and history of the Everglades and South Florida. Douglas spent time with geologist Garald Parker, who discovered that South Florida's sole freshwater source was the

Biscayne Aquifer The Biscayne Aquifer, named after Biscayne Bay, is a surficial aquifer. It is a shallow layer of highly Permeability (earth sciences), permeable limestone under a portion of South Florida. The area it underlies includes Broward County, Florida, ...

, and it was filled by the Everglades. Parker confirmed the name of the book that has since become the nickname for the Everglades when Douglas, trying to capture the Everglades' essence, asked if she could safely call the fresh water flowing from Lake Okeechobee a river of grass. '' The Everglades: River of Grass'' was published in 1947 and sold out of its first printing in a month. The book's first line, "There are no other Everglades in the world", has been called the "most famous passage ever written about the Everglades", and the line once welcomed visitors to the

Everglades National Park Everglades National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States that protects the southern twenty percent of the original Everglades in Florida. The park is the largest tropical wilderness in the Un ...

website. Douglas characterized the Everglades as an ecosystem surrounding a river worthy of protection, inescapably connected to South Florida's people and cultures. She outlined its imminent disappearance in the last chapter, "The Eleventh Hour":

Cattlemen's grass fires roared uncontrolled. Cane-field fires spread crackling and hissing in the saw grass in vast waves and pillars and billowing mountains of heavy, cream-colored, purple-shadowed smoke. Training planes flying over the Glades dropped bombs or cigarette butts, and the fires exploded in the hearts of the drying hammocks and raced on before every wind leaving only blackness ... There was no water in the canals with which to fight he firesnbsp;... The sweet water the rock had held was gone or had shrunk far down into its strange holes and cleavages.

''The Everglades: River of Grass'' galvanized people to protect the Everglades and has been compared to

's 1962 exposé of the harmful effects of DDT, ''

''; both books are "groundbreaking calls to action that made citizens and politicians take notice". Its impact is still felt as it is claimed to be a major reason Florida receives so many tourists, and "remains the definitive reference on the plight of the Florida Everglades". It has gone through numerous editions, selling 500,000 copies since its original publication. The ''

Christian Science Monitor ''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles both in electronic format and a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper b ...

'' wrote of it in 1997, "Today her book is not only a classic of environmental literature, it also reads like a blueprint for what conservationists are hailing as the most extensive environmental restoration project ever undertaken anywhere in the world". The downside of the book's impact, according to one writer addressing restoration of the Everglades, is that her

metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide, or obscure, clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are usually meant to cr ...

of a River of Grass is so predominant that the complex web of ecosystems within the Everglades is oversimplified. David McCally wrote that despite Douglas's "appreciation of the complexity of the environmental system" she described, popular conception of the Everglades shared by people who have not read the book overshadows her detailed explanations.

Activism

Women's suffrage was an early interest of Douglas, and although she tended to shy away from polemics in her early work at ''The Miami Herald'', on her third day as a society columnist, she chose suffrage and began to focus on writing about women in leadership positions. In 1917, she traveled with Mary Baird Bryan,

William Jennings Bryan William Jennings Bryan (March 19, 1860 – July 26, 1925) was an American lawyer, orator, and politician. He was a dominant force in the History of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, running three times as the party' ...

's wife, and two other women to Tallahassee to speak in support of women's right to vote. Douglas was not impressed with the reception the group got from the Florida Legislature. She wrote about her experience later: "All four of us spoke to a joint committee wearing our best hats. Talking to them was like talking to graven images. They never paid attention to us at all." Douglas was able to vote for the first time after she returned from Europe in 1920. Using her influence at ''The Miami Herald'', Douglas wrote columns about poverty:

You can have the most beautiful city in the world as appearance goes, the streets may be clean and shining, the avenues broad and tree lined, the public buildings dignified, adequate and well kept ... but if you have a weak or inadequate health department, or a public opinion lax on the subject, all the splendors of your city will have not value.

In 1948 Douglas served on the Coconut Grove Slum Clearance Committee, with a friend of hers named Elizabeth Virrick, who was horrified to learn that no running water or sewers were connected to the racially segregated part of Coconut Grove. They helped pass a law requiring all homes in Miami to have toilets and bathtubs. In the two years it took them to get the

referendum A referendum, plebiscite, or ballot measure is a Direct democracy, direct vote by the Constituency, electorate (rather than their Representative democracy, representatives) on a proposal, law, or political issue. A referendum may be either bin ...

passed, they worked to set up a loan operation for the black residents of Coconut Grove, who borrowed the money interest-free to pay for the plumbing work. Douglas noted that all of the money loaned was repaid.

Everglades work

Stoneman Douglas became involved in the Everglades in the 1920s, when she joined the board of the Everglades Tropical National Park Committee, a group led by Ernest F. Coe and dedicated to the idea of making a national park in the Everglades. By the 1960s, the Everglades were in imminent danger of disappearing forever because of gross mismanagement in the name of progress and real estate and agricultural development. Encouraged to get involved by the leaders of environmental groups, in 1969—at the age of 79—Douglas founded Friends of the Everglades to protest the construction of a jetport in the Big Cypress portion of the Everglades. She justified her involvement saying, "It is a woman's business to be interested in the environment. It's an extended form of housekeeping." She toured the state giving "hundreds of ringing denunciations" of the airport project, and increased membership of Friends of the Everglades to 3,000 within three years. She ran the public information operation full-time from her home and encountered hostility from the jetport's developers and backers, who called her a "damn butterfly chaser". President

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...

, however, scrapped funding for the project due to the efforts of many Everglades watchdog groups. Douglas continued her activism and focused her efforts on restoring the Everglades after declaring that "Conservation is now a dead word ... You can't conserve what you haven't got." Her criticism was directed at two entities she considered were doing the most damage to the Everglades. A coalition of

sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fib ...

growers, named Big Sugar, she accused of polluting

Lake Okeechobee Lake Okeechobee ( ) is the largest freshwater lake in the U.S. state of Florida. It is the List of largest lakes of the United States by area, eighth-largest natural freshwater lake among the 50 states of the United States and the second-largest ...

by pumping water tainted with chemicals, human waste, and garbage back into the lake, which served as the fresh water source for the

Miami metropolitan area The Miami metropolitan area is a coastal metropolitan area in southeastern Florida. It is the sixth-largest metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the United States, the fifth-largest metropolitan area in the Southern United States, and the lar ...

. She compared Florida sugarcane agriculture to sugarcane grown in the

West Indies The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...

, which, she claimed, was more environmentally sound, had a longer harvest cycle less harmful to soil nutrients, and was less expensive for consumers due to the higher sugar content. Besides Big Sugar, Douglas spoke about the damage the Army Corps of Engineers was doing to the Everglades by diverting the natural flow of water. The Corps was responsible for constructing more than of canals to divert water away from the Everglades after 1947. When the Central & South Florida Project (C&SF), run by former members of the Corps of Engineers, was proposed to assist the Everglades, Douglas initially gave it her approval, as it promised to deliver much-needed water to the shrinking Everglades. However, in application, the project instead diverted more water away from the Everglades, changed water schedules to meet sugarcane farmers' irrigation needs, and flat-out refused to release water to Everglades National Park, until much of the land was unrecognizable. "What a liar I turned out to be!" remarked Douglas, then suggested the motivation behind all the digging and diversion in saying, "Their mommies obviously never let them play with mud pies, so now they take it out on us by playing with cement". Douglas was giving a speech addressing the harmful practices of the Army Corps of Engineers when the

colonel Colonel ( ; abbreviated as Col., Col, or COL) is a senior military Officer (armed forces), officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, a colon ...

in attendance dropped his pen on the floor. As he was stooping to pick it up, Douglas stopped her speech and said to him, "Colonel! You can crawl under that table and hide, but you can't get away from me!" In 1973, Douglas attended a meeting addressing conservation of the Everglades in Everglades City, and was observed by John Rothchild:

Mrs. Douglas was half the size of her fellow speakers and she wore huge dark glasses, which along with the huge floppy hat made her look like
Scarlett O'Hara Katie Scarlett O'Hara is the protagonist of Margaret Mitchell's 1936 in literature, 1936 novel ''Gone with the Wind (novel), Gone with the Wind'' and the 1939 Gone with the Wind (film), film of the same name, where she is portrayed by Vivien Le ...
as played by
Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century c ...
. When she spoke, everybody stopped slapping mosquitoes and more or less came to order. She reminded us all of our responsibility to nature and I don't remember what else. Her voice had the sobering effect of a one-room schoolmarm's. The tone itself seemed to tame the rowdiest of the local stone crabbers, plus the developers, and the lawyers on both sides. I wonder if it didn't also intimidate the mosquitoes ... The request for a Corps of Engineers permit was eventually turned down. This was no surprise to those of us who'd heard her speak.

Douglas was not well received by some audiences. She opposed the drainage of a suburb in Dade County named East Everglades. After the county approved building permits in the Everglades, the land flooded as it had for centuries. When homeowners demanded the Army Corps of Engineers drain their neighborhoods, she was the only opposing voice. At the hearing in 1983, she was booed, jeered, and shouted at by the audience of residents. "Can't you boo any louder than that?" she chided, eventually making them laugh. "Look. I'm an old lady. I've been here since eight o'clock. It's now eleven. I've got all night, and I'm used to the heat," she told them. Later, she wrote, "They're all good souls—they just shouldn't be out there." Dade County commissioners eventually decided not to drain. Florida Governor Lawton Chiles explained her impact, saying, "Marjory was the first voice to really wake a lot of us up to what we were doing to our quality of life. She was not just a pioneer of the environmental movement, she was a prophet, calling out to us to save the environment for our children and our grandchildren."

Other causes

Douglas also served as a charter member of the first

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is an American nonprofit civil rights organization founded in 1920. ACLU affiliates are active in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The budget of the ACLU in 2024 was $383 million. T ...

chapter organized in the South in the 1950s. She lent her support to the

Equal Rights Amendment The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States, United States Constitution that would explicitly prohibit sex discrimination. It is not currently a part of the Constitution, though its Ratifi ...

, speaking to the legislature in Tallahassee urging them to ratify it. In the 1980s Douglas lent her support to the Florida Rural Legal Services, a group that worked to protect migrant farm workers who were centered on Belle Glade, and who were primarily employed by the sugarcane industry. She wrote to Governor

Bob Graham Daniel Robert Graham (November 9, 1936 – April 16, 2024) was an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 38th List of governors of Florida, governor of Florida from 1979 to 1987 and a United States Senate, United States senat ...

in 1985 to encourage him to assess the conditions the migrant workers endured. The same year, Douglas approached the Dade County School Board and insisted that the Biscayne Nature Center, which had been housed in hot dog stands, needed a building of its own. The center received a portable building until 1991 when the Florida Department of Education endowed $1.8 million for the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Biscayne Nature Center in Crandon Park. Douglas co-founded the Friends of the Miami-Dade Public Libraries with her longtime friend Helen Muir, and served as its first president."The Helen Muir Collection."
University of Miami Library Special Collections. Retrieved on November 30, 2014.

Personal life

Religious views

Although Douglas grew up in an Episcopal household, she described herself as agnostic throughout her life, and forbade any religious ceremony at her memorial.Fichter, Margaria (May 14, 1998). "Pioneering environmentalist Marjory Stoneman Douglas dies at 108." ''The Miami Herald''; Domestic news. Douglas tied her agnosticism to her unanswered prayers when her mother was dying.Davis, Jack (Summer 2001). "Green Awakening: Social activism and the evolution of Marjory Stoneman Douglas's Environmental Consciousness." ''The Florida Historical Quarterly'', 80 (1), pp. 43–77. However, she credited the motivation for her support of

to her

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

paternal grandparents whose dedication to the

abolition of slavery Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the political movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved individuals around the world. The first country to fully outlaw slavery was France in 1315, but it was later used in its colonies. T ...

she admired, and proudly claimed Levi Coffin, an organizer of the

Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was an organized network of secret routes and safe houses used by freedom seekers to escape to the abolitionist Northern United States and Eastern Canada. Enslaved Africans and African Americans escaped from slavery ...

, was her great-great-uncle.Davis, Jack (January 2003). "'Conservation is now a dead word': Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the transformation of American environmentalism." ''Environmental History'' 8 (1) pp. 53–76. She wrote that his wife was a friend of

Harriet Beecher Stowe Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe (; June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896) was an American author and Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist. She came from the religious Beecher family and wrote the popular novel ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' (185 ...

, and had provided Stowe with the story of Eliza in ''

Uncle Tom's Cabin ''Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly'' is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two Volume (bibliography), volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans ...

'' fleeing slavery because Douglas's great-great-aunt took care of Eliza and her infant after their escape. Frank Stoneman grew up in a Quaker colony, and Douglas maintained he kept touches of his upbringing throughout his life, even after converting to Episcopalianism. Writer Jack Davis and neighbor Helen Muir suggest this Quaker influence was behind Douglas's use of "Friends" in naming the organizations Friends of the Everglades and Friends of the Miami-Dade Public Libraries.

Mental health

As a child, Douglas was very close with her mother after her parents' separation. She witnessed her mother's emotional unraveling that caused her to be institutionalized, and even long after her mother returned to live with her, she exhibited bizarre, childlike behaviors. Following her mother's death, her relocation to Miami, and her displeasure in working as the assistant editor at ''The Miami Herald'', in the 1920s, she suffered the first of three

nervous breakdown A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness, a mental health condition, or a psychiatric disability, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A mental disorder is ...

s.Byers, Stephen (January 3, 1999)
"The Lives They Lived: Marjory Stoneman Douglas."
''The New York Times''; p. 46. Retrieved on May 2, 2008. Douglas suggested she had what she referred to as "blank periods" before and during her marriage, but they were brief. She connected these lapses to her mother's insanity. She eventually quit the newspaper, but after her father's death in 1941 she suffered a third and final breakdown, when her neighbors found her roaming the neighborhood one night screaming. She realized she had a " father complex", explaining it by saying, "Having been brought up without him all those years, and then coming back and finding him so sympathetic had a powerful effect".

Personal habits

Regardless of her dedication to the preservation of the Everglades, Douglas admitted the time she spent actually there was sporadic, driving there for occasional picnics. "To be a friend of the Everglades is not necessarily to spend time wandering around out there ... It's too buggy, too wet, too generally inhospitable", she wrote. Instead, she understood that the health of the environment indicated the general well-being of humanity. Despite Douglas's demure appearance—she stood at and weighed , and was always immaculately dressed in pearls, a floppy straw hat and gloves—she had an uncanny ability to get her point across. She was known for speaking in perfect, precise paragraphs, and was respected for her dedication and knowledge of her subjects; even her critics admitted her authority on the Everglades. Jeff Klinkenberg, a reporter for the '' St. Petersburg Times'' who interviewed and wrote several stories about Douglas, wrote of her, "She had a tongue like a

switchblade A switchblade (also known as switch knife, automatic knife, pushbutton knife, ejector knife, flick knife, gravity knife, flick blade, or spring knife) is a pocketknife with a sliding or pivoting blade contained in the handle which is extended ...

and the moral authority to embarrass bureaucrats and politicians and make things happen." Douglas was known for haughtily dismissing reporters who had not read her books and asked uninformed questions.Klinkenberg, Jeff. "Though expected, the loss of a hero still stings." ''St. Petersburg Times'' (Florida); p. 6A. She enjoyed drinking Scotch and

sherry Sherry ( ) is a fortified wine produced from white grapes grown around the city of Jerez de la Frontera in Andalusia, Spain. Sherry is a drink produced in a variety of styles made primarily from the Palomino grape, ranging from light versio ...

; as friend and neighbor Helen Muir remembered her, "She would come up and have a sherry, and then I would walk her home, and then she'd walk me back, and we would have another sherry. What fun she was." Novelist Hervey Allen called Marjory Stoneman Douglas and Muir "the Stewart Avenue Gang".Muir, Helen (2004). ''Baby Grace Sees the Cow: A Memoir.'' The Prologue Society (Miami). The two were fond of having sherry together and gossiping, but those moments were followed by serious talk of the future of libraries, and the role of women in South Florida. They were confidants, and often shared their work with one another. Douglas never learned to drive and never owned a car. Her house also had no

air conditioning Air conditioning, often abbreviated as A/C (US) or air con (UK), is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more comfortable interior temperature, and in some cases, also controlling the humidity of internal air. Air c ...

, electric stove, or dishwasher. She was attached to several men after her divorce, counting one of them as the reason she enlisted in the Red Cross, as he had already gone to France as a soldier. However, she said she did not believe in

extramarital sex Extramarital sex occurs when a married person engages in sexual activity with someone other than their spouse. The term may be applied to the situation of a single person having sex with a married person. It is distinguished from premarital sex ...

and would not have dishonored her father by being promiscuous. She told Klinkenberg in 1992, frankly, that she had not had sex since her divorce, saying "I wasn't a wild woman".Klinkenberg, Jeff (August 21, 2006)
"Conserving the conservationist."
''St. Petersburg Times'' (Florida) (link via ''

Tampa Bay Times The ''Tampa Bay Times'', called the ''St. Petersburg Times'' until 2011, is an American newspaper published in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. It is published by the Times Publishing Company, which is owned by The Poynter Institute ...

''); p. 1E. However, she was fond of saying she used the emotion and energy instead on her work. "People don't seem to realize that the energy that goes into sex, all the emotion that surrounds it, can be well employed in other ways", she wrote in her autobiography.

Awards, death, and legacy

Honors

Douglas began accruing honors in her early days writing for ''The Miami Herald''. In the 1980s, the awards became more prestigious, and her reactions to them mixed. The Florida Department of Natural Resources (now the

Florida Department of Environmental Protection The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) is the Florida government Government agency, agency responsible for environmental protection. History By the mid-1960s, when the Federal government of the United States, federal governm ...

) named its headquarters in Tallahassee after her in 1980, which she considered a dubious honor. She told a friend she would have rather seen the Everglades restored than her name on a building. During her polite acceptance speech, she railed against

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...

and the then-Secretary of the Interior

James Watt James Watt (; 30 January 1736 (19 January 1736 OS) – 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen's 1712 Newcomen steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1776, which was f ...

for their lackluster approach to environmental conservation. In 1986 the

National Parks Conservation Association The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) is the only independent, nonpartisan membership organization devoted exclusively to advocacy on behalf of the National Parks System. Its mission is "to protect and enhance America's National Pa ...

established the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Award, which "honor(s) individuals who often must go to great lengths to advocate and fight for the protection of the

National Park System The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all national parks; most national monuments; and other natural, historical, and recreational ...

". Despite blindness and diminished hearing, Douglas continued to be active into her second century, and was honored with a visit from

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 19268 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. ...

, to whom Douglas gave a signed copy of ''The Everglades: River of Grass'' in 1991. Instead of gifts and celebrations, Douglas asked that trees be planted on her birthday, resulting in over 100,000 planted trees across the state and a bald cypress on the lawn of the governor's mansion. The

South Florida Water Management District The South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) is a regional governmental district that oversees water resources from Orlando to the Florida Keys. The mission of the SFWMD is to manage and protect water resources by balancing and improving ...

began removing exotic plants that had taken hold in the Everglades when Douglas turned 102. In 1993, when she was 103, President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

awarded Douglas the

, the highest civilian honor granted by the United States of America. The citation for the medal read,

Marjory Stoneman Douglas personifies passionate commitment. Her crusade to preserve and restore the Everglades has enhanced our Nation's respect for our precious environment, reminding all of us of nature's delicate balance. Grateful Americans honor the 'Grandmother of the Glades' by following her splendid example in safeguarding America's beauty and splendor for generations to come.

Douglas donated her medal to Wellesley College. Most of the others she received she stored at her home. Douglas was posthumously inducted into the

National Wildlife Federation The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) is the largest private, nonprofit conservation education and advocacy organization in the United States, with over six million members and supporters, and 51 state and territorial affiliated organizations (i ...

Hall of Fame in 1999, and the

National Women's Hall of Fame The National Women's Hall of Fame (NWHF) is an American institution founded to honor and recognize women. It was incorporated in 1969 in Seneca Falls, New York, and first inducted honorees in 1973. As of 2024, the Hall has honored 312 inducte ...

in 2000. Upon hearing that she was to be inducted, she questioned, "Why should they have a Women's Hall of Fame, as I heard they wanted to put me in the other day? Why not a Citizens' Hall of Fame?" Douglas was included in a tribute to pioneering women when television character

Lisa Simpson Lisa Marie Simpson is a fictional character in the animated television sitcom series ''The Simpsons''. She is the middle child of the Simpson family. Voiced by Yeardley Smith, Lisa was born as a character in '' The Tracey Ullman Show'' short ...

made a papier-mâché bust of her with Georgia O'Keeffe and Susan B. Anthony in an early episode of ''

The Simpsons ''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It is a Satire (film and television), satirical depiction of American life ...

''. She appears as a major supporting character in the 2014 point-and-click adventure '' A Golden Wake''. Some of Douglas's stories were collected by

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preem ...

professor Kevin McCarthy in two edited collections: ''Nine Florida Stories'' in 1990 and ''A River In Flood'' in 1998. McCarthy wrote that he collected Douglas's short stories because most people in the 1990s were well aware of her as an environmentalist but did not know about her career as a freelance writer. "Probably no other person has been as important to the environmental well-being of Florida than this little lady from Coconut Grove", McCarthy wrote in the introduction to ''A River in Flood''.

Remembrances

Marjory Stoneman Douglas died at the age of 108 on May 14, 1998. John Rothchild, who helped write her autobiography, said that her death was the only thing that could "shut her up" and added, "The silence is terrible."Watson, Tracy. (May 15, 1988). "Douglas, Everglades' lifesaver, dies at 108 'River of Grass' spoke for marshes." ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (often stylized in all caps) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth in 1980 and launched on September 14, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headq ...

''; p. 8A.

Carl Hiaasen Carl Hiaasen (; born March 12, 1953) is an American journalist and novelist. He began his career as a newspaper reporter and by the late 1970s had begun writing novels in his spare time, both for adults and for middle grade readers. Two of his ...

eulogized her in ''The Miami Herald'', writing that ''The Everglades: River of Grass'' was "monumental", and praised her passion and her resolve; even when politicians finally found value in the Everglades and visited her for a photo opportunity, she still provoked them to do more and do it faster. The National Wildlife Federation described her as "a passionate, articulate, and tireless voice for the environment".National Wildlife Federation (2007)
"Marjory Stoneman Douglas."
Conservation Hall of Fame website. Retrieved on December 17, 2007. Chairman of the Florida Audubon Society Ed Davison remembered her, saying, "She kept a clear vision of the way things ought to be, and she didn't give a lot of credibility to excuses about why they're not like that. She would give these wonderful, curmudgeonly speeches to which there was no response. You can't holler back to grandmotherly scolding. All you can do is shuffle your feet and say, 'Yes, Ma'am.'" She was aware of it, once saying, "People can't be rude to me, this poor little old woman. But I can be rude to them, poor darlings, and nobody can stop me." Her ashes were scattered in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Wilderness Area in

,Severo, Richard (May 15, 1998)
"Marjory Douglas, Champion Of Everglades, Dies at 108."
''The New York Times''; p. 23. Retrieved on May 2, 2008. which was named for her in 1997. In 2000, the

Naples, Florida Naples is a city in Collier County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 19,115, down from 19,539 at the 2010 census. Naples is a principal city of the Collier County, Florida, Naples–Marc ...

-based composer Steve Heitzeg wrote a 15-minute orchestra piece entitled ''Voice of the Everglades (Epitaph for Marjory Stoneman Douglas)'' for the Naples Philharmonic. Heitzeg said, "She was outspoken, she was direct, she had the energy and belief to make the world a better place." Two South Florida public schools are named in her honor: Broward County Public Schools'

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is a State school, public Secondary school, high school in Parkland, Florida, United States. Established in 1990 as part of the Broward County Public Schools district and named after the writer Marjory Stonem ...

(opened in 1990, the year of her 100th birthday) and

Miami-Dade County Public Schools Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) is the public school district serving Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in the U.S. state of Florida. Founded in 1885, it is the largest school district in Florida, the largest in the South ...

' Marjory Stoneman Douglas Elementary School.

Douglas home

Douglas's cottage in

Coconut Grove Coconut Grove, also known colloquially as "The Grove", is an affluent and the oldest continuously inhabited neighborhoods of Miami, neighborhood of Miami in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The neighborhood is roughly bounded by North Prospect Driv ...

at 3744–3754 Stewart Avenue, was built in 1924. She wrote all of her major books and stories there, and the City of Miami designated it an historic site in 1995, not only for its famous owner but also for its unique Masonry

Vernacular architecture Vernacular architecture (also folk architecture) is building done outside any academic tradition, and without professional guidance. It is not a particular architectural movement or style but rather a broad category, encompassing a wide range a ...

. After Douglas's death, Friends of the Everglades proposed making the house part of an education center about Douglas and her life, but neighbors protested, citing issues with parking, traffic, and an influx of visitors to the quiet neighborhood. The house, which had an exterior floodwater line from the 1926 Miami Hurricane and some damage from an infestation of bees, had fallen further into disrepair. For a while, the idea of moving the house to Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in

Coral Gables Coral Gables is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The city is part of the Miami metropolitan area of South Florida and is located southwest of Downtown Miami. As of the 2020 U.S. census, it had a population of 49,248. Cora ...

, which Douglas helped to develop and where there is a life-size bronze statue to commemorate her efforts, was considered. The State of Florida owns Douglas's house and in April 2007 placed it in the care of the Florida Park Service, a division of the

. Restoration of the floors and counters took place in the following months. Water service was reconnected to the house and the electrical system was updated for safety purposes. All work was approved by the Department of Historic Resources. A park ranger was placed as a resident in the Douglas house to help maintain the structure and property. On April 22, 2015, while giving an

Earth Day Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally through earthday.org (formerly Earth Day Network) includin ...

speech in the Everglades, President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

announced that Interior Secretary

Sally Jewell Sarah Margaret "Sally" Roffey Jewell (born February 21, 1956) is a British-American business executive and environmentalist who served as the 51st United States secretary of the interior in the Obama administration from 2013 to 2017. Jewell was ...

had designated the house a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...

.Slayton, April (April 22, 2015)
"Marjory Stoneman Douglas House Named a National Historic Landmark"
(Press release). U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C. Retrieved on April 30, 2015.

Notable works

Books

*'' The Everglades: River of Grass''. Rinehart, 1947. *''Road to the Sun''. Rinehart, 1952. *''Freedom River Florida 1845''. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953. (novel for young readers) *''Hurricane''. Rinehart, 1958 (revised, 1976). , *''Alligator crossing''. John Day, 1959. (novel for young readers
synopsis at milkweed.org
*''The Key to Paris''. Keys to the Cities Series. Lippincott, 1961. *''Florida the Long Frontier''. Harper & Row, 1967. *''The Joys of Bird Watching in Florida''. Hurricane House, 1969. *''Adventures in a Green World – The Story of David Fairchild and Barbour Lathrop''. Field Research Projects. 1973. *''Marjory Stoneman Douglas: Voice of the River''. with John Rothchild. Pineapple Press, Inc. 1987. , ;

Short story collections

*''Nine Florida Stories by Marjory Stoneman Douglas''. Ed. Kevin M. McCarthy. University of North Florida, 1990. , **"Pineland" **"A Bird Dog in the Hand" **"He Man" **"Twenty Minutes Late for Dinner" **"Plumes" **"By Violence" **"Bees in the Mango Bloom" **"September-Remember" **"The Road to the Horizon" *''A River in Flood and Other Florida Stories by Marjory Stoneman Douglas.'' Ed. Kevin M. McCarthy. University Press of Florida, 1998. , **"At Home on the Marcel Waves" **"Solid Mahogany" **"Goodness Gracious, Agnes" **"A River in Flood" **"The Mayor of Flamingo" **"Stepmother" **"You Got to Go, But You Don't Have to Come Back" **"High-Goal Man" **"Wind Before Morning"

Notes

References

* Davis, Jack E. (2009)
''An Everglades Providence: Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the American Environmental Century''
University of Georgia Press (2009). *Douglas, Marjory (1947). ''The Everglades: River of Grass''. 60th Anniversary Edition, Pineapple Press (2007). *Douglas, Marjory; Rothchild, John (1987). ''Marjory Stoneman Douglas: Voice of the River''. Pineapple Press. * Grunwald, Michael (2006)
''The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise''
Simon & Schuster. *McCally, David (1999). ''The Everglades: An Environmental History''. University Press of Florida. .

External links

* *

sponsored by Florida International University
Marjory Stoneman Douglas: Writer and Conservationist
Photographs, bibliography, timeline, essays and links to other resources. Prepared by University of Miami Special Collections.

Everglades in the Time of Marjory Stoneman Douglas
A photo exhibit on Douglas, provided by the State Archives of Florida
Marjory Stoneman Douglas's River of Progress: Modernism, Feminism, Regionalism, and Environmentalism in Her Early Writings
A master's thesis from the University of Florida about Stoneman Douglas's short stories
Marjory Stoneman Douglas – Bibliography
Information on her works, friends and peers, and her home
Friends of the Everglades
The non-profit environmental organization founded by Marjory Stoneman Douglas {{DEFAULTSORT:Douglas, Marjory Stoneman 1890 births 1998 deaths American agnostics American women centenarians American environmentalists American women environmentalists American non-fiction environmental writers 20th-century American women writers People from Taunton, Massachusetts Writers from Miami Journalists from Miami Miami Herald people Writers from Minneapolis Journalists from Minneapolis Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Wellesley College alumni Everglades National Park American women science writers Journalists from Massachusetts 20th-century American journalists American nature writers American women non-fiction writers Yeoman (F) personnel Suffragists from Florida