Marjory Stoneman Douglas

Marjory Stoneman Douglas at the age of 104 when interviewed for the documentary Canary of the Ocean

Marjory Stoneman Douglas (* 7. April 1890 in Minneapolis , Minnesota ; † 14. May 1998 in Coconut Grove , Miami , Florida ) was an American journalist , author , advocate of women's suffrage and conservationist who for their strong commitment to protect the Everglades known is. She has received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

life and work

Douglas was the only child of Frank Bryant Stoneman (1857-1941) and Florence Lillian Trefethen (1859-1912). In 1907 she received an award from the Boston Herald for An Early Morning Paddle , a story about a boy who watches a sunrise from a canoe. In 1908 she began her studies at Wellesley College and graduated in 1912 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. In 1914, she met Kenneth Douglas and married him within three months. When it was found that he was already married to another woman, she moved to Miami and ended the marriage. When she arrived in Florida, there were fewer than 5,000 people living in Miami. Her father was the first editor of the newspaper that later became The Miami Herald . She joined the newspaper's editorial team in 1915 and wrote as a society columnist. In 1916 she was commissioned to write a story about the first Miami woman to join the United States Navy Reserve . When the woman did not show up for the interview, she entered the Navy herself . However, she soon found that she was unsuitable for military life. She applied for dismissal and joined the American Red Cross in Paris . Here she witnessed the tumultuous celebrations on Rue de Rivoli when the armistice was signed.

After the war she was an assistant editor at The Miami Herald and was best known for her daily column, The Galley. She promoted responsible urban planning when Miami saw a population boom of 100,000 in a decade. She wrote in support of women's suffrage , civil rights and better hygiene, while speaking out against bans and foreign trade tariffs. In 1923, after leaving the newspaper, she worked as a freelance writer. From 1920 to 1990 she published 109 fiction articles and stories. One of her first stories sold to Black Mask magazine for $ 600 . Forty of her stories appeared in The Saturday Evening Post , dealing with environmental issues involving her frequent visits to the Everglades. She lived in South Florida from 1915 until her death and wrote extensively about the area over the decades.

She was a member of the Everglades National Park Establishment Committee and later worked on the establishment of Biscayne National Park and leading legislation to protect the parks and their wildlife. In order to defend this fragile ecosystem, she frequently contacted government agencies and dealt with nature conservation issues in an open and straightforward manner. When her book River of Grass was published in 1947 , it sold out immediately. The book had sparked public interest in protecting the Everglades and had a lasting impact on the future of Florida's conservation and land use policy. In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, however, the Everglades suffered massive damage from drainage projects and large farms. At the age of 79, she founded Friends of the Everglades, which helped halt construction of a proposed jetport in the pristine Big Cypress region of the Everglades. She turned 108 and lived most of the time with her cats in the cottage she built in Coconut Grove in 1924. She never learned to drive and never owned a car. Her house also had no air conditioning, an electric stove, or a dishwasher. Their ashes were scattered around the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Wilderness Area in Everglades National Park. The house and property are owned by the State of Florida and have been maintained by the Florida Park Service since 2007 as a permanent memorial to a remarkable "woman who saved the Everglades."

In 1980 the Florida Department of Natural Resources (now the Florida Department of Environmental Protection ) named its headquarters in Tallahassee after her, which she considered a dubious honor. In 1986 the National Parks Conservation Association established the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Award, which honors "people who often have to go to great lengths to stand up for the protection of the national park system and to fight for it". Despite blindness and decreased hearing, she remained active in her second century and was honored with a visit from Queen Elizabeth II , to whom she gave a signed copy of The Everglades: River of Grass in 1991 . Instead of gifts and celebrations, she asked for trees to be planted on her birthday, which resulted in over 100,000 trees being planted across the state. The South Florida Water Management District began removing exotic plants that had spread throughout the Everglades in 1992. In 1993, President Bill Clinton presented it with the Presidential Medal of Freedom , one of the highest civil awards bestowed by the United States of America. She donated her medal to Wellesley College.

Awards

Presidential Medal of Freedom
National Women's Hall of Fame (2000)
Florida Women's Hall of Fame
Florida Artists Hall of Fame

Books (selection)

1947: The Everglades: River of Grass, 2007 reissue, ISBN 978-1561643943
1952: Road to the Sun, OCLC 851571457
1953: Freedom River Florida 1845, reprinted 1994, ISBN 978-0963346148
1958: Hurricane. Rinehart, new edition 1976, ISBN 978-0891760153
1959: Alligator crossing, ISBN 978-1571316448
1961: The Key to Paris. Keys to the Cities Series, OCLC 750448010
1967: Florida the Long Frontier, Harper & Row, OCLC 168513
1969: The Joys of Bird Watching in Florida, OCLC 85431
1973: Adventures in a Green World - The Story of David Fairchild and Barbour Lathrop. Field Research Projects, OCLC 984925
1987: Marjory Stoneman Douglas: Voice of the River. with John Rothchild. Pineapple Press, ISBN 9780910923330

Short stories (selection)

1990: Nine Florida Stories, University of North Florida, ISBN 978-0813009940
1998: A River in Flood and Other Florida Stories by Marjory Stoneman Douglas. Ed. Kevin M. McCarthy. University Press of Florida, ISBN 9780813016221

Web links

Commons : Marjory Stoneman Douglas - Collection of images, videos and audio files

personal data
SURNAME	Stoneman Douglas, Marjory
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Stoneman, Majory (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American journalist, author, advocate for women's suffrage and conservationist
DATE OF BIRTH	April 7, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH	Minneapolis , Minnesota
DATE OF DEATH	May 14, 1998
Place of death	Coconut Grove , Miami , Florida