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 against efforts to drain it and reclaim land for development. Moving to Miami as a young woman to work for The Miami Herald, she became a freelance writer, producing over one hundred short stories 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's influential book Silent Spring (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 and civil rights 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.Grunwald, p. 204. Her tireless efforts earned her several variations of the nickname "Grande Dame of the Everglades"Basse, Craig (May 14, 1998). "Grande dame of the Everglades." St. Petersburg Times (Florida); p. 1A. 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, 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 in London stated, "In the history of the American environmental movement, there have been few more remarkable figures than Marjory Stoneman Douglas."Cornwell, Rupert (May 25, 1998). "Obituary: Marjory Stoneman Douglas." The Independent (London); p. 16.
Early life
Marjory Stoneman was born on April 7, 1890, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the only child of concert violinist Florence Lillian Trefethen and Frank Bryant Stoneman. One of her earliest memories was her father reading to her The Song of Hiawatha; she burst into sobs upon hearing that the tree had to give its life 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, 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.Douglas, p. 31. From there she and her parents embarked on a cruise from Tampa to Havana.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. 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.Davis, p. 95. 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 terrors.Douglas, pp. 47, 48. She credited her tenuous upbringing with making her "a skeptic and a dissenter" for the rest of her life.Douglas, p. 50.
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, Rachel Carson, and William Faulkner—with a puzzle titled "Double Beheadings and Double Curtailings". In 1907, at seventeen years old, she was awarded a prize by the Boston Herald for "An Early Morning Paddle", a story about a boy who watches a sunrise from a canoe.Davis, p. 100. 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.Douglas, pp. 53–54.
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.Douglas, p. 69. She was a straight-A student at Wellesley College,"Marjory Stoneman Douglas." Friends of the Everglades website. Retrieved on December 17, 2007. graduating with a B.A. in English in 1912. She found particular success in a class on elocution, and joined the first suffrage club with six of her classmates.Douglas, pp. 77–78. 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.Douglas, pp. 78–82.
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 other matters. Douglas was married to Marjory while already married to another woman.Davis, pp. 158–159. While he spent six months in jail for passing a bad check, she remained faithful. His scheme to scam her absent father out of money worked in Marjory's favor when it attracted Frank Stoneman's attention.Douglas, pp. 86, 89."Marjory Stoneman Douglas." Newsmakers 1998, Issue 4. Gale Group, 1998.Davis, pp. 161–162. 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 reunite 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 (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 retained her affection for it; her 1987 memoir Voice of the River, is dedicated "To Massachusetts, with love."Douglas, Marjory Stoneman, Voice of the River: An Autobiography with John Rothchild, Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press, Inc., 1987, Dedication Page (facing copyright page).
Writing career
The Miami Herald Douglas arrived in South Florida when fewer than 5,000 people lived in Miami and it was "no more than a glorified railroad terminal".Douglas, p. 103. Her father, Frank Stoneman, was the first publisher of the paper that later became The Miami Herald. 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, pp. 98–99.
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, p. 109.
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, which stationed her in Paris.Davis, pp. 241–245. She witnessed the tumultuous celebrations on the Rue de Rivoli when the Armistice was signedDouglas, pp. 118–119. and cared for war refugees; seeing them displaced and in a state of shock, she wrote, "helped me understand the plight of refugees in Miami sixty years later".Douglas, p. 116.
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, civil rights, and better sanitation while opposing Prohibition and foreign trade tariffs.Davis, pp. 276–277.
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.Grunwald, p. 182. 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 who was beaten to death in a labor camp. It was printed in The Miami Herald, and read aloud during a session of the Florida Legislature, which passed a law banning convict leasing 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.Douglas, p. 134.
Freelance writer