Everglades Biographies
Marjory Stoneman Douglas, 1890-1998.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas was born April 7, 1890 in Minneapolis,
Minnesota. She was raised in Taunton, Massachusetts after the divorce of
her parents. Marjory attended the public schools in Taunton, and Wellesley
College, in Wellesley, Massachusetts, where she majored in English
composition, graduating in 1912 with an A.B. degree. After her mother's
death and the end of her brief marriage, Douglas moved to Miami to work
with her father, Frank Stoneman, then the editor of The Miami
Herald. Douglas left the Herald in 1923, after many years working
on The Galley, a daily column that always included a poem. As
an assistant editor on the paper, Douglas also wrote editorials urging
protection and development of Florida's unique regional character in the
face of rapid commercial development. After leaving the paper, she devoted
herself to her literary career, writing of short stories, 40 of which were
published in the Saturday Evening Post and other magazines
between 1923 and 1938, many winning O. Henry and other awards. In 1947,
Douglas published The Everglades: River of Grass, a
best-selling guide and natural/political history that not only raised
public consciousness regarding the Everglades but also helped to diminish
the national misperception of wetlands in general as swamps. Douglas also
became a leader of the successful campaign for the establishment of
Everglades National Park and in 1969 helped to found the conservation
organization Friends of the Everglades. Marjory Stoneman Douglas died in
her home in Coconut Grove, Florida, on May 14, 1998 at the age of
108.
Biography prepared by Ruthanne Vogel, University of Miami
Excerpt from Marjory
Stoneman Douglas' Everglades and First
Reclamation Idea, an unpublished, undated manuscript, with
annotations and corrections, from xxx, University of Miami
"The first known use of the
term Everglades is on Turner's map of Florida (1823) and is cited in the
Dictionary of American English currently being published by the University
of Chicago Press. A map of Florida compiled by an English geographer for
the British government and dated 1821 does not show the Everglades. The
word seems to have come into use in Florida only after acquisition by the
United States in 1819. The Spanish seem to have had no equivalent of
'Everglades'.
An early spelling was 'glad'
and it meant bright, shining. 'Glade' in a sense now obsolete except in
poetry meant 'a clear place in the sky, a bright streak or patch of
light.' Derived from Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic languages, used by peoples
in lands where bright waters were seen at some seasons of the year and
snow and ice at another, glade was associated with water in any of its
several forms... the Merriams' Webster's New International Dictionary
defines Everglades (singular) as: 'A swamp or low tract of land inundated
with water and interspersed with hummocks or small islands and patches of
high grass; chiefly used as 'the Everglades', a great tract of this nature
in Florida."
Photograph of Douglas during a trip to the Everglades, 1930
Excerpt from Marjory
Stoneman Douglas' Everglades and First
Reclamation Idea, an unpublished, undated manuscript, with
annotations and corrections, from xxx, University of Miami
