April 7, 1890 - Everglades crusader Marjory Stoneman Douglas born
Photo: State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory
Marjory Stoneman Douglas, the "Grande Dame of the Everglades," whose 1947 book, "Everglades: River of Grass" reshaped the public's conception of the Everglades from a useless swamp to a vital component of the world's ecosystem, was born in Minneapolis. After graduating from Wellesley College in 1912, she moved to Florida in 1915 to escape an unhappy marriage and took a job writing for the Miami Herald, where her father was an editor. She lived through the 1928 hurricane that killed nearly 2,000 people. After "Everglades: River of Grass" was published, she helped lead the successful push to have nearly 1.6 million acres designated as a national park. She founded Friends of the Everglades in 1970 and led her hundreds-strong army of supporters to oppose projects that would further erode the subtropical wetlands.
"We're fighting the Federal Government, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, water management, realtors and demographics," she was quoted in a Time magazine profile in 1982. Still, she earned respect from her adversaries at all levels of government. President Bill Clinton phoned her on her 103rd birthday and awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom a few months later. While the building that houses the state Department of Natural Resources in Tallahassee bears her name, she remained in the same Coral Gables house from 1926 until her death in 1998. It had no air conditioning, no television, and she never learned to drive a car, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported in its May 15, 1998 obituary. Read Stoneman Douglas' obituary in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune: 'Glades Crusader • Read a 1982 Time magazine profile: Lady of the Everglades