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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient
Marjory Stoneman Douglas
"It's not too late or we wouldn't be working. We simply cannot let everything be destroyed. We can't do that, not if we want water. We've got to take care of what we have."
-- Marjory Stoneman Douglas, 1990
Marjory Stoneman Douglas
 This week President Clinton signed the $8 billion Everglades Restoration Act into law. That made it appropriate for Wellesley College to remember Marjory Stoneman Douglas '12, who spearheaded the effort to save the "River of Grass."
Douglas received many awards and tributes for her work. We draw special attention to two. In 1977 she received a Wellesley College Alumnae Achievement Award. And in 1993, at the age of 103, she was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom . Its citation said, "An extraordinary woman who has devoted her long life to protecting the fragile ecosystem of the Everglades, and to the cause of equal rights for all Americans, 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." Mrs. Douglas donated her Medal of Freedom to Wellesley College.
Douglas was born in 1890 in Minneapolis. After her parents separated, Marjory and her mother lived with her mother's family in Taunton, Massachusetts. Marjory said, "I wanted to go to a good college, and my mind was set on Wellesley. Wellesley was the nearest good college in those days and I chose it even though my good friends were going elsewhere." In her autobiography, Marjory Stoneman Douglas: Voice of the River, Douglas speaks of faculty who impressed her and those who had an impact on her. During her senior year she was quite involved in extracurricular activities. She was a member of the Scribblers (a literary group), editor-in-chief of the yearbook, and served on the executive board of the Equal Suffrage League.
After Douglas graduated from Wellesley College in 1912, she took a salesmanship course in Boston and worked in department stores in St. Louis and Newark. In 1914 she married a newspaper editor, Kenneth Douglas, but the marriage did not work out. Douglas needed both a job and a divorce, so in the fall of 1915 she moved to Miami. Her father whom she had not seen in years was in the newspaper business there.
Douglas became a reporter and writer. Her short stories appeared in the Saturday Evening Post , Collier's , and Woman's Home Companion . Her novel, Road to the Sun , appeared in 1951. She also wrote Freedom River ; Hurricane ; Alligator Crossing ; Florida: the Long Frontier ; The Key to Paris ; and a play, The Gallows Gate . She worked on, but never published, a biography of W.H. Hudson, ornithologist, environmentalist and author of Green Mansions . During the 1920s she taught at the University of Miami and lectured at Pennsylvania State University.
Douglas was active in her community. She served as the first president of the Business and Professional League, established in Miami in 1916. She also worked to improve housing in poorer Miami neighborhoods, and started a baby milk fund for families who could not afford milk for their children.
In the 1940s Marjory Stoneman Douglas was asked to do a book on the Miami River for a series of books on American rivers. She convinced the editor to expand her assignment to include the Everglades. She learned how the rapid commercial development of South Florida was threatening the vast, slow moving stream of shallow water and saw grass which had covered much of South Florida. The Everglades: River of Grass , appeared in 1947. Her description of the Everglades as a "river of grass" caught the public's imagination.
Her efforts to have the Everglades named a national park were only the first salvo in a life-long crusade to save this unique resource. As Florida grew and developed, people wanted to drain these wetlands to facilitate agricultural and commercial use of the land. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers undertook a program of flood control, constructing a system of canals, levees, dams and pump stations to drain the wetlands and control seasonal flooding. Mrs. Douglas argued that these changes to the natural water flow damaged the entire ecosystem of South Florida by decreasing the amount of fresh water in the Everglades. In 1969 she helped found the Friends of the Everglades, an educational and advocacy group dedicated to the protection and restoration of this ecosystem. In a 1983 article Douglas explained her mission simply, "It's women's business to be interested in the environment. It's an extended form of housekeeping, isn't it?" She was a skilled and persuasive advocate. "I'm just a tough old woman," she said. "They can't be rude to me. I have all this white hair. I take advantage of every thing I can -- age, hair, disability -- because my cause is just."
Marjory Stoneman Douglas died on May 14, 1998.
To learn more read Marjory Stoneman Douglas: Voice of the River: an Autobiography , by Marjory Stoneman Douglas with John Rothchild [Englewood, Fla.: Pineapple Press, c1987]
Written by Wilma Slaight
Bibliography
Marjory Stoneman Douglas with a Miccosukee Indian 1965
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Medal History
