Marjory Stoneman Douglas
Everglades conservationist
Marjory Stoneman Douglas
Everglades conservationist
timeline
born 1890Marjory Stoneman Douglas always had a way with words. A prolific writer in every genre, Marjory's witty, insightful prose won her many followers. Over her century-long career, she lent her voice to a huge array of progressive causes. But, it would ultimately have the biggest impact in an unexpected arena...environmentalism.
Asked to write a book on the Miami River, Marjory instead introduced the public to the wonders of the Everglades. Her efforts raised the region from little-known swamp to subject of one of the world's largest environmental restoration projects. Today, this "Grandmother of the Glades" offers an urgent reminder to protect nature's beauty + balance for future generations.
explore
her quotes
all quotes by Marjory Stoneman Douglas (13)
"We are beginning to think that the people who, in this late day, insist on saying that woman's place is in the home, must be housing profiteers."
The Gallery | 1920
"Suffrage may have permitted women to become candidates for office but it is the high cost of millinery that is keeping their hats out of the ring."
The Gallery | 1920
"She had maintained herself, like an old pine through many burning, by the enduring soundness of its own wood."
Pineland | 1925
"They were endlessly alike, endlessly monotonous, and yet with an endless charm and variety. Every tree held its own twist and pattern; every tree, even to the distant intermingled brown of trunks too far away to distinguish, were infinitely itself."
Pineland | 1925
"There are no other Everglades in the world. They are, they have always been, one of the unique regions of the earth, remote, never wholly known."
The Everglades: River of Grass | 1947
"The miracle of the light pours over the green and brown expanse of saw grass and of water, shining and slow-moving below, the grass and water that is the meaning and the central fact of the Everglades of Florida. It is a river of grass."
The Everglades: River of Grass | 1947
"I never was a good reporter. Father used to send me out on a story and I'd come back with three sunsets and an editorial."
Marjory Stoneman Douglas: Prolific Writer Gives Her Life and Energy to Pursuit of Excellence | march 1978
"You can't conserve what you haven't got."
Sarasota Wellesley Club | 1982
"It is a woman's business to be interested in the environment. It's an extended form of housekeeping."
TIME Magazine | 1983
"Time, the heavens, the galaxies, it goes far beyond our ability to understand it, and I'm not even going to try."
Voice of the River | 1987
"I believe that life should be lived so vividly and so intensely that thoughts of another life, or of a longer life, are not necessary."
Voice of the River | 1987
"I couldn't write in that bare, stark way in which a story begins like a slap in the face."
Voice of the River | 1987
"[O]n a writer's whim and an editor's decision, I was hooked with the idea that would consume me for the rest of my life."
Voice of the River Now is Linked to the Cause of the Everglades. But It wasn't Always So. | august 1987
for further reading about Marjory Stoneman Douglas:
