Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Writer, Environmentalist, Suffragist and Civil Libertarian, Born on This Day
Marjory Stoneman Douglas, writer and activist in support of the environment, women’s suffrage and civil liberties, was born on this day. Incredibly, she remained active until her death at age 108 on May 14, 1998.
Douglas is best known today for the high school that bears her name in Parkland, Florida, which was the scene of a horrific mass shooting in which 17 students were shot and killed.
Raised in Massachusetts, Douglas began writing at an early age, and at age 16 contributed to the most popular children’s magazine of the day. In 1907 she won a prize awarded by the Boston Herald for her short story, “An Early Morning Paddle.”After moving to Florida, she became a reporter for the Miami Herald. Her father was the first publisher of the paper. She turned to free-lance writing in the 1920s, publishing over 100 short stories and some one-act plays.
Douglas achieved fame and found what became a cause for the rest of her life when she published the book, The Everglades: River of Grass, as part of a series of books on America’s rivers. The book was highly praised and it brought attention to the fate of the Everglades, which were under assault from continued schemes to drain and develop it. Douglas became an advocate for the Everglades from that time forward.
She was also a champion of individual rights. In 1912, at age 22, she became active in the women’s suffrage movement in Massachusetts. In 1950, at age 60 she was a founding member of the Florida affiliate of the ACLU.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas remained active in her various causes until her death at age 108 in 1998.
Her legacy of activism lives on after her death. The Parkland, Florida shooting at the high school that bears her name, gave birth to a nationwide protest movement on behalf of effective gun control. The movement began on March 14, 2018, one month after the shooting, when an estimated 1 million high school students walked out of their schools for a 17-minute silent protest in memory of the student who died in the mass shooting. On March 24, 2018 nationwide protests demanding effective gun control were held in an estimated 800 cities in the U.S. and in cities around the world.
Read: Jack Davis, An Everglades Providence: Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the American Environmental Century (2009)
And read her famous book: Marjory Douglas, The Everglades: River of Grass (1947), 60th Anniversary Edition (2007)
Learn more about Douglas here