Cape Romano is a cape on the Gulf Coast of Florida , United States. It is on Cape Romano Island, one of a group of islands known collectively as Kice-Morgan Island.
96-540: Marjory Stoneman Douglas stated that the cape was named for Bernard Romans , who charted all of the coasts of East and West Florida in 1774. The feature is called "Cape Roman or Punta Larga" on Romans's 1774 map. John Lee Williams, in 1837, refers to the south point of "Isle Roman" as "Cape Roman" "of the British [charts]", and "Puerta Longa", "Punta Longa", and "Cape Acies" "of the Spanish charts". Kice-Morgan Island
192-474: A King" was a second-place finalist in the O. Henry Award competition in 1928. During the 1930s, she was commissioned to write a pamphlet supporting a botanical garden called "An argument for the establishment of a tropical botanical garden in South Florida." Its success caused her to be in demand at garden clubs where she delivered speeches throughout the area, then to serve on the board to support
288-854: A Quaker colony, and Douglas maintained he kept touches of his upbringing throughout his life, even after converting to Episcopalianism. Writer Jack Davis and neighbor Helen Muir suggest this Quaker influence was behind Douglas's use of "Friends" in naming the organizations Friends of the Everglades and Friends of the Miami-Dade Public Libraries. As a child, Douglas was very close with her mother after her parents' separation. She witnessed her mother's emotional unraveling that caused her to be institutionalized, and even long after her mother returned to live with her, she exhibited bizarre, childlike behaviors. Following her mother's death, her relocation to Miami, and her displeasure in working as
384-882: A building of its own. The center received a portable building until 1991 when the Florida Department of Education endowed $ 1.8 million for the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Biscayne Nature Center in Crandon Park . Douglas co-founded the Friends of the Miami-Dade Public Libraries with her longtime friend Helen Muir, and served as its first president. Although Douglas grew up in an Episcopal household, she described herself as agnostic throughout her life, and forbade any religious ceremony at her memorial. Douglas tied her agnosticism to her unanswered prayers when her mother
480-445: A class on elocution , and joined the first suffrage club with six of her classmates. She was elected Class Orator but was unable to fulfill the office since she was already involved in other activities. During her senior year while visiting home, her mother showed her a lump on her breast. Marjory arranged the surgery to have it removed. After the graduation ceremony, her aunt informed her it had metastasized, and within months her mother
576-533: A dense, narrow strip along the coast. The developed area is highly urbanized and increasingly continuous and decentralized, with no particular dominant core cities. The center projects this pattern to continue in the future. There have been several proposals for partitioning the state of Florida to form a separate state of South Florida. Such proposals have usually been made as political statement rather than serious attempts at secession. Reasons often stated are cultural, ethnic, economic, and financial frustrations with
672-743: A dubious honor. She told a friend she would have rather seen the Everglades restored than her name on a building. During her polite acceptance speech, she railed against Ronald Reagan and the then-Secretary of the Interior James Watt for their lackluster approach to environmental conservation. In 1986 the National Parks Conservation Association established the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Award, which "honor(s) individuals who often must go to great lengths to advocate and fight for
768-456: A floppy straw hat and gloves—she had an uncanny ability to get her point across. She was known for speaking in perfect, precise paragraphs, and was respected for her dedication and knowledge of her subjects; even her critics admitted her authority on the Everglades. Jeff Klinkenberg, a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times who interviewed and wrote several stories about Douglas, wrote of her, "She had
864-441: A friend of the Everglades is not necessarily to spend time wandering around out there ... It's too buggy, too wet, too generally inhospitable", she wrote. Instead, she understood that the health of the environment indicated the general well-being of humanity. Despite Douglas's demure appearance—she stood at 5 feet 2 inches (1.57 m) and weighed 100 pounds (45 kg), and was always immaculately dressed in pearls,
960-572: A group that worked to protect migrant farm workers who were centered on Belle Glade , and who were primarily employed by the sugarcane industry. She wrote to Governor Bob Graham in 1985 to encourage him to assess the conditions the migrant workers endured. The same year, Douglas approached the Dade County School Board and insisted that the Biscayne Nature Center, which had been housed in hot dog stands, needed
1056-411: A joint committee wearing our best hats. Talking to them was like talking to graven images . They never paid attention to us at all." Douglas was able to vote for the first time after she returned from Europe in 1920. Using her influence at The Miami Herald , Douglas wrote columns about poverty: You can have the most beautiful city in the world as appearance goes, the streets may be clean and shining,
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#17327876887871152-408: A law banning convict leasing in large part due to her writing. "I think that's the single most important thing I was ever able to accomplish as a result of something I've written", she wrote in her autobiography. After quitting the newspaper in 1923, Douglas worked as a freelance writer. From 1920 to 1990, Douglas published 109 fiction articles and stories. One of her first stories was sold to
1248-541: A papier-mâché bust of her with Georgia O'Keeffe and Susan B. Anthony in an early episode of The Simpsons . She appears as a major supporting character in the 2014 point-and-click adventure A Golden Wake . Some of Douglas's stories were collected by University of Florida professor Kevin McCarthy in two edited collections: Nine Florida Stories in 1990 and A River In Flood in 1998. McCarthy wrote that he collected Douglas's short stories because most people in
1344-463: A poem. "The Galley" was topical and went in any direction Douglas chose. She promoted responsible urban planning when Miami saw a population boom of 100,000 people in a decade. She wrote supporting women's suffrage, civil rights , and better sanitation while opposing Prohibition and foreign trade tariffs. Some of the stories she wrote spoke of the region's wealth as being in its "inevitable development", and she supplemented her income with $ 100
1440-695: A prophet, calling out to us to save the environment for our children and our grandchildren." Douglas also served as a charter member of the first American Civil Liberties Union chapter organized in the South in the 1950s. She lent her support to the Equal Rights Amendment , speaking to the legislature in Tallahassee urging them to ratify it. In the 1980s Douglas lent her support to the Florida Rural Legal Services,
1536-493: A society columnist, she chose suffrage and began to focus on writing about women in leadership positions. In 1917, she traveled with Mary Baird Bryan , William Jennings Bryan 's wife, and two other women to Tallahassee to speak in support of women's right to vote. Douglas was not impressed with the reception the group got from the Florida Legislature. She wrote about her experience later: "All four of us spoke to
1632-406: A soldier. However, she said she did not believe in extramarital sex and would not have dishonored her father by being promiscuous. She told Klinkenberg in 1992, frankly, that she had not had sex since her divorce, saying "I wasn't a wild woman". However, she was fond of saying she used the emotion and energy instead on her work. "People don't seem to realize that the energy that goes into sex, all
1728-471: A sub-chiefdom of the Calusa , may have been located on or near Cape Romano. One Spanish map gave the name "Punta de Muspa" to the cape, and descriptions of the location of the town fit the cape, as well. John Lee Williams reported plantations in the vicinity of Caxambas Bay in 1837, which led Charlton Tebeau to suggest there may have been one at Cape Romano. A military expedition in 1838 camped on Cape Romano at
1824-549: A supermajority of the region's inland and rural areas. Largest cities in South Florida by population: The Miami accent is a regional accent of the American English dialect spoken in South Florida, particularly in Miami-Dade , Broward , Palm Beach , and Monroe counties. The accent was born in central Miami , but has expanded to the rest of South Florida in the decades since the 1960s. The Miami accent
1920-756: A tongue like a switchblade and the moral authority to embarrass bureaucrats and politicians and make things happen." Douglas was known for haughtily dismissing reporters who had not read her books and asked uninformed questions. She enjoyed drinking Scotch and sherry ; as friend and neighbor Helen Muir remembered her, "She would come up and have a sherry, and then I would walk her home, and then she'd walk me back, and we would have another sherry. What fun she was." Novelist Hervey Allen called Marjory Stoneman Douglas and Muir "the Stewart Avenue Gang". The two were fond of having sherry together and gossiping, but those moments were followed by serious talk of
2016-623: A week from writing copy advertisements that praised the development of South Florida, something she would reconsider later in her life. In the early 1920s she wrote "Martin Tabert of North Dakota is Walking Florida Now", a ballad lamenting the death of a 22-year-old vagrant who was beaten to death in a labor camp . It was printed in The Miami Herald , and read aloud during a session of the Florida Legislature , which passed
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#17327876887872112-545: A year after her arrival in Miami, he left her the responsibility of the editorial page. She developed a rivalry with an editor at The Miami Metropolis whose greater familiarity with Miami history gave her cause to make fun of Douglas in writing. Her father scolded her to check her facts better. Douglas was given an assignment in 1916 to write a story on the first woman from Miami to join the US Naval Reserve . When
2208-571: A young woman to work for The Miami Herald , she became a freelance writer , producing over one hundred short stories that were published in popular magazines. Her most influential work was the book The Everglades: River of Grass (1947), which redefined the popular conception of the Everglades as a treasured river instead of a worthless swamp. Its impact has been compared to that of Rachel Carson 's influential book Silent Spring (1962). Her books, stories, and journalism career brought her influence in Miami, enabling her to advance her causes. As
2304-447: A young woman, Douglas was outspoken and politically conscious of the women's suffrage and civil rights movements. She was called upon to take a central role in the protection of the Everglades when she was 79 years old. For the remaining 29 years of her life she was "a relentless reporter and fearless crusader" for the natural preservation and restoration of South Florida . Her tireless efforts earned her several variations of
2400-429: Is rhotic ; it also incorporates a rhythm and pronunciation heavily influenced by Spanish (wherein rhythm is syllable-timed ). Lamme and Oldakowski identify several demographic, political, and cultural elements that characterize South Florida and distinguish it from other areas of the state. Many of its differences appear to be driven by its proportionately higher level of migration from the northern U.S. states and from
2496-479: Is located south of Marco Island , in Collier County . It is separated from Marco Island by Caxambas Bay. John Lee Williams called the island south of Caxambas Bay "Isle Roman", and described it as 15 miles (24 km) long and 10 to 12 miles (16 to 19 km) wide. The island complex consists of narrow barrier beaches with large mangrove mangals (forests) behind the beaches. The Kice Island barrier beach
2592-604: Is most prevalent in American-born South Floridian youth. The Miami accent is based on a fairly standard American accent but with some changes very similar to dialects in the Mid-Atlantic (especially the New York area dialect , Northern New Jersey English , and New York Latino English .) Unlike Virginia Piedmont, Coastal Southern American, and Northeast American dialects, the "Miami accent"
2688-420: Is not only a classic of environmental literature, it also reads like a blueprint for what conservationists are hailing as the most extensive environmental restoration project ever undertaken anywhere in the world". The downside of the book's impact, according to one writer addressing restoration of the Everglades, is that her metaphor of a River of Grass is so predominant that the complex web of ecosystems within
2784-471: Is the only region of the state where ethnic foods are as popular as general American cuisine . Floribbean cuisine is a fusion cuisine which developed in South Florida, drawing influence from Floridian, Caribbean, Asian and Latin American cuisines. Additionally, while there was little geographical variation for most styles of music, there was regional variation for both country and Latin music. Country
2880-543: The 2000 Presidential election . The economy in South Florida is very similar to that in Central Florida. Compared to the more diversified economy in North Florida, tourism is by far the most significant industry in South and Central Florida, with a much smaller but vibrant agricultural industry. Lamme and Oldakowski's survey also found some cultural indicators distinguishing South Florida. South Florida
2976-592: The Cape Romano Dome House . 25°50′43″N 81°40′43″W / 25.84528°N 81.67861°W / 25.84528; -81.67861 Marjory Stoneman Douglas Marjory Stoneman Douglas (April 7, 1890 – May 14, 1998) was an American journalist, author, women's suffrage advocate, and conservationist known for her staunch defense of the Everglades against efforts to drain it and reclaim land for development. Moving to Miami as
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3072-668: The Caribbean and Latin America , particularly in the densely populated Miami area. Politically, South Florida is more liberal than the rest of the state. While less than 10% of people in either North or Central Florida felt their area was liberal, over a third of South Floridians described their region as such. 38% characterized the area as conservative; 26% as moderate. This tracks with South Florida's demographics, and Lamme and Oldakowski's findings parallel Barney Warf and Cynthia Waddell's research on Florida's political geography during
3168-563: The Fairchild Garden . She called the garden "one of the greatest achievements for the entire area". Douglas became involved with the Miami Theater , and wrote some one-act plays that were fashionable in the 1930s. One, "The Gallows Gate", was about an argument between a mother and father regarding the character of their son who is sentenced to hang. She got the idea from her father, who had witnessed hangings when he lived in
3264-591: The Florida Department of Transportation . Some entities alternately designate this region "South Florida". Its definition includes much of the same territory as Lamme and Oldakowski's report, except the Gulf Coast and much of the interior Glades region.. It includes Monroe County and the three metropolitan counties of Miami-Dade , Broward , and Palm Beach , as well as the three " Treasure Coast " counties of Indian River , St. Lucie , and Martin to
3360-706: The Tampa Bay Hotel . From there she and her parents embarked on a cruise from Tampa to Havana . Marjory's parents separated when she was six. Her father endured a series of failed entrepreneurial ventures and the instability caused her mother to move them abruptly to the Trefethen family house in Taunton, Massachusetts . She lived there with her mother, aunt, and grandparents, who did not get along well and consistently spoke ill of her father, to her dismay. Her mother, whom Marjory characterized as "high-strung",
3456-451: The U.S. state of Florida . It is one of Florida's three most commonly referred to directional regions; the two others are Central Florida and North Florida . South Florida is the southernmost part of the continental United States and the only region of the continental U.S. that includes some areas with a tropical climate . South Florida is dominated by the Miami metropolitan area and
3552-690: The pulp fiction magazine Black Mask for $ 600 (equivalent to $ 10,730 in 2023). Forty of her stories were published in The Saturday Evening Post ; one, "Story of a Homely Woman", was reprinted in 1937 in the Post's best short stories compilation. Recurring settings in her fiction were South Florida, the Caribbean, and Europe during World War I. Her protagonists were often independent, quirky women or youthful underdogs who encountered social or natural injustices. The people and animals of
3648-434: The racially segregated part of Coconut Grove. They helped pass a law requiring all homes in Miami to have toilets and bathtubs. In the two years it took them to get the referendum passed, they worked to set up a loan operation for the black residents of Coconut Grove, who borrowed the money interest-free to pay for the plumbing work. Douglas noted that all of the money loaned was repaid. Stoneman Douglas became involved in
3744-477: The 1990s were well aware of her as an environmentalist but did not know about her career as a freelance writer. "Probably no other person has been as important to the environmental well-being of Florida than this little lady from Coconut Grove", McCarthy wrote in the introduction to A River in Flood . South Florida South Florida , sometimes colloquially shortened to SoFlo , is the southernmost region of
3840-575: The Democratic Party are mostly concentrated in urban areas, as well as areas to the west of and including downtown Key West, rural communities surrounding Immokalee , and the areas surrounding Belle Glade , while supporters of the Republican Party reside in the most costal regions of the Miami area north of Pompano Beach , most of the Everglades, most of the regions between Port St. Lucie and Riviera Beach , Southwest Florida, and
3936-418: The Everglades after declaring that "Conservation is now a dead word ... You can't conserve what you haven't got." Her criticism was directed at two entities she considered were doing the most damage to the Everglades. A coalition of sugarcane growers, named Big Sugar, she accused of polluting Lake Okeechobee by pumping water tainted with chemicals, human waste, and garbage back into the lake, which served as
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4032-486: The Everglades . It also contains the Florida Keys ; three U.S. national parks: Biscayne , Dry Tortugas , and Everglades ; and multiple cities. As with all vernacular regions, South Florida has no official boundaries or status and is defined differently by different sources. A 2007 study of Florida's regions by Ary Lamme and Raymond K. Oldakowski found that Floridians surveyed identified "South Florida" as comprising
4128-637: The Everglades and has been compared to Rachel Carson 's 1962 exposé of the harmful effects of DDT , Silent Spring ; both books are "groundbreaking calls to action that made citizens and politicians take notice". Its impact is still felt as it is claimed to be a major reason Florida receives so many tourists, and "remains the definitive reference on the plight of the Florida Everglades". It has gone through numerous editions, selling 500,000 copies since its original publication. The Christian Science Monitor wrote of it in 1997, "Today her book
4224-453: The Everglades as an ecosystem surrounding a river worthy of protection, inescapably connected to South Florida's people and cultures. She outlined its imminent disappearance in the last chapter, "The Eleventh Hour": Cattlemen's grass fires roared uncontrolled. Cane-field fires spread crackling and hissing in the saw grass in vast waves and pillars and billowing mountains of heavy, cream-colored, purple-shadowed smoke. Training planes flying over
4320-459: 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. Douglas donated her medal to Wellesley College. Most of the others she received she stored at her home. Douglas
4416-519: The Everglades in the 1920s, when she joined the board of the Everglades Tropical National Park Committee, a group led by Ernest F. Coe and dedicated to the idea of making a national park in the Everglades. By the 1960s, the Everglades were in imminent danger of disappearing forever because of gross mismanagement in the name of progress and real estate and agricultural development. Encouraged to get involved by
4512-437: The Everglades is oversimplified. David McCally wrote that despite Douglas's "appreciation of the complexity of the environmental system" she described, popular conception of the Everglades shared by people who have not read the book overshadows her detailed explanations. Women's suffrage was an early interest of Douglas, and although she tended to shy away from polemics in her early work at The Miami Herald , on her third day as
4608-484: The Everglades served as subjects for some of her earliest writings. "Plumes", originally published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1930, was based on the murder of Guy Bradley , an Audubon Society game warden, by poachers . "Wings" was a nonfiction story, also first appearing in the Post in 1931, that addressed the slaughter of Everglades wading birds for their feathers. Her story "Peculiar Treasure of
4704-645: The Everglades. He infuriated Broward so much that when Stoneman won an election for circuit judge , Broward refused to validate the election, so Stoneman was referred to as "Judge" for the rest of his life without performing the duties of one. Douglas joined the newspaper's staff in 1915. She began as a society columnist writing about tea parties and society events, but news was so slow she later admitted to making up some of her stories: "Somebody would say, 'Who's that Mrs. T.Y. Washrag you've got in your column?' And I would say, 'Oh, you know, I don't think she's been here very long'". When her father went on vacation less than
4800-409: The Glades dropped bombs or cigarette butts, and the fires exploded in the hearts of the drying hammocks and raced on before every wind leaving only blackness ... There was no water in the canals with which to fight [the fires] ... The sweet water the rock had held was gone or had shrunk far down into its strange holes and cleavages. The Everglades: River of Grass galvanized people to protect
4896-466: The River, is dedicated "To Massachusetts, with love." Douglas arrived in South Florida when fewer than 5,000 people lived in Miami and it was "no more than a glorified railroad terminal". Her father, Frank Stoneman, was the first publisher of the paper that later became The Miami Herald . Stoneman passionately opposed the governor of Florida, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward , and his attempts to drain
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#17327876887874992-597: The South Florida region, such as the inclusion of Southwest Florida and the Treasure Coast . Southwest Florida , representing the state's Gulf Coast , has emerged as a directional vernacular region. Respondents from as far northwest as the Tampa Bay area identified their region as being in Central Florida. Confusing the matter further, the University of South Florida , named in part because of its status as
5088-472: The Sun , in 1952. She wrote four novels, and several nonfiction books on regional topics including Florida birdwatching and David Fairchild , a biologist who imagined a botanical park in Miami. Her autobiography, Marjory Stoneman Douglas: Voice of the River , was written with John Rothchild in 1987. She had been working on a book about W. H. Hudson for years, traveling to Argentina and England several times. It
5184-452: The West and was unnerved by the creaking sound of the rope bearing the weight of the hanging body. The play won a state competition, and eventually $ 500 in a national competition after it was written into three acts. With William W. Muir, husband of reporter Helen Muir , she authored "Storm Warnings", a play loosely based on the life of mobster Al Capone . Some of Capone's henchmen showed up at
5280-476: The airport project, and increased membership of Friends of the Everglades to 3,000 within three years. She ran the public information operation full-time from her home and encountered hostility from the jetport's developers and backers, who called her a "damn butterfly chaser". President Richard Nixon , however, scrapped funding for the project due to the efforts of many Everglades watchdog groups. Douglas continued her activism and focused her efforts on restoring
5376-438: The assistant editor at The Miami Herald , in the 1920s, she suffered the first of three nervous breakdowns . Douglas suggested she had what she referred to as "blank periods" before and during her marriage, but they were brief. She connected these lapses to her mother's insanity. She eventually quit the newspaper, but after her father's death in 1941 she suffered a third and final breakdown, when her neighbors found her roaming
5472-539: The avenues broad and tree lined, the public buildings dignified, adequate and well kept ... but if you have a weak or inadequate health department, or a public opinion lax on the subject, all the splendors of your city will have not value. In 1948 Douglas served on the Coconut Grove Slum Clearance Committee, with a friend of hers named Elizabeth Virrick, who was horrified to learn that no running water or sewers were connected to
5568-684: The drainage of a suburb in Dade County named East Everglades. After the county approved building permits in the Everglades, the land flooded as it had for centuries. When homeowners demanded the Army Corps of Engineers drain their neighborhoods, she was the only opposing voice. At the hearing in 1983, she was booed, jeered, and shouted at by the audience of residents. "Can't you boo any louder than that?" she chided, eventually making them laugh. "Look. I'm an old lady. I've been here since eight o'clock. It's now eleven. I've got all night, and I'm used to
5664-446: The emotion that surrounds it, can be well employed in other ways", she wrote in her autobiography. Douglas began accruing honors in her early days writing for The Miami Herald . In the 1980s, the awards became more prestigious, and her reactions to them mixed. The Florida Department of Natural Resources (now the Florida Department of Environmental Protection ) named its headquarters in Tallahassee after her in 1980, which she considered
5760-472: The family finances and gaining a maturity imposed upon her by circumstance. Marjory left for college in 1908, despite grave misgivings about her mother's mental state. Her aunt and grandmother shared her concerns, but recognized that she needed to leave in order to begin her own life. She was a straight-A student at Wellesley College , graduating with a BA in English in 1912. She found particular success in
5856-495: The fresh water flowing from Lake Okeechobee a river of grass. The Everglades: River of Grass was published in 1947 and sold out of its first printing in a month. The book's first line, "There are no other Everglades in the world", has been called the "most famous passage ever written about the Everglades", and the line once welcomed visitors to the Everglades National Park website. Douglas characterized
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#17327876887875952-522: The fresh water source for the Miami metropolitan area . She compared Florida sugarcane agriculture to sugarcane grown in the West Indies , which, she claimed, was more environmentally sound, had a longer harvest cycle less harmful to soil nutrients, and was less expensive for consumers due to the higher sugar content. Besides Big Sugar, Douglas spoke about the damage the Army Corps of Engineers
6048-473: The future of libraries, and the role of women in South Florida. They were confidants, and often shared their work with one another. Douglas never learned to drive and never owned a car. Her house also had no air conditioning , electric stove, or dishwasher. She was attached to several men after her divorce, counting one of them as the reason she enlisted in the Red Cross, as he had already gone to France as
6144-399: The heat," she told them. Later, she wrote, "They're all good souls—they just shouldn't be out there." Dade County commissioners eventually decided not to drain. Florida Governor Lawton Chiles explained her impact, saying, "Marjory was the first voice to really wake a lot of us up to what we were doing to our quality of life. She was not just a pioneer of the environmental movement, she was
6240-508: The history of the American environmental movement, there have been few more remarkable figures than Marjory Stoneman Douglas." Marjory Stoneman was born on April 7, 1890, in Minneapolis, Minnesota , the only child of concert violinist Florence Lillian Trefethen (1859-1912) and Frank Bryant Stoneman (1857–1941). One of her earliest memories was her father reading to her The Song of Hiawatha , at which she burst into sobs upon hearing that
6336-465: The leaders of environmental groups, in 1969—at the age of 79—Douglas founded Friends of the Everglades to protest the construction of a jetport in the Big Cypress portion of the Everglades. She justified her involvement saying, "It is a woman's business to be interested in the environment. It's an extended form of housekeeping." She toured the state giving "hundreds of ringing denunciations" of
6432-580: The marriage quickly failed when it became apparent he was a con artist. The true extent of his duplicity Marjory did not entirely reveal, despite her honesty in all other matters. Douglas was married to Marjory while already married to another woman. While he spent six months in jail for passing a bad check , she remained faithful to him. His scheme to scam her absent father out of money worked in Marjory's favor when it attracted Frank Stoneman's attention. Marjory's uncle persuaded her to move to Miami and end
6528-613: The marriage. In the fall of 1915, Marjory Stoneman Douglas left New England to be reunited with her father, whom she had not seen since her parents' separation. Shortly before that, her father had married Lillius ("Lilla") Eleanor Shine, a great-great-granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson (her grandfather was Francis W. Eppes ). Marjory later wrote that Shine "remained my first and best friend all my life in Florida." After moving to Florida in 1915, Marjory rarely returned to Massachusetts, but she retained affection for it; her 1987 memoir Voice of
6624-572: The most popular children's publication of the day, St. Nicholas Magazine —also the first publisher of 20th-century writers F. Scott Fitzgerald , Rachel Carson , and William Faulkner —with a puzzle titled "Double Beheadings and Double Curtailings". In 1907, she was awarded a prize by the Boston Herald for "An Early Morning Paddle", a story about a boy who watches a sunrise from a canoe. As her mother's mental health deteriorated, Marjory took on more responsibilities, eventually managing some of
6720-415: The neighborhood one night screaming. She realized she had a " father complex ", explaining it by saying, "Having been brought up without him all those years, and then coming back and finding him so sympathetic had a powerful effect". Regardless of her dedication to the preservation of the Everglades, Douglas admitted the time she spent actually there was sporadic, driving there for occasional picnics. "To be
6816-634: The nickname "Grande Dame of the Everglades" as well as the hostility of agricultural and business interests looking to benefit from land development in Florida. She received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom , and was inducted into several halls of fame. Douglas lived to 108, working until nearly the end of her life for Everglades restoration. Upon her death, an obituary in The Independent in London stated, "In
6912-457: The north. The demographics of South Florida residents can be segmented as following: Over 87.2% of all foreigners residing in South Florida come from Latin America. South Florida is politically diverse, with multiple congressional districts in the region supporting both the Democratic and Republican parties. As evidenced by the 2020 United States presidential election , supporters of
7008-488: The protection of the National Park System ". Despite blindness and diminished hearing, Douglas continued to be active into her second century, and was honored with a visit from Queen Elizabeth II , to whom Douglas gave a signed copy of The Everglades: River of Grass in 1991. Instead of gifts and celebrations, Douglas asked that trees be planted on her birthday, resulting in over 100,000 planted trees across
7104-553: The shrinking Everglades. However, in application, the project instead diverted more water away from the Everglades, changed water schedules to meet sugarcane farmers' irrigation needs, and flat-out refused to release water to Everglades National Park, until much of the land was unrecognizable. "What a liar I turned out to be!" remarked Douglas, then suggested the motivation behind all the digging and diversion in saying, "Their mommies obviously never let them play with mud pies, so now they take it out on us by playing with cement". Douglas
7200-409: The site of a former settlement, where they found fresh water. The cape was later reported to have a reliable fresh water well, which was used by residents of the area. Joe Dickman lived on Cape Romano as a hermit from the 1930s until the 1960s. Several houses were built on or near Cape Romano in the 1970s and 1980s, but beach erosion left them in open water, and hurricanes have washed them away, including
7296-428: The sobering effect of a one-room schoolmarm's. The tone itself seemed to tame the rowdiest of the local stone crabbers, plus the developers, and the lawyers on both sides. I wonder if it didn't also intimidate the mosquitoes ... The request for a Corps of Engineers permit was eventually turned down. This was no surprise to those of us who'd heard her speak. Douglas was not well received by some audiences. She opposed
7392-480: The southernmost sections of peninsular Florida, meaning from Jupiter, Florida south. That area includes the Miami metropolitan area , defined as Miami-Dade , Broward , and Palm Beach counties, the Florida Keys , and the interior region known as the Glades . The term South Florida most commonly refers to the Miami metro’s tri-county area, interpretations vary on the inclusion of some other parts of Florida within
7488-575: The state and a bald cypress on the lawn of the governor's mansion. The South Florida Water Management District began removing exotic plants that had taken hold in the Everglades when Douglas turned 102. In 1993, when she was 103, President Bill Clinton awarded Douglas the Presidential Medal of Freedom , the highest civilian honor granted by the United States of America. The citation for the medal read, Marjory Stoneman Douglas personifies passionate commitment. Her crusade to preserve and restore
7584-614: The state government in Tallahassee , which is in North Florida . In 2008, the North Lauderdale City Commission passed a resolution calling for a new state of South Florida to be formed from Palm Beach , Broward , Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties. In 2014, South Miami 's city commission passed a resolution in favor of splitting the state in half, with a northern boundary drawn to include
7680-563: The state's southernmost public university at the time of its 1957 founding, is located in Tampa . Florida State Road 70 bisects approximately in the Central Florida region from west to east. However, Tampa is not considered South Florida region. Enterprise Florida, the state's economic development agency , identifies "Southeast Florida" as one of eight economic regions used by the agency and other state and outside entities, including
7776-624: The theater, "add[ing] an extra tingle for the audience that night", though no actual problems arose. Douglas wrote the foreword to the Work Projects Administration 's guide to Miami and environs, published in 1941 as part of the Federal Writers' Project 's American Guide Series . Douglas served as the book review editor of The Miami Herald from 1942 to 1949, and as editor for the University of Miami Press from 1960 to 1963. She released her first novel, Road to
7872-466: The tree had to give its life in order to provide Hiawatha the wood for a canoe. She was an early and voracious reader. Her first book was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland , which she kept well into adulthood until "some fiend in human form must have borrowed it and not brought it back". She visited Florida when she was four, and her most vivid memory of the trip was picking an orange from a tree at
7968-678: The woman did not show up for the interview, Douglas herself joined the Navy as a Yeoman (F) first class. It did not suit her; she disliked rising early and her superiors did not appreciate her correcting their grammar, so she requested a discharge and joined the American Red Cross , which stationed her in Paris. She witnessed the tumultuous celebrations on the Rue de Rivoli when the Armistice
8064-425: Was 2.5 miles (4.0 km) long in 1976, extending southsouthwest from Caxamabas Pass and Bay. Hurricane Wilma made landfall near Cape Romano in 2005, bringing a 10-foot (3.0 m) storm surge onto Kice Island. The storm opened an inlet, Morgan Pass, in the middle of the island. The southern portion of Kice Island is now called Morgan Island. In the decade following Hurricane Wilma, much of the beach on Morgan Island
8160-462: Was committed to a mental sanitarium in Providence several times. Her parents' separation and the contentiousness of her mother's family caused her to suffer from night terrors . She credited her tenuous upbringing with making her "a skeptic and a dissenter" for the rest of her life. As a youth, Marjory found solace in reading, and eventually, she began to write. At sixteen she contributed to
8256-415: Was dead. The family left the funeral arrangements up to Marjory. After drifting with college friends through a few jobs to which she did not feel well-suited, Marjory Stoneman met Kenneth Douglas in 1914. She was so impressed with his manners and surprised at the attention he showed her that she married him within three months. He portrayed himself as a newspaper editor, and was 30 years her senior, but
8352-550: Was doing to the Everglades by diverting the natural flow of water. The Corps was responsible for constructing more than 1,400 miles (2,300 km) of canals to divert water away from the Everglades after 1947. When the Central & South Florida Project (C&SF), run by former members of the Corps of Engineers, was proposed to assist the Everglades, Douglas initially gave it her approval, as it promised to deliver much-needed water to
8448-686: Was dying. However, she credited the motivation for her support of women's suffrage to her Quaker paternal grandparents whose dedication to the abolition of slavery she admired, and proudly claimed Levi Coffin , an organizer of the Underground Railroad , was her great-great-uncle. She wrote that his wife was a friend of Harriet Beecher Stowe , and had provided Stowe with the story of Eliza in Uncle Tom's Cabin fleeing slavery because Douglas's great-great-aunt took care of Eliza and her infant after their escape. Frank Stoneman grew up in
8544-703: Was eroded away. Some sand from the Kice-Morgan beaches has moved south, forming a spit at the southern end of Morgan Island. Other sand from the Kice-Morgan beaches has moved further south, onto the Cape Romano shoals south of the cape. As of 2023, the NOAA chart shows Cape Romano on Cape Romano Island, which lies behind the Morgan Island beach. The sand spit at the southern end of Morgan Island extends further south than Cape Romano Island. The town of Muspa ,
8640-479: Was giving a speech addressing the harmful practices of the Army Corps of Engineers when the colonel in attendance dropped his pen on the floor. As he was stooping to pick it up, Douglas stopped her speech and said to him, "Colonel! You can crawl under that table and hide, but you can't get away from me!" In 1973, Douglas attended a meeting addressing conservation of the Everglades in Everglades City , and
8736-616: Was incomplete when she died in 1998. Early in the 1940s, Douglas was approached by a publisher to contribute to the Rivers of America Series by writing about the Miami River . Unimpressed with it, she called the Miami River about "an inch long”, but in researching it she became more interested in the Everglades and persuaded the publisher to allow her to write about the Everglades instead. She spent five years researching what little
8832-497: Was known about the ecology and history of the Everglades and South Florida. Douglas spent time with geologist Garald Parker , who discovered that South Florida's sole freshwater source was the Biscayne Aquifer , and it was filled by the Everglades. Parker confirmed the name of the book that has since become the nickname for the Everglades when Douglas, trying to capture the Everglades' essence, asked if she could safely call
8928-409: Was observed by John Rothchild: Mrs. Douglas was half the size of her fellow speakers and she wore huge dark glasses, which along with the huge floppy hat made her look like Scarlett O'Hara as played by Igor Stravinsky . When she spoke, everybody stopped slapping mosquitoes and more or less came to order. She reminded us all of our responsibility to nature and I don't remember what else. Her voice had
9024-582: Was posthumously inducted into the National Wildlife Federation Hall of Fame in 1999, and the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2000. Upon hearing that she was to be inducted, she questioned, "Why should they have a Women's Hall of Fame, as I heard they wanted to put me in the other day? Why not a Citizens' Hall of Fame?" Douglas was included in a tribute to pioneering women when television character Lisa Simpson made
9120-422: Was signed and cared for war refugees ; seeing them displaced and in a state of shock, she wrote, "helped me understand the plight of refugees in Miami sixty years later". After the war, Douglas served as assistant editor at The Miami Herald . She gained some renown for her daily column, "The Galley", becoming something of a local celebrity. She amassed a devoted readership and attempted to begin each column with
9216-532: Was significantly less popular in South Florida than in North or Central Florida, while Latin was more popular than in the other regions. The Anthony J. Catanese Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions at Florida Atlantic University notes the unusual growth pattern of South Florida. Unlike many areas with centralized cities surrounded by development, most of South Florida is preserved natural area and designated agricultural reserves, with development restricted to
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