Marjory Stoneman Douglas at Everglades National Park Dedication Ceremony

Marjory Stoneman Douglas (1890-1998) devoted much of her long lifetime to saving the Everglades. She was the daughter of prominent Miami newspaper publisher Frank Stoneman, himself a critic of Everglades drainage at the turn of the twentieth century. As a writer for her father’s paper, the Miami Herald, Douglas wrote scathing articles about the impact Everglades drainage had on the South Florida ecosystem.

In 1947, she published The Everglades: River of Grass, chronicling the importance of the Everglades as a major watershed in South Florida. That same year, President Harry Truman dedicated the Everglades as a National Park, worthy of preservation and restoration. Still, plans by the federal government in the 1960s to build an international airport between the Everglades and Big Cypress Swamp led Douglas to organize the Friends of the Everglades, establishing her as the mother of the environmental movement in Florida. Through her efforts, the Everglades became a UNESCO Environmental World Heritage Site and an International Biosphere Reserve.