Product Description

No one did more than Marjory Stoneman Douglas to transform the Everglades from the country's most maligned swamp into its most beloved wetland. By the late twentieth century, her name and her classic The Everglades: River of Grass had become synonymous with Everglades protection. The crusading resolve and boundless energy of this implacable elder won the hearts of an admiring public while confounding her opponents--growth merchants intent on having their way with the Everglades. Douglas's efforts ultimately earned her a place among a mere handful of individuals honored as a namesake of a national wilderness area.

In the first comprehensive biography of Douglas, Jack E. Davis explores the 108-year life of this compelling woman. Douglas was more than an environmental activist. She was a suffragist, a lifetime feminist and supporter of the ERA, a champion of social justice, and an author of diverse literary talent. She came of age literally and professionally during the American environmental century, the century in which Americans mobilized an unprecedented popular movement to counter the equally unprecedented liberties they had taken in exploiting, polluting, and destroying the natural world.

The Everglades were a living barometer of America's often tentative shift toward greater environmental responsibility. Reconstructing this larger picture, Davis recounts the shifts in Douglas's own life and her instrumental role in four important developments that contributed to Everglades protection: the making of a positive wetland image, the creation of a national park, the expanding influence of ecological science, and the rise of the modern environmental movement. In the grand but beleaguered Everglades, which Douglas came to understand is a vast natural system that supports human life, she saw nature's providence.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #901360 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 616 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780820330716
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Review
"Exceptional. More than just a biography, the book provides an excellent history of the modern environmental movement. I am certain that all who read it will be inspired by the dynamic, pivotal, and courageous life and work of Marjory Stoneman Douglas and will be reminded of how terribly essential the efforts to protect the Florida Everglades and the environment remain." --Senator Bob Graham

"Jack Davis does for Marjory Stoneman Douglas what Linda Lear did for Rachel Carson and Farley Mowat did for Dian Fossey. He gives us the textures of a principled woman, sometimes troubled, sometimes ambitious, always dedicated to an unselfish goal. Davis does justice to both Douglas's life and the incipient days of America's environmental awakening." --Ted Levin, author of Liquid Land: A Journey through the Florida Everglades

Review

About the Author
Jack E. Davis is an associate professor of history at the University of Florida. He is editor of The Wide Brim: Early Poems and Ponderings of Marjory Stoneman Douglas and coeditor of Paradise Lost? The Environmental History of Florida.

Customer Reviews

struggle to preserve the Everglades by a leading 20th-century environmentalist
The year 1947 turned out to be a midpoint in the environmental activism of Marjory Stoneman Douglas, not the culmination some expected. In this year, President Truman dedicated the Everglades National Park. Stoneman's environmental classic The Everglades: River of Grass was also published. But as anyone living today knows, the Everglades was not preserved for all time. In 1947, Douglas still had 50 years of life ahead of her. She died in 1998 at the age of 108. During the second half of her life, she continued to work tirelessly to build on her earlier, partial successes in preserving the Everglades and playing a lead in environmentalism.

Though not as well-known or celebrated as John Muir or Rachel Carson even by environmentalists, Douglas was a central figure in reformulating the public's perspective on the environment as she focused particularly on the preservation of the Everglades. "More than any other single writer or activist, [she] embodied the American environmental century--that period from the closing of the frontier to the end of the twentieth century during which environmental concerns rose to the fore in American politics and society." (from the Foreword by Paul S. Sutter)

Davis's voluminous biography takes in the full scope of Douglas's life from shaky marriage, noted author of stories and novels, prominent forebears and influence of her father who was cofounder of the Miami Herald, and feminist leader, to the environmental activism and projects she was involved in, especially the recognition of the place of the Everglades in Florida's and the U.S.'s environmental heritage and its preservation for which she is most remembered. At appropriate spots in the straightforward chronological biography, Davis goes into the legal problems of the man Douglas was briefly married to, her work on the homefront in World War II, the path of her literary career, and specifics of environmental legislation. The author also relates scientific information as appropriate for readers to understand these topics and concomitantly appreciate Douglas's knowledge of environmentalism and her activist approach focusing on issues and pressing for their resolution.

In this first biography on this pioneering environmentalist--which for most readers will be an introductory biography--Davis, as was his aim, gets in all the biographical material as gleaned from references in notes running more than 125 pages. As all this in a lifespan of over 100 years is presented on the same par, as more or less indiscriminate, unevaluated information, there is little perspective or drama. The tactics of the Florida developer Broward, Douglas's work on legislation in Washington, critical points in saving the Everglades, Douglas's feminist activism, and the many other subjects are treated mostly as varied aspects of her life and work. Despite Davis's diffident, though highly informed stance as author, Douglas's unique achievements shine through.

The entire early movement of environmental consciousness and history is traced here
AN EVERGLADES PROVIDENCE: MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS AND THE AMERICAN ENVIRONMENTAL CENTURY is a 'must' for any library strong in social or environmental history. It offers a detailed, lengthy analysis of a woman who was dedicated to environmental awareness, offering much more than a biography of her life and achievements. The entire early movement of environmental consciousness and history is traced here, making for a powerful and important survey.