“Our Lady of the Rivers”: Marjorie Harris Carr, Science, Gender, and Environmental Activism
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“OUR LADY OF THE RIVERS”: MARJORIE HARRIS CARR, SCIENCE, GENDER, AND ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM By MARGARET F. (PEGGY) MACDONALD A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2010 1 © 2010 Margaret F. (Peggy) Macdonald 2 To my Canadian grandparents, Dorothy and Bill Macdonald, who made Florida their home in 1948; to my mother, Katherine Macdonald, who showed me how strong a woman can be; and to Mimi Carr, who made this dissertation possible 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It has been a privilege to study under Dr. Louise Newman, who helped pave the way for gender history at the University of Florida. In 2003 she convinced the history department to introduce gender history as a minor field of study. Dr. Newman and two additional committee members, Dr. Sheryl Kroen and Dr. Angel Kwolek-Folland, were instrumental in shaping my understanding of gender history. Dr. Jack Davis provided generous feedback on the dissertation and contributed to my understanding of environmental history and Florida history. I also wish to thank the other members of my Ph.D. committee: Dr. Sevan Terzian and Dr. Steven Noll. I am grateful to the members of the 2007 O. Ruth McQuown Award selection committee. The award was a great honor and provided substantial assistance toward the completion of this dissertation. I am also honored that my Ph.D. committee (including Dr. Robert Zieger, who substituted for Dr. Kwolek-Folland in 2006 while she was in London) nominated me for the Daniel J. Koleos Award, which provided me with much needed assistance at the start of this dissertation project. Dr. Alan Petigny encouraged me to pursue a doctorate in history when I was his student in 2001 and made sure I stayed the course. My father, Dr. Bruce Walton, provided much needed emotional support. From the time my son, Richard Macdonald, was eight months old, my piles of books, journals, dusty letters, and papers to be graded have merged with a succession of baby toys, Hot Wheels, Thomas trains, Legos, and Bakugan balls. Richard still competes with the laptop for a spot next to me on the couch. Throughout the writing of this dissertation, my mother, Katherine Macdonald, served as a willing sounding board. A former member of Marjorie Harris Carr’s Girl Scout troop, my mother has remained friends with Carr’s daughter, Mimi Carr, for sixty years. Moreover, my mother’s experiences as a professional woman in the 1980s provided inspiration for my writing. Like the Carrs, my family attended First Presbyterian Church in Gainesville. In 1982, a male 4 church volunteer asked my mother—divorced since 1976 and raising three children—to report her occupation for the church directory. My mother explained that she was a law student at the University of Florida, executive editor of the law review, and a clerk at a prominent local law firm—to which the man replied, “Oh, you’re a homemaker.” My mother never corrected him. After graduating that spring, she was hired as the law firm’s first female attorney. Leslie Kemp Poole and Everett Caudle’s interviews with Marjorie Harris Carr were indispensable to my research and writing. Dr. Bertram Wyatt-Brown was a wonderful role model early in my graduate career. Always smiling and donning a bow-tie, he and Dr. Bill Link, who succeeded him as the Richard J. Milbauer Chair at the University of Florida, provided generous financial support when I worked as the Milbauer assistant. Nick Williams shared F.D.E.’s resources with me at the start of this project and pointed me in the right direction. Rosalie Leposky helped me gain access to a treasure trove of digitized oral history interviews. Robert Ryals of the Mildred & Claude Pepper Museum and Library showed great kindness and professionalism by opening the facility to me at night and during the weekend so that I could examine the Pepper papers. Dr. Jim Cusick, Carl Van Ness, and the staff of the P. K. Yonge Library of Florida History at the University of Florida provided assistance with the Florida Defenders of the Environment and Archie Carr collections. I had the pleasure of interviewing Marjorie and Archie Carr’s lifelong friend, Dr. J. C. Dickinson, Jr., before his death January 21, 2009, at age 92. He also permitted me to examine his records at the Florida Museum of Natural History, which he directed from 1961 through 1979. These papers included earlier correspondence with the Carrs, some of Marjorie Carr’s publication materials, and items pertaining to her museum work in the 1950s. Interviews with Dr. Tom Carr, Dr. Archie (Chuck) Carr III, Dr. David Anthony, Dr. Joe Little, Dr. Elizabeth 5 Wing, David Godfrey, and David Gluckman furthered my understanding of Carr’s personal and professional life. Additional oral history material came from Darren Preston Lane’s forthcoming documentary, From Waterway to Greenway: The History of the Cross-Florida Barge Canal. Lane traveled across Florida to interview many of the key players from both sides of the battle over the Cross Florida Barge Canal. His interviews provide fresh insights into the continuing debate over the barge canal and restoration of the Ocklawaha River. I express my deepest gratitude to Mimi Carr, who shared her memories of her mother and father over the course of several lengthy interviews between 2005 and 2009. She also shared original photographs of the Carr family and entrusted me with treasured family books and papers, including her parents’ love letters from the fall of 1936 through the summer of 1937. It was a rare honor to read these private letters, many of which were encased in envelopes that had resealed with time and humidity. These letters and additional documents offer a more complete picture of Carr’s life than the one that existed before this new information was made available. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................4 LIST OF FIGURES .........................................................................................................................8 ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................................18 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................21 2 MARJORIE HARRIS CARR’S GIRLHOOD: A YOUNG NATURALIST GROWING UP IN FLORIDA ....................................................................................................................39 3 BLENDING SCIENCE AND MARRIAGE IN THE NEW DEAL ERA .............................79 4 HONDURAS IN THE 1940s: A NATURALIST’S PARADISE .......................................129 5 MARJORIE HARRIS CARR’S EARLY CONSERVATION CAREER ............................170 6 PROTECTING PARADISE: MARJORIE HARRIS CARR LAUNCHES THE CAMPAIGN TO SAVE THE OCKLAWAHA RIVER ......................................................219 7 FLORIDA DEFENDERS OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND THE DEATH OF THE CROSS FLORIDA BARGE CANAL ..................................................................................274 8 CONCLUSION .....................................................................................................................324 LIST OF REFERENCES .............................................................................................................337 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................................350 7 LIST OF FIGURES Figure page 2-1 Charles Ellsworth Harris. Courtesy of Mimi Carr. ...........................................................73 2-2 Clara (Haynes) Harris. Courtesy of Mimi Carr. ...............................................................73 2-3 Marjorie Harris (center) with childhood friend Ralph Maglathlin (1916). Courtesy of Mimi Carr...........................................................................................................................74 2-4 Two-year-old Marjorie Harris in Boston, Massachusetts (1917). Courtesy of Archie Fairly Carr III. ....................................................................................................................74 2-5 Marjorie Harris examining seashells with her father, Charles Harris, at Sanibel Island, Florida, in 1919. Courtesy of Mimi Carr. .............................................................75 2-6 Nine-year-old Marjorie Harris (front row, second from right), Bonita Springs School, Lee County, Florida (1925). Courtesy of Archie Fairly Carr III. .....................................75 2-7 Marjorie Harris’s childhood home in Bonita Springs (1920s). Courtesy of Mimi Carr. ...................................................................................................................................76 2-8 Marjorie Harris riding her horse, Chiquita (1920s). Courtesy of Mimi Carr. ..................76 2-9 Marjorie Harris (center) with alligator skin, Bonita Springs (1920s). Courtesy of Mimi Carr...........................................................................................................................77 2-10 Marjorie Harris, Fort Myers High School senior picture (1932). Courtesy of Archie Fairly Carr III. ....................................................................................................................77 2-11 Marjorie Harris in Florida State College for Women graduation regalia (1936). She