Coral Gables.
Douglas’s First Book
Douglas, Marjory Stoneman. Coral Gables. Miami Riviera. An interpretation. (Coral Gables, FL: Parker Art Printing Associates), [1920].
4to.; blue-green wrappers, stapled; wrappers detached, with some small tears along fore- and bottom edges; faint dampstaining to the hinge.
First edition of the first publication by environmental activist and nature writer Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and one of the earliest printed promotions of this “city-region” of Florida. Through her text, punctuated by fifteen beautiful black-and-white photographs of various scenic spots and architectural landmarks, Douglas guides the reader through some of her favorite locations in Coral Gables, which she claims is not “a city in a region or a region in a city,” but is more like “a great garden set with houses, a park where all people can live to their best capacities” (p. 4). In that sense, Coral Gables is as modern as any other traditional city, for its organization and development represents “the most far-seeing method which has yet been found to preserve the right relation between man and his work and his play and his environment” (p. 6).
Marjory Stoneman Douglas (1890-1998) graduated from Wesleyan University with a degree in English Composition in 1912 and began her writing career at the age of 25, as a journalist for The Miami Herald. In addition to writing over a dozen novels, plays, books of poetry and short stories, Douglas devoted many years to teaching English at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, and was an editor for the University of Miami Press through her early seventies. During World War I she traveled to Europe to aid the Red Cross and upon her return to the States promptly got involved in suffrage activities in Florida. Though born in Minneapolis, throughout her adult life Douglas lived in South Florida, which became the subject and inspiration for much of her writing. Described as “an active force among Florida environmentalists,” Douglas was a polished public speaker and often gave lectures on behalf on the Friends of Everglades, an organization dedicated to the restoration and preservation of the natural landscape and protection of the South Florida water supply. In 1975 she was named Conservationist of the Year by the Florida Audubon Society, and was honored several more times in the years that followed by other local environmental agencies. At the age of 103 Douglas was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her dedication and achievements. She died of natural causes five years later in Miami. (Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2003)
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