“OUR LADY OF THE RIVERS”: MARJORIE HARRIS CARR, SCIENCE, GENDER, AND ...

351 Pages·2010·5.88 MB·English

“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
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© 2010 Margaret F. (Peggy) Macdonald

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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

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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
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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
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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.

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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

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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
was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi honor societies. Courtesy of
Mimi Carr...........................................................................................................................78
3-1 The Welaka National Fish Hatchery is located in Putnam County, which borders
Alachua County (where Gainesville is located) and Marion County (where Ocala is
located). The Ocklawaha and St. Johns Rivers cross Putnam County. ...........................124
3-2 Aerial view of the Welaka National Fish Hatchery. ........................................................124
3-3 The aviary at the Welaka Fish Hatchery (1935). Courtesy of the Florida State
Archives. ..........................................................................................................................125
3-4 Stewart Springer and Marjorie Harris Carr with snakes at Bass Zoological Research
Supply Laboratory, Englewood, Florida (1937). Courtesy of Archie Carr III. ..............125
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3-5 Archie Carr and Marjorie Harris Carr’s troth pledging ceremony (June 11, 1937).
Courtesy of Mimi Carr. ....................................................................................................126
3-6 The interior of the Bass Lab, where Marjorie and her colleagues prepared zoological
specimens for university research. Courtesy of Mimi Carr. ...........................................126
3-7 Bass Lab manager Stewart Springer (second from left), owner Jack Bass (second
from right) and two unidentified lab workers (1937). Courtesy of Mimi Carr. ..............127
3-8 The exterior of the rustic Bass Lab (1937). Courtesy of Mimi Carr. ..............................127
3-9 Thomas Barbour, director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Natural
History (late 1930s). Courtesy of Mimi Carr. .................................................................128
3-10 Marjorie Harris Carr on a collecting and research expedition at the River Styx near
Gainesville (December 1937). Courtesy of Mimi Carr. .................................................128
4-1 The San Antonio mining town near El Zamorano, Honduras. Photo by Margaret
Hogaboom. Courtesy of Mimi Carr. ...............................................................................163
4-2 The Carrs’ faculty villa at the Escuela Agrícola Panamericana in El Zamorano.
Photo by Margaret Hogaboom. Courtesy of Mimi Carr. ................................................164
4-3 J. C. Dickinson, Jr. (who later became the director of the Florida Museum of Natural
History) and Marjorie Carr prepare bird specimens after a collecting expedition.
Dickinson’s son, J. C. Dickinson, III., sits to the right of his father; Chuck and Mimi
Carr sit beside their mother while she works. Courtesy of Mimi Carr. ..........................165
4-4 Archie (left) and Marjorie Carr (right) prepare for a ride through the Honduran
rainforest (1945). Photo by Margaret Hogaboom. Courtesy of Mimi Carr. ..................166
4-5 Mimi and Chuck Carr play with sea turtles (1946). Courtesy of Mimi Carr. .................166
4-6 The Carrs’ nanny, Tina, feeds Chuck and Mimi by candlelight (1947). Courtesy of
Mimi Carr.........................................................................................................................167
4-7 Marjorie Carr (center) with colleagues on a collecting and research trip in Honduras
(1948). Archie is third from the left, looking down. Courtesy of Mimi Carr. ...............167
4-8 In 1948, Marjorie and Archie Carr’s growing family included Chuck (left), Tom,
Mimi, and Steve. Courtesy of Mimi Carr. ......................................................................168
4-9 Marjorie Carr examines the massive trees of the Honduran cloud forest near El
Zamorano (1947). Photo by Margaret Hogaboom. Courtesy of Archie Carr III. ..........168
4-10 Marjorie Carr with a toucan she killed to add to her tropical bird collection (1947).
She donated more than 2,000 bird specimens to the Florida Museum of Natural
History at the University of Florida, the American Museum of Natural History in
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New York, and the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard. Courtesy of Archie
Carr III. ............................................................................................................................169
5-1 Like her parents before her, Marjorie Carr taught her children about Florida’s flora
and fauna. Marjorie and her five children—Mimi (bottom left), Tom, David
(center), Steve, and Chuck (bottom right)—at Cedar Key (1953). Courtesy of Mimi
Carr. .................................................................................................................................213
5-2 Marjorie Carr rescued historic downtown Micanopy’s live oaks by convincing town
leaders to declare them wards of the town. Photo by Peggy Macdonald. ......................213
5-3 Wewa Pond on the Carr family homestead. Photo by Peggy Macdonald. .....................214
5-4 Cattle rest under live oak trees at the Carr family homestead. Photo by Peggy
Macdonald........................................................................................................................215
5-5 Another view of Wewa Pond. Photo by Peggy Macdonald............................................216
5-6 A tree-lined section of Paynes Prairie State Park. Photo by Peggy Macdonald. ............217
5-7 Another view of Paynes Prairie State Park. Photo by Peggy Macdonald. ......................218
5-8 An alligator crosses Lake Alice at the University of Florida. Photo by Peggy
Macdonald........................................................................................................................218
6-1 A 1965 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers map detailing the organization’s active and
planned civil works projects in Florida. The Cross Florida Barge Canal is identified
with a thick, black line. Note Florida is severed, with the panhandle near Key West.
“Summary of Civil Works Projects Under Construction and Studies in Progress,”
December 1965, Mildred and Claude Pepper Library, Series 301, Box 29A, Folder 4. .267
6-2 The Ocklawaha River in the early 1960s, before construction of the Cross Florida
Barge Canal. Courtesy of the Florida State Archives. ....................................................268
6-3 An anhinga dries its wings after diving for fish. Photo by Peggy Macdonald. ..............269
6-4 The Silver River (pictured) carries the crystal-clear waters of Silver Springs to the
Ocklawaha River. Photo by Peggy Macdonald. .............................................................270
6-5 Like the Ocklawaha River, Silver Springs (pictured) lay in the proposed path of the
Cross Florida Barge Canal. Photo by Peggy Macdonald. ...............................................271
6-6 Turtles bask in the sun to remove algae from their shells at Silver Springs,
approximately nine miles from the Ocklawaha River. Photo by Peggy Macdonald. .....272
6-7 Construction of the U.S. 19 bridge over the Cross Florida Barge Canal in Inglis,
Florida (late 1960s). Courtesy of the Florida State Archives. ........................................272
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