Consolidating the Record

A Brief History of Environmentalism in Florida

By Susan Stover, Gail Donovan, and Fred Lohrer w assistance from Erin Mahaney, Mote ArchivistWednesday, October 23, 201339th IAMSLIC Conference and SAIL Meeting Dania Beach, FL

From the Executive Summary:

“The more than 500 FSMLs around the world and

the long-term records they maintain,

make it possible to study environmental processes at multiple spatial and temporal scales.”

Discovering and Promoting Collections

Project Goals

▪ Consolidate the Florida Environmental Record.

▪ Help uncover hidden collections.

▪ Solicit input from repositories throughout the state.

▪ Target audience for guide: students doing environmental research, scientists, historians, and more.

▪ Produce an online Collection Guide to help facilitate or start environmental research thereby . . .

▪ Saving the planet! (or at least Florida).

CREATE the COLLECTION GUIDE or BIBLIOGRAPHY of Florida Environmental

Resources

INDEXTrends in Environmentalism

Key Events in Florida’s Environmental History Collections: Archival or Special ….mainly print

Digital Collections (non-government) ….

Government Agencies (local, state, federal) ….

Plants and Herbariums

Facilities and Organizations… whose mission is to preserve and protect FL’s environment

Places for Students to Start

• Environmental Collection Guides (like this one!)

• Bibliographies and Acknowledgements of key works

• Florida State Archives• Florida's universities and colleges, public

and private• Florida Memory Project• PALMM (http://palmm.fcla.edu/), which

includesReclaiming the Everglades Everglades Digital LibraryFlorida Environments OnlineLinking Florida's Natural HeritageBig Cypress National Preserve

CollectionSouthwest Florida Environmental

DocumentsUniversity of Florida Herbarium

Collection

Specimen from Herbarium, Mote Marine Laboratory, Sarasota, FL.

Locate and Highlight Collections

about Environmentalism

▪ Bass Biological Laboratory

▪ Charles M. Breder Jr.

▪ Perry W. Gilbert

▪ Mina Walther

▪ Mote Technical Reports

▪ Herbarium

Photo, c.1930s, Bass Biological Laboratory Collection, MML

Dr. Charles M. Breder Jr. (L) with flying fish, AMNH photograph from Charles M. Breder Jr. Collection, MML.

Example: Mote Marine Laboratory’s Environmental Collections

Types of Records

▪ Individual Papers▪ Marjory Stoneman Douglas

▪ Arthur R. Marshall

▪ Charles M. Breder Jr.

▪ Organizational Papers▪ Florida Defenders of the Environment

▪ Friends of the Everglades

▪ Sierra Club

▪ National and Florida Audubon Societies

▪ Government Records▪ National Park Service

▪ Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FFWCC, FWRI)

▪ Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Audubon Society members and roseatae spoonbills, photo courtesy of the State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory Project, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/73490

Papers of Organizations

• Florida Defenders of the Environment

• Friends of the Everglades• Sierra Club• Audubon Society• Wilderness Society• Florida Wildlife Federation• 1000 Friends of Florida• Arthur R. Marshall Foundation• Sanibel-Captiva Conservation

Foundation   

John Nolen’s plan for Venice, FL. Image courtesy of Venice Archives and Area Historical Collection. (left)

Papers of Government Entities, Past and Present

Who they are and Where they are located. Types of information they publish

•  Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FFWCC, FWRI)

• United States Geological Survey• National Park Service• Civilian Conservation Corps• Florida Department of Natural

Resources • Florida State Board of

Conservation (right)Correspondence from R. L. Dowling to John F. Bass Jr., March 21, 1939 from the Bass Biological Laboratory Collection, MML.

https://dspace.mote.org/dspace/handle/2075/2429

Collection Record Example

▪ Collection Title: Charles Marcus Breder, Jr. Collection, 1920-1974.

▪ Library/Archive: Arthur Vining Davis Library & Archive at Mote Marine Laboratory, Sarasota, FL

▪ Volume/Storage Container: 18 linear feet

▪ Description of Material: 21 field journals, field notes, correspondence, illustrations. Finding Aid available. Some materials digitized.

▪ Abstract: Dr. Breder (1897-1983) was an experimental and behavioral ichthyologist whose work and achievements dominated the field. During his lifetime he wrote 160 papers and books. Covering thousands of pages he recorded an unparalleled array of field and laboratory investigations, and systematic and distributional studies. Many of his field trips and expeditions for the New York Zoological Society, the American Museum of Natural History and the New York Aquarium involved research in Florida and the Caribbean. The contents of his field journals include notes, itineraries, illustrations, and observations from specific scientific expeditions and laboratory research. They also provide an insight into the early meticulous scientific thoughts of this biologist, and how he examined and developed ideas.

▪ Notes: An ichthyologist is a zoologist who studies fishes.

▪ URL: https://dspace.mote.org/dspace/handle/2075/2907

Trends in the History of Environmentalism

▪ Naturalists/Early Conservationists▪ William Bartram (1739-1823)▪ John Kunkel Small (1869-1938)▪ Charles Torrey Simpson (1846-1932)

▪ Utilitarian Conservationists/Preservationists

▪ Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946)/John Muir(1838-1914)

▪ Theodore Roosevelt (1859-1919)▪ May Mann Jennings (1872-1963)

▪ Environmentalists▪ Marjory Stoneman Douglas (1890-1998)▪ Marjorie Harris Carr (1915-1998)▪ Ernest F. Coe (1866-1951)▪ John D. Pennekamp (1897-1978)

Marjorie Harris Carr (left). Photo courtesy of State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory Project, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/144623

Charles Torrey Simpson, John Soar and Paul Matthaus (below, L-R), collecting saw cabbage palm. Photo by John Kunkel Small, courtesy of State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory Project, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/24203

Begins with descriptions of

Naturalists

▪ William Bartram’s Travels

▪ Charles Torrey Simpson (1846-1932)

▪ David Fairchild (1869-1954)

▪ Thomas Barbour (1884-1946), That Vanishing Eden

▪ Foundation for future views, policies, and changes made to Florida’s environment

▪ Prevailing view at the time held that nature existed to benefit humans (man)

▪ Collecting and documenting the environment for work or pleasure

William Bartram (1739-1823)

Travels Through North & South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws; Containing An Account of the Soil and Natural Productions of Those Regions, Together with Observations on the Manners of the Indians. Embellished with Copper-Plates.

Philadelphia: Printed by James & Johnson, 1791.

Naturalists and early conservationists provided descriptions of Florida's environment and helped shape how later generations viewed and used Florida.

Conservationists

▪ Use the interest, not the principal

▪ “Rational Exploitation”

▪ Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946)

▪ Theodore Roosevelt (1859-1919)

▪ May Mann Jennings (1872-1963)

▪ Sportsmen/women

▪ Forestry Boards

▪ Civilian Conservation Corps

Cover from Wilson, R. L. Theodore Roosevelt, Hunter-Conservationist. Missoula, MT : Boone and Crockett Club, 2009.

The Civilian Conservation Corps in front of supply house - Sebring, Florida, 1938. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory Project, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/30442

Conservationists (utilitarian) emphasized the right to utilize nature's resources, but in a sustainable way.

Preservationists

Nature is worth preserving for its own sake

▪ John Muir (1838-1914)

▪ Mary Barr Munroe (d.1922)

▪ Frank Chapman (1864-1945)

▪ George Perkins Marsh (1801-1882), Man and Nature, 1864

▪ Royal Palm State Park (1916)

▪ Nascent environmentalists, as we think of them today

Postcard courtesy of State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory Project, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/158995

Preservationists differed from the utilitarian conservationists - emphasized preserving nature for its own sake.

Environmentalists

▪ Modern environmental movement

▪ Marjory Stoneman Douglas (1890-1998)

▪ Arthur Marshall (1919-1985)

▪ Ruth Bryan Owen (1885-1954)

▪ Marjorie Harris Carr (1915-1998)

▪ Broad coalition of sometimes disparate groups

▪ Essential to preserve and restore the environment for its own sake but also for humanity

▪ Necessity vs Option

Marjory Stoneman Douglas, State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/5621

Environmentalists responded to environmental destruction, and aimed to prevent or halt future destruction.

Sportsmen and Environmentalism

▪William R. Mote (1906-1991)

▪Johnny Jones (1932-2010)

▪Theodore Roosevelt (1859-1919)

▪Everglades coalition

▪Role of lobbying

▪Catch and Release, Tag and Release

▪1873 shift to conservation among sportsmen

William R. Mote, businessman, avid sportsman, conservationist.

Women and Environmentalism

▪ Feminization of Nature

▪ ‘Civic motherhood’

▪ Ruth Bryan Owen, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Marjorie Harris Carr, May Mann Jennings, Mary Barr Munroe, Edith Gifford, Mary Kenan Flagler

▪ Rise of women’s clubs in Florida, progressive movement

▪ Differing views of conservation, preservation, and environmentalism

Ruth Bryan Owen, Courtesy of State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory Project, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/42800

May Mann Jennings, 1901. Courtesy of State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory Project, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/136896

Rachel Carson (center), then chief editor of publications for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Marie Rodell become the first women to spend more than a few hours aboard a U.S. fisheries research vessel.

▪ Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring (1962)

▪ Douglas, Marjory Stoneman. River of Grass (1947)

Key Events in Florida’s Environmental History

▪ The Swamp and Overflowed Lands Act of 1850

▪ The Great Giveaway, Reclamation Act of 1902, and Railroads

▪ The Plume Craze (i.e. the great slaughter)

▪ The Everglades: jetports, draining, national and state parks, poaching, invasive exotics, water conservation and flooding . . .

▪ Air Pollution: paper mills and phosphate plants/mines in Jacksonville, environmental justice issues

▪ The Cross Florida Barge Canal

▪ Boca Ciega Bay: dredge and fill

▪ The Gulf of Mexico oil spills

FPG/Hulton Archive, Getty Images (L) illustrating fashions fueling plume craze.

Image (above) taken from “Digging ourselves into a hole” by Craig Pittman in the St. Petersburg Times, published October 31, 1999.

Next:

John Kunkel Small Records

▪ New York Botanical Garden, Mertz Library, Archives and Manuscripts▪ Records of the Herbarium▪ JOHN KUNKEL SMALL RECORDS (1892-1938)▪ 18.3 linear feet; (28 boxes)▪ http://sciweb.nybg.org/science2/libr/finding_guide/small.asp▪ Series 12 : Florida

▪

Family of John Kunkel Small in the Florida Everglades near Lake Okeechobee aboard the boat "Lida", 1913. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kunkel_Small

John K. SmallJohn Kunkel Small Records, Archives, New York Botanical Garden

Publications: Over 450 books and articles:o Manual of the Southeastern Flora,

1903, 1913, 1933o From Eden to Sahara: Florida's Tragedy,

1929o Ferns of Florida, 1933

www.floridamemory.org

The Thomas A. Edison Papers

Edison Botanical Laboratory, Archives, Edison & Ford Winter Estates.

Edison Botanical Research Lab

The Edison Ford Winter Estates Archives includes holdings related to the Edison Botanic Research Corporation. Parts of this collection may not be available.

Researchers must be preapproved to access the Edison Ford Winter Estates Archives. (Fort Myers, Florida)

New York Botanical Garden, Mertz Library, Archives and ManuscriptEdison, Thomas A. (Thomas Alva), 1847-1931.The Thomas A. Edison Papers, 1880-1964Bulk, 1927-1930, .4 linear feethttp://library.nybg.org/finding_guide/archv/edison_ppf.html

Series 2. Rubber Experiments.Folder 1.20 Rubber Content Analyses by J. K. Small

Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden

Archive Collections

/

COLLECTION: George B. Cellon CollectionCREATOR: George B. CellonEXTENT: Approximately 5 cubic feet in 10 boxesREPOSITORY: The Bertram Zuckerman Garden Archive, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, 11935 Old Cutler Road, Miami FL 33156

George B. Cellon Collection, Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden Archive

Robert H. Montgomery and David Fairchild founders of Fairchild

Tropical Botanic Garden, at the dedication

ceremony, March 23, 1938, Miami, Florida

Marie Selby Botanical Gardens Collections

▪ The Rare Book Collection

▪ The Botanical Print Collection

▪ Gardens Drawings and Blueprints

http://www.selby.org/research/research-library

Sarasota, Florida

University of South Florida - Herbarium

• 210,000 specimens of vascular plants

• 17,000 algae• 2,000 bryophytes and

lichens • Plants from Florida (40%),

with strong holdings from North America north of Mexico (37%) and Latin America (13%)

• Largest collection in the world of materials from central and southern Florida

http://www.plantatlas.usf.edu/isb/herbarium.htm

Florida Native Plant Society

http://www.fnps.org/who-we-are/history

Environmental Studies Program Collection

purl.fcla.edu/ncf/esp

New College of Florida ArchiveJane Bancroft Cook LibraryNew College of Florida, Sarasota

Environmental Studies Program CollectionJane Bancroft Cook Library, New College of Florida

purl.fcla.edu/ncf/esp

Biscayne BayBibliographies and Materials

▪ The 2000 edition contains over 2412 entries. www.aoml.noaa.gov/general/lib/bbdl.html

▪ The 1993 and 2000 updates incorporate the 3 major prior bibliographies as well as previously unidentified citations and later studies and documents issued until July 2000.

▪ The documents listed are available from the University of Miami’s RSMAS or Richter libraries.

▪ The RSMAS Library has an area dedicated to Biscayne Bay.

Florida Keys Ecosystem Bibliography

This Bibliography was originally prepared for the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in Key Largo.

For use by scientists and educators.

Covers: invertebrates, flora, oceanography, geology, meteorology, marine mammals, fishes and terrestrial flora and fauna (1964-1992).

Materials are not housed in any one location.

NOAA AOML

Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Lab Library and the Hurricane Research Division (HRD) Library: Miamihttp://www.aoml.noaa.gov/

AOML Regional Library:

Focus on published and unplublished scientific literature in the fields of oceanography, atmospheric science, aquaculture, and fisheries.

FEDERAL COLLECTIONS

Florida Fish and Wildlife

Conservation

Commission

Research Information Center

The Florida Marine Research Institute (FMRI) was founded in

1955The Divisions of

Freshwater Fisheries & Wildlife’s

research-oriented programs date from the 1940s

The Library at FFWCC/FWRI houses the institutional papers of the facility.

Almost every other Florida government agency sends these materials to the state archives for housing.

Randell Research Center (RRC)

▪ State-owned, it is a program of the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.

▪ Dedicated to the study of the archaeology, history, and ecology of Southwest Florida.

STATE/ACADEMIC COLLECTIONS

The Calusa Heritage Trail

- a 3,700 foot interpretive walkway provides detailed information regarding the Calusa Indians who inhabited the Pineland site, their culture & environment, and the history of SW FL after the Calusa left. 

Map of Selected Archaeological Sites in Southwest Florida

Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation

▪ The Sanibel Report, prepared in 1974-75, reports on every facet of the island’s natural systems, such as beach, mangroves, interior wetlands, hydrology and wildlife information.

Section of an illustration in The Sanibel Report showing the different ecological zones on the island. http://www.sccf.org/content/122/SCCF-and-The-Sanibel-Report.aspx

INDEPENDENT NON-PROFIT FOUNDATION COLLECTION

Its Marine Laboratory conducts research in areas including seagrasses, mangroves, harmful algal blooms, fish populations and shellfish restoration.

SCCF’s RECON (River, Estuary and Coastal Observing Network) network of seven in-water sensors provides real-time, hourly readings of key water quality parameters – spanning a 90-mile area – which are available on their web site.

Located on J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge property in the Tarpon Bay Recreation Area, Sanibel, Florida.

The Bass Biological Laboratory Collection, 1931-2011

▪ First year-round, co-educational research and field station in Southwest Florida.

▪ Hosted researchers who would later form the basis of the scientific community in America.

▪ Provides baseline studies as well as a look at rural Florida during the Great Depression.

Photos from the Bass Biological Laboratory Collection, Mote Marine Laboratory, Sarasota, FL

Environmental Organization

Sierra Club Record from University of Florida

Descriptive Summary

▪ Creator: Sierra Club. Florida Chapter.

▪ Title: Sierra Club Florida Chapter Records

▪ Dates: 1964-1987

▪ Abstract: Correspondence, minutes, newsletters, and miscellaneous materials of an environmentalist organization.

▪ Extent: 8.3 Linear feet. 20 Boxes.

▪ Identification: Ms 89

▪ Language(s): English

ORGANIZATION COLLECTION

Where are the records for 1990 –

e.g. The conflict against the Homestead Jet Port

Historical Legacy of the Roebling and Archbold Families

The Red Hill Estate (1929-1941)

and the

Archbold Biological Station founded 1941

By Fred E. Lohrer, Librarian,

Archbold Biological Station, April 2005

http://www.archboldstation.org/station/html/linkpgs/robarchlegacy.html#2._

Archbold Research

The study was begun in 1969 at Archbold and now encompasses approaches from behavioral ecology and evolutionary biology to endocrinology and functional genomics.

This body of knowledge helped Archbold scientists spearhead conservation planning for scrub-jays that serves as a model for bird conservation worldwide.

Early research was dominated by botanical and entomological explorations, and many scientists developed long-term projects that became milestones in their fields.

The longest-running continuous bird study in North America focuses on the threatened species, the Florida Scrub-jay, Aphelocoma coerulescens.

Archbold, Blair, and Red Hill Papers

2 file drawers of correspondence, drawings, invoices, etc. and 500 large-format photos and negatives, all concerning the construction of John Roebling's Red Hill Estate (1930-1941), which became the Archbold Biological Station in July 1941.

All of this was generated, stored, and eventually donated, by Alexander Blair, the resident construction engineer of the estate. All material is still in its original organizational scheme, but it has been transferred to archival file folders.

Colorful aviator-explorer, founded the Station in 1941. After more than a decade of exploration in Madagascar and New Guinea, Archbold obtained the original 1,000-acre "Red Hill" Estate as a gift from John A. Roebling, II, grandson of the Brooklyn Bridge designer.

“His papers were transferred to archival file folders when, and as found, and stored in 4 archival shelf boxes…. but more curatorial work is needed.”

Archbold Biological Station Library

Fred Lohrer

Fred and Gail Donovan in the Archives

This correspondence is well-organized, by the author, into folders by person or place, but needs archival curation.

Brass Correspondence

More Archives

Student Interns & Various Staff (1967-1985)

Field notes, on archival field-note paper,

are stored in original notebooks.

Not cataloged, stored by author.

Kay Hale and Erin Mahaney

Kay Hale, Fred Lohrer, Gail Donovan, Erin Mahaney

Metadata

Ecological datebases are in a rapid cycle of increasing electronic control. Archbold has data-storage and data-sharing procedures manuals, and a metadata system is being actively populated.

Metadata for current databases are manditory (staff and visiting scientists) and are created as projects are initiated.

Many / most historical ecological databases are under active capture for the metadata files. The Station's climatological and hydrological records (some since ~1931) are just about 100% accessible electronically.

http://www.archbold-station.org/station/html/datapub/data/dataovr.html

A Flash of Green

▪ A Flash of Green by the late John D. McDonald is occasionally credited as the first “ecological” novel.

▪ Although he was a fiction writer he was writing about the actual facts of development vs preservation in Florida.

▪ His book was published in 1962, the same year as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.

▪ Because of its pro-eco stance, A Flash of Green was financed by and telecast as an edition of PBS' American Playhouse: Season 5, Episode 11, September 15, 1984.

About the Movie

▪ Ed Harris plays Jimmy, a reporter for a Florida resort-town newspaper. Jimmy is symbolically waiting for that "flash of green," a Gulf mirage said to occur during sunset.

▪ His friend is shady county-commissioner, Elmo Bliss, played by Richard Jordan. When Harris shows signs of sympathizing with a local ecology group that is dead set against a new bay-side (land-fill) development project, Jordan tries to keep the editor quiet with a bribe. At first, Harris goes along, but rapidly develops a conscience when Jordan enlists a local strong-armed, right-wing group to keep the ecologists in line.

▪ (Of course there’s an attractive conservationist, played by Blair Brown, and a few tough guys thrown in.)Part 3 – The Flash

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1FHODYiOT8

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/flash_of_green/trailers/

Billick, I. et al. 2013. Field Stations and Marine Labs of the Future: A Strategic Vision. NAML and OBFS.Davis, J.E. 2009. An Everglades Providence: Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the American Environmental Century. Environmental History and the American South, ed. by P.S. Sutter. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.Davis, J.E. and R. Arsenault, eds. 2005. Paradise Lost? The Environmental History of Florida. The Florida History and Culture Series. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.Davis, J.E. and K. Frederickson, eds. 2003. Making Waves: Female Activists in Twentieth-Century Florida. The Florida History and Culture Series. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.Derr, M. 1998. Some Kind of Paradise: A Chronicle of Man and the Land in Florida. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.Gottlieb, R. 1993. Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement. Washington, DC: Island Press.Grunwald, M. 2006. The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.McIver, S.B. 2003. Death in the Everglades: The Murder of Guy Bradley, America's First Martyr to Environmentalism. The FL History and Culture Series. Gainesville, FL: University Press of FL.Miller, Char. 2001. Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism. Washington, DC: Island Press.Miller, James J. 1998. An Environmental History of Northeast Florida. The Ripley P. Bullen Series, Florida Museum of Natural History, ed. by Milanich, J.T. Gainesville, FL: University Press of FL.Mongillo, J. and B. Booth, eds. 2001. Environmental Activists. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.Morse, R.A. 2000. Richard Archbold and the Archbold Biological Station. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Noll, S. and D. Tegeder. 2009. Ditch of Dreams: The Cross Florida Barge Canal and the Struggle for Florida's Future. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.Shirley, T. 2012. Everglades Patrol. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2012.Woolfenden, G.E. and J.W. Fitzpatrick. 1984. The Florida Scrub Jay: Demography of a Cooperative- Breeding Bird. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

REFERENCES

Mangrove tunnel, photo by Bonefish and Tarpon Trust

Enjoy Florida !!

Gail Donovan, Reference Librarian Jane Bancroft Cook Library New College of Florida, Sarasota, FLSusan Stover, Director Arthur Vining Davis Library & Archives Mote Marine Laboratory, Sarasota, FL Fred Lohrer, Librarian Archbold Biological Station, Venus, Florida

Funding provided by the H.E. and P.S. Becker Foundation and The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations