Born in Boston in 1915, Marjorie Harris Carr was raised in rural Bonita Springs in southwest Florida, where her parents taught her how to identify the state’s native flora & fauna.
In 1936, she received a bachelor’s degree in zoology from Florida State College for Women, present-day Florida State University. Denied funding & admission to graduate programs in zoology and ornithology due to her gender, she took a position as the nation’s first female wildlife technician shortly after completing her undergraduate degree.
In 1942, with the assistance of her husband, pioneering conservation biologist Archie Carr, Marjorie completed a master’s in zoology at the University of Florida, which was still officially an all-male institution.
In the late 1950s, she began her career in conservation & environmentalism in Micanopy. Her early preservation efforts included the establishment of Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park & the restoration of Lake Alice on the University of Florida campus.
She best known for leading the campaign to protect the Ocklawaha River by challenging the construction of the Cross Florida Barge Canal, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project that would have bisected Florida in order to create a shallow barge canal linking Florida’s Gulf & Atlantic coasts.
Through Florida Defenders of the Environment—a coalition of scientific, legal, & economic experts from the University of Florida & other institutions—Marjorie used the science of ecology to object the questionable benefits of the barge canal, which would have destroyed the Ocklawaha River & disrupt the Ocklawaha Regional Ecosystem.
F.D.E. sued the Corps of Engineers in for violating the public interest using an innovative environmental impact statement. Marjorie & her colleagues won a temporary injunction against construction in 1971, & President Richard Nixon halted construction of the canal days later.
Marjorie led F.D.E.’s ongoing battle to preserve & restore the Ocklawaha River until her death in 1997. The Ocklawaha River remains blocked by Rodman Dam. In 1998, the lands purchased along the canal were named the Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway in her honor.
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