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American clubwoman From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mary Barr Munroe (January 5, 1852 – September 8, 1922) was a Scottish-born American clubwoman and conservationist, based in Miami, Florida. Munroe founded the Coconut Grove Audubon Society and library, and worked for the establishment of a state park that became part of the Everglades National Park.
Mary Barr Munroe | |
---|---|
Born | January 5, 1852 Glasgow, Scotland |
Died | September 8, 1922 70) | (aged
Mary Barr was born in Glasgow, the daughter of Robert Barr and Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr.[1] Her mother was a prolific novelist and teacher, born in Lancashire; her father was a wool merchant. She moved to the United States as a baby, and spent her girlhood in Chicago, in Texas, (where her father and brothers died from yellow fever), and in New York.[2]
Munroe moved to Florida with her husband in 1886, becoming one of the "pioneers" of the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami.[3][4] She was the first elected president of the Woman's Club of Coconut Grove, started the Dade County Federation of Women's Clubs, was active in the Florida Federation of Women's Clubs.[2][5][6][7] She founded the Coconut Grove Audubon Society and was its first president in 1915.[8] She opposed the fashion of using egret feathers in women's hats, and was known to forcibly remove them from hats of other women in her company.[2][3] She started a boys' club, Bird Defenders, to encourage children to protect Florida birds.[5] She began the book collection that became the Coconut Grove Library in 1895.[9][10][11] With Edith Gifford and May Mann Jennings, she proposed the establishment of Royal Palms State Park,[12] which was dedicated in 1916 and became part of the Everglades National Park in 1947.[13]
Munroe wrote about Florida for several national publications, and was the author of Florida Birds are Worth Their Weight in Gold, a pamphlet of the Florida Audubon Society.[5] She corresponded with John Muir.[14][15] She started an interracial sewing club,[16] and attended services at a nearby black church.[17]
Mary Barr married American writer Kirk Munroe (1850–1930) in 1883.[18] She died in 1922, aged 70 years, at "Scrububs",[3] her home in Coconut Grove, Florida.[19] Her grave is in Miami's Caballero Rivero Woodlawn Park cemetery.[20] Her diaries are in the Kirk Munroe Papers at the Library of Congress.[21] The Mary Barr Munroe Society is a women's organization that raises funds for programs benefiting women and girls in Coconut Grove.[10] Munroe's sponge cake recipe was so prized that, a century later, it is still promoted by the Munroe Society at baking events.[22]
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