Mary Barr Munroe

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.

This article is about the Florida clubwoman and conservationist Mary Barr Munroe (1852–1922); see Mary Barr Clay (1839–1924) for the Kentucky suffragist of similar name, or Mary Barr (1925–2010) for the aviator.
Mary Barr Munroe
BornJanuary 5, 1852
Glasgow, Scotland
DiedSeptember 8, 1922(1922-09-08) (aged 70)
Cocoanut Grove, Florida, USA

Early life

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]

Career

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]

Personal life

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]

References
  1. Leonard, John William (1914). Woman's Who's who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada, 1914-1915. American Commonwealth Company. p. 585.
  2. Shroder, Lisa (1999-03-14). "'Pioneer life hardest on a woman'". South Florida Sun Sentinel. p. 90. Retrieved 2021-01-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. Blanchard, Brian (1982-10-10). "Historian is Hot on Pioneer's Trail". The Miami Herald. p. 254. Retrieved 2021-01-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. Smith, Teresa (1987-03-22). "Women Tamed Miami, Speakers Tell Audience at UM Lecture Series". The Miami Herald. p. 49. Retrieved 2021-01-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. Davis, Jack E. (2009). An Everglades Providence: Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the American Environmental Century. University of Georgia Press. pp. 212–214. ISBN 978-0-8203-3071-6.
  6. "Miami Audubon Society for the Protection of Native Birds". The Miami Herald. 1918-01-12. p. 3. Retrieved 2021-01-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. "Mrs. Kirk Munroe Arranges a Tea Complimenting Mrs. W. S. Jennings". The Miami News. 1915-08-30. p. 5. Retrieved 2021-01-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. "Tropical Audubon Society Heritage". Tropical Audubon Society. Retrieved 2021-01-09.
  9. The Coconut Grove Library: Designation Report (May 2009), Historic and Environmental Preservation Board, City of Miami.
  10. Sanchez, Sonia (2001-07-25). "Society has raised $20,000 for new 'Y'". The Miami Herald. p. 408. Retrieved 2021-01-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. Hernandez, Evelyn (1985-06-13). "Library Celebrates 90th Anniversary". The Miami Herald. p. 47. Retrieved 2021-01-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. Kaufman, Polly Welts (2006). National Parks and the Woman's Voice: A History. UNM Press. pp. 33–34. ISBN 978-0-8263-3994-2.
  13. "A Dream Come True: Founded by Women" Women's Club of Coconut Grove.
  14. "Letter from Mary Barr Munroe to John Muir, [ca. 1909 ?]". Calisphere. Retrieved 2021-01-09.
  15. "Letter from Mary Barr Munroe to John Muir, [1896?]". Calisphere. Retrieved 2021-01-09.
  16. "Sinkhole yields pieces of the past". The Miami Herald. 1994-04-05. p. 114. Retrieved 2021-01-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. Kleinberg, Howard (1983-02-05). "Black Church Predated City". The Miami News. p. 36. Retrieved 2021-01-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. "Coconut Grove Pioneer Kirk Munroe". Miami History Blog. Retrieved 2021-01-09.
  19. "Scrububs · HistoryMiami". HistoryMiami. Retrieved 2021-01-09.
  20. Fichtner, Margaria (1987-02-10). "Grave Concerns". The Miami Herald. p. 17. Retrieved 2021-01-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. "Kirk Munroe papers, 1850-1940: Scope and content note". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2021-01-09.
  22. "Munroe Society Hosting Bake-off". The Miami Herald. 2002-03-21. p. 69. Retrieved 2021-01-09.
  • "Episode 18: Pioneer Days" Story of Miami (May 16, 2020). A podcast episode about the Munroes and their community in Coconut Grove.
  • "Some Residents of Coconut Grove, Florida", a photograph from the 1880s, in the Florida Memory collection, State Library and Archives of Florida. Mary Barr Munroe is in the photograph, but she "always turned her face from the camera".
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