This Goodly Land

Archie Carr (June 16, 1909–May 21, 1987)

Other Names Used

• Archie Fairly Carr, Jr.: full name

Alabama Connections

• Mobile, Mobile County: birthplace, childhood residence

Selected Works

• Carr, Archie. High Jungles and Low. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1953. Rpt. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1992.
• Carr, Archie. The Windward Road: Adventures of a Naturalist on Remote Caribbean Shores. New York: Knopf, 1956. Rpt. New York: Knopf, 1967. Rpt. Tallahassee: University Presses of Florida, 1979.
• Carr, Archie. Ulendo: Travels of a Naturalist In and Out of Africa. New York: Knopf, 1964. Rpt. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1993.
• Carr, Archie. So Excellent a Fishe: The Natural History of the Sea Turtle. Garden City, N.Y.: Natural History Press, 1967. Rpt. New York: Scribner's, 1984. Rpt. as The Sea Turtle: So Excellent a Fishe. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984.
• Carr, Archie. A Naturalist in Florida: A Celebration of Eden. Ed. Marjorie Harris Carr. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994.

Literary Awards

• "The Black Beach" included in Prize Stories 1956: The O. Henry Prize Awards
• John Burroughs Medal (for Nature Writing), John Burroughs Association and the American Museum of Natural History, 1957, for The Windward Road

Biographical Information

Archie Carr was born in Mobile, Ala. When Carr was young, the family moved to Fort Worth, Texas. Carr's family took frequent camping vacations and Carr became interested in nature, especially reptiles. In 1920, the family moved to Savannah, Ga., where Carr spent his high school summers working as a stevedore. After high school, Carr enrolled at Davidson College in Davidson, N.C., to study English. In 1927, he developed osteomyelitis in his right arm, requiring several surgeries. While recuperating, Carr took classes at Weaver College (now Brevard College) in Weaversville, N.C. In January 1930, Carr's family moved from Savannah to Umatilla, Fla. Carr attended Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., for a quarter, then enrolled at the University of Florida in Gainesville. He also changed his major from English to zoology, earning a BS in 1932, then staying at UF for graduate studies. Carr completed his PhD in 1937 and was hired by UF as a faculty member. From 1945 to 1949, he took a leave of absence and moved his wife and children to Honduras. During this time, Carr taught at the Escuela Agricola Panamericana in Tegucigalpa and studied the local flora and fauna. High Jungles and Low (published in 1953) describes this experience.

By the time Carr returned to Florida, the focus of his research had become sea turtles. The Windward Road (published in 1956) describes his travels around the Caribbean to study turtles and their behavior patterns. In the late 1950s, he helped found the Caribbean Conservation Corporation, an organization to protect and restore sea turtle populations. For his work, Carr won awards and medals from the National Academy of Sciences, the World Wildlife Fund, the Smithsonian Insitution, and the New York Zoological Society. In addition to his scientific publications, Carr continued to write for the popular audience. Ulendo describes his first trip to Africa, and So Excellent a Fishe is a natural history of the sea turtle. He also wrote several Time-Life books in the 1960s and 1970s. Late in his career, Carr wrote a series of magazine articles about Florida natural history. In the mid-1980s, Carr developed stomach cancer. He died at his home in Micanopy, Fla., in 1987. After his death, a collection of Carr's Florida articles was published as A Naturalist in Florida. The Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge was established on the east coast of Florida in 1991.

Interests and Themes

Archie Carr's books combine travel narrative and natural history.

For More Information

Please check your local library for these materials. If items are not available locally, your librarian can help you borrow them through the InterLibrary Loan program. Your librarian can also help you find other information about this author.

There may be more information available through the databases in the Alabama Virtual Library. If you are an Alabama citizen, AVL can be used at your public library or school library media center. You can also get a username and password from your librarian to use AVL at home.

Reference Books

• Davis, Frederick Rowe. The Man Who Saved Sea Turtles: Archie Carr and the Origins of Conservation Biology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
• Webster, Christine. Who on Earth Is Archie Carr? Protector of Sea Turtles. Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Enslow Publishers, 2009. For younger readers.

Reference Web Sites

• "Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge". National Wildlife Refuge System. 2009. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. http://www.fws.gov/archiecarr/.
• Ehrenfeld, David. "Archie Carr Tribute". Caribbean Conservation Corporation. 2009. http://www.cccturtle.org/aboutccc.php?page=carr.

Location of Papers

• University of Florida, Gainesville

Last updated on Dec 12, 2009.