Margaret Wentworth Owings Collection
Finding aid created by Monterey Public Library staff using RecordEXPRESS
Monterey Public Library
2023
625 Pacific Street
Monterey, California 93940
(831) 646-3741
https://monterey.org/library/services/research/history_room/index.php
Title: Margaret Wentworth Owings Collection
Dates: ca. 1920 – 1990
Collection Number: ARC 587
Creator/Collector:
Extent: 11 file cartons, 1 flat box; 8 Linear ft. (8.4 cubic ft.)
Repository:
Monterey Public Library
Monterey, California 93940
Abstract: Margaret Wentworth Owings was born in 1913 in Berkeley, California. She graduated in 1934 from Mills College and the following
year completed graduate studies in art at the Fogg Museum at Harvard University.
In the 1940s she led successful campaigns to block development on beaches along California's central coast. She married Nathaniel
Owings, a founding partner in one of the nation's leading architectural firms, and together they campaigned to limit development
in Big Sur.
Owings was most closely identified with her work to save sea otters, a cause she championed as president of Friends of the
Sea Otter from its 1968 founding until the early 1990s. She also led a campaign to end hunting mountain lions in California.
Owings was a State Parks commissioner from 1963 to 1969 and was a leader in many environmental groups, including Defenders
of Wildlife, the National Parks Foundation, African Wildlife Leadership Foundation and the Environmental Defense Fund. She
was a founder of the Rachel Carson Council, created to combat toxic substances in the environment, and a member of the Big
Sur Land Trust.
She received awards from the Children's Health Environmental Coalition, the U.S. Department of the Interior, Sierra Club and
United Nations Environment Program, among many others.
Owings spent the last months of her life preparing a compilation of her writings and artwork, "Voice from the Sea: Reflections
on Wildlife and Wilderness." Published only weeks before her death, the book covers five decades of her crusade.
Owings died on January 21, 1999 at Wild Bird, her clifftop home in Big Sur, California.
Language of Material: English
By appointment only; Contact Local History Librarian or designated staff
Reproduction by Local History Librarian or designated staff; may be restricted due to condition of material.
[Identification of item]. Margaret Wentworth Owings Collection. Collection Number: ARC 587. Monterey Public Library
Donated by the Friends of the Sea Otter
Scope and Content of Collection
This collection contains: correspondence, newspaper and magazine clippings, manuscripts, speech notes, speech transcripts,
articles, books and small publications, manuscripts, photographs, cassette tapes of meetings and speeches, guest books, drawings,
prints, Christmas card, an appliqué square of a sea otter, and a carved wood block of a sea otter.
This collection is organized in four series. Series 1 is a collection of Documents, and is divided into three subseries: Correspondence,
Writing and Speeches. Series 2 contains Newsletters, Series 3 contains a collection of Clippings, and Series 4 contains ephemera.