Background
Owings, Margaret Wentworth was born on April 29, 1913 in Berkeley, California, United States. Daughter of Frank W. and Jean (Pond) Wentworth.
Owings, Margaret Wentworth was born on April 29, 1913 in Berkeley, California, United States. Daughter of Frank W. and Jean (Pond) Wentworth.
Bachelor of Arts, Mills College, 1934; postgraduate, Radcliffe College, 1935; Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Mills College, 1993.
Margaret Owings was named by the Audubon Society as one of 100 individuals who had done the most to shape the environmental movement, in a list that included luminaries such as Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Lady Bird Johnson. Born April 29, 1913 in Berkeley, California, Margaret Wentworth Owings graduated from Mills College in 1934 and completed graduate studies in art at Harvard University in 1935. Her first marriage was to Malcolm Stuart Millard, with whom she had a daughter, Wendy.
She and Malcolm lived in Deerfield, Illinois before moving to Carmel, California in the early 1940s.
Margaret and Nathaniel wrote the Big Sur Land Use Plan, and were key players in the fight to prevent the development of Big Sur, California. From 1963 to 1969 she was the sole woman serving on the California State Park Commission.
She led numerous environmental groups including Defenders of Wildlife, the National Parks Foundation, African Wildlife Leadership Foundation and the Environmental Defense Fund. Owings died in 1999, just after her book "Voices from the Sea" was published.
Commissioner California Parks, 1963-1969, member, National Parks Foundation Bd, 1968-1969. Board directors African Wildlife Leadership Foundation, 1968-1980, Defenders of Wildlife, 1969-1974. Founder, president Friends of the Sea Otter, 1969-1990.
Chairman California Mountain Lion Preservation Foundation, 1987. Trustee Environmental Defense Fund, 1972-1983. Regional trustee Mills College, 1962-1968.
Honorary vice president National Sierra Club, since 1997.
Married Malcolm Millard, 1937. 1 child, Wendy Millard Benjamin. Married Nathaniel Alexander Owings, December 30, 1953.