Background
Ralph Middleton Munroe was born on April 3, 1851, in New York, United States.
Ralph Middleton Munroe was born on April 3, 1851, in New York, United States.
Ralph Munroe studied at Eagleswood Military Academy (1860-1863) and took a course in drafting at the School of Mines, Columbia University, New York City.
Starting as a hobbyist, Ralph Munroe was a yacht designer from 1874 to 1924. He was Merritt and Chapman Wrecking Company's agent in South Florida from 1888 to 1912, and from 1890 to about 1895 he organized the Biscayne Bay Manufacturing Company. Ralph Munroe served as justice of the peace for Dade County, Florida, in 1890. He designed the "Presto" type of boat hull and the Presto, or Munroe, topsail. He used an 8 x 10 view camera made by the Blair Camera Company of Boston to photograph scenery and general subjects.
The founder and first commodore of the Biscayne Bay Yacht Club (1887-1909), his home, "The Barnacle, 11 were designated as a historic site by the State of Florida, which purchased it in 1973. The city of Miami built the Commodore Ralph M. Munroe Marine Stadium in 1963. The yachtsman was one of the first known photographers of the Miami area, his work providing an invaluable record of southern Florida's early development and history through the 1920s.
Quotes from others about the person
Vincent Gilpin said of Munroe's work in 1930 that it was "characterized by careful good taste in composition and lighting, exceptionally fine detail from excellent lenses carefully handled, and by chemical work, both in developing and in printing, far ahead of current practice today."