Women's History Month: Helen Muir credited with making Miami-Dade's library system what it is today
MIAMI - A picture of Helen Muir standing outside a small cottage is a color snapshot of an outgoing, determined, and as Historian Paul George describes Helen Muir, "a lot of fun and...a bundle of energy and creativity."
Miami lawyer "Toby" Muir is Helen Muir's son. He gets a gleam in his eye when he talks about his mother. He told CBSNews Miami, "She was a very outgoing individual, she loved people, she loved interviewing people, she never met strangers."
Helen Muir was an author, newspaper columnist, radio personality, and is often credited for bringing Miami-Dade's library system into the modern era.
George reminds us about "Miami, USA," Muir's large-format coffee table book about the history of Miami.
Helen Muir first wrote it in 1953 and is a highly readable history of Miami, which is still a steady seller that she updated over the years. The book is still available.
Toby Muir says, "But the newspaper was her, her big love." Pre-World War II Miami, Helen worked in public relations.
She came to Miami after newspaper work in New York state and a marriage was on the rocks. In Miami, she worked publicizing the Roney Plaza Hotel along the way interviewing Eddie Rickenbacker, Doris Duke, Clair Boothe Luce, Errol Flynn, Ernest Hemingway, Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Frost.
Helen planned to stay in Miami for a year, but she stepped back into the newspaper business at the Miami News, where she served as an editor and later a columnist for both the Miami News and Miami Herald.
Her daily column "Very Truly Yours" ran in the Miami News. Helen also spent time behind the microphone at Miami radio station WIOD.
It was not easy for women to work in newspapers and radio in those days. Helen did all of that.
The year 1936 saw Helen meeting and marrying, "the love of her life" William "Bill" Muir.
For Helen and her husband Bill tragedy struck in 1944. A daughter, Toby Muir's little sister, died in an accident.
Toby Muir remembers, "Her Friend, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas persuaded her that she needed to do something and it might be a good thing to memorialize her lost daughter by starting a book collection at the Coconut Grove Library." And that she did. George says: "She organized friends of the library."
Helen using her newspaper skills got the ball rolling to organize, to consolidate the cluster of local libraries first writing a The Miami News column entitled, "Why it's Time for a County Library System."
"The libraries in Miami Dade were only municipal libraries. They were underfunded, under-equipped and, she promoted that politically and in every possible way," Toby Muir told us.
Taking Majorie Stoneman Douglas' advice to heart from that day forward, Helen Muir was a constant advocate for libraries serving on numerous local and state boards and commissions dealing with libraries.
Her efforts resulted in today's 50 libraries of the consolidated Miami-Dade Public Library System.
Thank you, Helen Muir!