Elizabeth K. Hartline

Elizabeth Kraus Hartline (September 17, 1909 – July 31, 2001) was an environmental activist who worked to preserve almost 40,000 acres in Maryland wildlands.

Early life Elizabeth Hartline was born in Newton, Massachusetts. She was the daughter of Charles A. Kraus, a notable American chemist, and Frederica Feitshans. Growing up, she lived in Worcester, Massachusetts and Providence, Rhode Island.

Environmental activism work Elizabeth Hartline started the Maryland Wildlands Committee in 1971. She stated that the Committee was "a statewide group devoted primarily to the preservation of wildlands within the state of Maryland. Our interest reaches out to lands of wilderness character throughout the United States." She worked to bring awareness to the value of wildlands, working to gain support from Maryland's governors and legislators. Together the two environmental advocates organized grass-root campaigns to preserve state parks from development, logging, and mining. Governor Parris Glendening agreed to allocate 37,000 acres as designated wildlands in 1996.

Hartline preserved many Maryland wildlands during her thirty years of environmental work, including the Pocomoke River Swamp, mountains in Garrett County, and coastal plains on the Eastern shore. 1,100 acres of land in Hereford, Maryland by the Gunpowder River was renamed in 1996 to Hartline-Eastman Wildland, after Hartline and her fellow advocate Alice Eastman in honor of their work to preserve the land.

Personal life Hartline married Haldan Keffer Hartline in 1936. They had three children.

She died of heart failure at age 91 at a hospital in Beverly, Massachusetts.