Rachel Carson

Blending meticulous research on the indiscriminate use of pesticides with her eloquent literary style, Rachel Carson laid the groundwork for the modern environmental movement when she penned Silent Spring, one of the most influential books of its time. Her book became the catalyst for an environmental philosophy that sought to promote the respectful coexistence of mankind and the environment.

"[We are] challenged as mankind has never been challenged before to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves."

— Rachel Carson

Born: May 27, 1907, Springdale, Pennsylvania
Died: April 14, 1964 Silver Spring, Maryland

At the height of America's Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln welcomed to the White House author Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose book, Uncle Tom's Cabin, portrayed the wretched conditions of slavery. As she recalled the scene, the President greeted her with outstretched hands and said, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this Great War."

One hundred years later, another female author was in the White House discussing a serious challenge to America's future. Rachel Carson, whose book Silent Spring was later to be described as the most influential of the last 50 years, appeared before the President's Science Advisory Committee. It later issued a critical report, "The Use of Pesticides," that many saw as a vindication of Carson's own eloquent warning.

Carson seemed uniquely qualified to sound the alarm over the indiscriminate use of pesticides and poison in the environment. She resisted doing so until her own observations and a letter she received from a friend in Massachusetts convinced her. The friend described the depredation of a bird sanctuary after planes repeatedly sprayed the area with the pesticide DDT to kill mosquitoes. Carson took four years to write the book, Silent Spring, which laid the groundwork for the modern environmental movement.

Rachel Louise Carson was born May 27, 1907 in the family's five-room farmhouse in Springdale, Pennsylvania. She was the youngest of three children and was close to her mother who urged the young girl to explore the family's 65-acre farm on the Allegheny River. Quiet, studious and by her own description a "rather solitary child," she turned to the solace of nature that she found in the woods and fields of southwestern Pennsylvania. She said, "I can remember no time when I wasn't interested in the out-of-doors and the whole world of nature."

She was also interested in writing. Her goal was to become an author when she entered the Pennsylvania College for Women at Pittsburgh. But then, as a sophomore, she took the mandatory biology course and found a new direction. Her interest in science, now awakened, compelled Carson to seek a degree in biology. Reflecting on her decision, she explained, "Eventually it dawned on me, that by becoming a biologist I had given myself something to write about."

Carson graduated from college in 1929 with honors. She received a summer fellowship at Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts, where she saw the sea for the first time. She earned a Masters Degree in Zoology at Johns Hopkins University and taught in Baltimore at the University of Maryland. At the same time, Carson had begun writing articles on natural history for newspapers and magazines.

The Depression years affected Carson along with millions of other Americans. She found a secure government job in 1936 as a radio scriptwriter in the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries. She was asked to write a short essay about the sea, always one of her favorite subjects. The first effort was too leisurely for radio. Carson said her supervisor "with a twinkle in his eye" suggested she send it to the Atlantic magazine, where it was published to critical acclaim.

The article, "Undersea," became the basis for her first book, Under the Sea-Wind, which was published in 1941. It gained a new audience when it was republished in 1952, the year Carson ended her 15-year career with the government. She also published her much-praised study of the ocean, The Sea around Us. The book was praised for its clear exposition and felicity of language. In accepting the National Book Award, Carson told her audience, "If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry." She completed her biography of the ocean in 1955 with the publication of The Edge of the Sea.

Next, Carson confided, she was preparing to write on the broad topic of man and ecology. But in her research she began to pick up disquieting information about the untested use of pesticides. She suggested to Reader's Digest that she do a story on a trial of DDT that was being conducted near her suburban home in Maryland. The magazine demurred. She finally made up her mind after receiving the worrisome letter noted above from her friend in Massachusetts. The result was her most famous book and great legacy, Silent Spring, published in 1962.

Today, much of what Carson describes in the book is considered conventional wisdom, but nearly four decades ago Silent Spring led to a most unsilent debate about what man is doing to the earth. For the first time, Carson painstakingly gathered in one place much of the information about the cumulative effect of pesticides, especially DDT. The scientific community accepted her meticulous research as unassailable.

"These sprays, dusts and aerosols are now applied almost universally," she wrote with controlled indignation. "Nonselective chemicals that have the power to kill every insect, the 'good' and the 'bad,' to still the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams, to coat the leaves with a deadly film, and to linger on in the soil ... Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life?"

The book was an immediate bestseller. In his review, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas said it was history making and called the book, "the most important chronicle of this century for the human race." A magazine included it in a list of "Ten Books that Changed the World" along with On the Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin and Walden by Henry David Thoreau. In its review, The New York Times spoke of the author's compelling message, "Know the facts and do something about the situation."

But there were also angry denunciations. Dr. Robert White-Stevens, a spokesman for the chemical industry, said the major claims of the book were, "gross distortions of the actual facts, completely unsupported by scientific, experimental evidence." One chemical company passed out thousands of leaflets that made fun of the book. Several sponsors dropped out of a CBS documentary that featured an interview with the author. Time Magazine said the book was overwrought. And in what must have been painful for the retiring author, some critics even raised questions about her integrity and sanity.

Carson responded to these attacks by speaking to organizations, testifying at Congressional hearings, appearing on television, and conferring with President Kennedy and his Science Advisory Committee. In letters, she continued to defend her life's work and urge that man use restraint and knowledge in his treatment of the environment. She herself was feeling especially vulnerable as she neared the end of a valiant fight against breast cancer. Carson died on April 14, 1964 and her funeral was held at Washington's National Cathedral. Rachel Carson's philosophy of conservation and desire for people to coexist peacefully with nature guided her contributions to the preservation of the environment and the human race.