Sunday, January 5, 2025

A01857 - Rachel Carson, American Marine Biologist, Environmentalist and Author Most Notably of "Silent Spring"

  Carson, Rachel

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.  There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of the birds, the ebb and flow of the tides, the folded bud ready for the spring.  There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter."  (05/24/2022)

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Rachel Carson
Carson in 1943
Carson in 1943
BornMay 27, 1907
Springdale, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedApril 14, 1964 (aged 56)
Silver Spring, Maryland, U.S.[1]
OccupationMarine biologist, author and environmentalist
Alma materChatham University (BA)
Johns Hopkins University (MS)
Period1937–1964
GenreNature writing
SubjectMarine biology, ecology, pesticides
Notable worksUnder the Sea Wind (1941)
The Sea Around Us (1951)
The Edge of the Sea (1955)
Silent Spring (1962)

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Rachel Carson (born May 27, 1907, Springdale, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died April 14, 1964, Silver Spring, Maryland) was an American biologist well known for her writings on environmental pollution and the natural history of the sea.

Carson early developed a deep interest in the natural world. She entered Pennsylvania College for Women with the intention of becoming a writer but soon changed her major field of study from English to biology. After taking a bachelor’s degree in 1929, she did graduate work at Johns Hopkins University (M.A., 1932) and in 1931 joined the faculty of the University of Maryland, where she taught for five years. From 1929 to 1936 she also taught in the Johns Hopkins summer school and pursued postgraduate studies at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.


In 1936 Carson took a position as aquatic biologist with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries (from 1940 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), where she remained until 1952, the last three years as editor in chief of the service’s publications. An article in The Atlantic Monthly in 1937 served as the basis for her first book, Under the Sea-Wind, published in 1941. It was widely praised, as were all her books, for its remarkable combination of scientific accuracy and thoroughness with an elegant and lyrical prose style. The Sea Around Us (1951) became a national best seller, won a National Book Award, and was eventually translated into 30 languages. Her third book, The Edge of the Sea, was published in 1955.


Carson’s prophetic Silent Spring (1962) was first serialized in The New Yorker and then became a best seller, creating worldwide awareness of the dangers of environmental pollution. The outlook of the environmental movement of the 1960s and early ’70s was generally pessimistic, reflecting a pervasive sense of "civilization malaise" and a conviction that Earth’s long-term prospects were bleak. Silent Spring suggested that the planetary ecosystem was reaching the limits of what it could sustain. Carson stood behind her warnings of the consequences of indiscriminate pesticide use despite the threat of lawsuits from the chemical industry and accusations that she engaged in “emotionalism” and “gross distortion.” Some critics even claimed that she was a communist. Carson died before she could see any substantive results from her work on this issue, but she left behind some of the most influential environmental writing ever published.

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Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist, writer, and conservationist whose sea trilogy (1941–1955) and book Silent Spring (1962) are credited with advancing marine conservation and the global environmental movement.

Carson began her career as an aquatic biologist in the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, and became a full-time nature writer in the 1950s. Her widely praised 1951 bestseller The Sea Around Us won her a U.S. National Book Award,[2][3] recognition as a gifted writer and financial security. Its success prompted the republication of her first book, Under the Sea Wind (1941), in 1952, which was followed by The Edge of the Sea in 1955 — both were also bestsellers. This sea trilogy explores the whole of ocean life from the shores to the depths.

Late in the 1950s, Carson turned her attention to conservation, especially some problems she believed were caused by synthetic pesticides. The result was the book Silent Spring (1962), which brought environmental concerns to an unprecedented share of the American people. Although Silent Spring was met with fierce opposition by chemical companies, it spurred a reversal in national pesticide policy, which led to a nationwide ban on DDT and other pesticides. It also inspired a grassroots environmental movement that led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.[4] Carson was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter.

Early life and education

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Carson's childhood home, the Rachel Carson Homestead, in Springdale, Pennsylvania, in November 2009

Carson was born on May 27, 1907, on a family farm near Springdale, Pennsylvania, located by the Allegheny River near Pittsburgh. She was the daughter of Maria Frazier (McLean) and Robert Warden Carson, an insurance salesman.[5] She spent a lot of time exploring around her family's 65-acre (26 ha) farm. An avid reader, she began writing stories, often involving animals, at age eight. At age ten, she had her first story published. She enjoyed reading St. Nicholas Magazine, which carried her first published stories, the works of Beatrix Potter, the novels of Gene Stratton-Porter, and in her teen years, Herman Melville, Joseph Conrad, and Robert Louis Stevenson. The natural world, particularly that of the ocean, was the common thread of her favorite literature. Carson attended Springdale's small school through tenth grade, and then completed high school in nearby Parnassus, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1925 at the top of her class of 44 students.[6] In high school, Carson was said to have been somewhat of a loner.

Carson gained admission to Pennsylvania College for Women, now Chatham University, in Pittsburgh, where she originally studied English but switched her major to biology in January 1928. She continued contributing to the school's student newspaper and literary supplement.[7]

She was admitted to graduate school at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 1928, but was forced to remain at the Pennsylvania College for Women for her senior year due to financial difficulties; she graduated magna cum laude in 1929. After a summer course at the Marine Biological Laboratory, she continued her studies in zoology and genetics at Johns Hopkins in the fall of 1929.[8] After her first year of graduate school, Carson became a part-time student, taking an assistantship in Raymond Pearl's laboratory, where she worked with rats and Drosophila, to earn money for tuition. After false starts with pit vipers and squirrels, she completed a dissertation on the embryonic development of the pronephros in fish.

In June 1932, she earned a master's degree in zoology. She had intended to continue for a doctorate, however in 1934 Carson was forced to leave Johns Hopkins to search for a full-time teaching position to help support her family during the Great Depression.[9] In 1935, Carson's father died suddenly, worsening their already critical financial situation and leaving Carson to care for her aging mother.

Career

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Carson and Bob Hines researching off the East Coast in 1952
Rachel Carson as told by EPA administrator Gina McCarthy
Duration: 57 seconds.
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At the urging of her undergraduate biology mentor Mary Scott Skinker, Carson secured a temporary position with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, where she wrote radio copy for a series of weekly educational broadcasts called Romance Under the Waters. The series of 52 seven-minute programs focused on aquatic life and was intended to generate public interest in fish biology and the bureau's work, a task that several writers before Carson had not managed. Carson also began submitting articles on marine life in the Chesapeake Bay, based on her research for the series, to local newspapers and magazines.[10]

Carson's supervisor, pleased with the success of the radio series, asked her to write the introduction to a public brochure about the fisheries bureau; he also worked to secure her the first full-time position that became available. Sitting for the civil service exam, she outscored all other applicants and, in 1936, became the second woman hired by the Bureau of Fisheries for a full-time professional position, as a junior aquatic biologist.[11]

Using her research and consultations with marine biologists as starting points, she wrote a steady stream of articles for The Baltimore Sun and other newspapers. However, her family responsibilities further increased in January 1937 when her older sister died, leaving Carson as the sole breadwinner for her mother and two nieces.[12]

In July 1937, the Atlantic Monthly accepted a revised version of an essay, The World of Waters, that she originally wrote for her first fisheries bureau brochure. Her supervisor had deemed it too good for that purpose. The essay, published as Undersea, was a vivid narrative of a journey along the ocean floor. It marked a major turning point in Carson's writing career. Publishing house Simon & Schuster, impressed by Undersea, contacted Carson and suggested that she expand it into a book. Several years of writing resulted in Under the Sea Wind (1941), which received excellent reviews but sold poorly. In the meantime, Carson's article-writing success continued with her features appearing in Sun Magazine, Nature, and Collier's.[13] Carson attempted to leave the Bureau (by then transformed into the United States Fish and Wildlife Service) in 1945. However, few jobs for naturalists were available, since most money for science was focused on technical fields in the wake of the Manhattan Project.

In mid-1945, Carson first encountered the subject of DDT, a revolutionary new pesticide—lauded as the "insect bomb" after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—that was only beginning to undergo tests for safety and ecological effects. DDT was one of Carson's many writing interests at the time, but editors found the subject unappealing; she published nothing on DDT until 1962.[14]

Carson rose within the Fish and Wildlife Service, and in 1945 was supervising a small writing staff. In 1949, she was appointed chief editor of publications, which allowed her increased opportunities for fieldwork and freedom in choosing her writing projects; however, it also entailed increasingly tedious administrative responsibilities. By 1948, Carson was working on material for a second book and decided to begin a transition to writing full-time. That year, she took on a literary agent, Marie Rodell; they formed a close professional relationship that would last the rest of Carson's career.[15]

Oxford University Press expressed interest in Carson's book proposal for a life history of the ocean, spurring her to complete by early 1950 the manuscript of what would become The Sea Around Us.[16] Chapters appeared in Science Digest and The Yale Review, which published a chapter, "The Birth of an Island," which won the American Association for the Advancement of Science's George Westinghouse Science Writing Prize. Beginning in June 1951, nine chapters were serialized in The New Yorker.

On July 2, 1951, the book was published by Oxford University Press. The Sea Around Us remained on The New York Times Bestseller List for 86 weeks, was abridged by Reader's Digest, won the 1952 National Book Award for Nonfiction[2] and the John Burroughs Medal, and resulted in Carson being awarded two honorary doctorates. She licensed a documentary film based on it, The Sea, whose success led to republication of Under the Sea Wind, which became a bestseller. With success, came financial security; in 1952, Carson was able to give up her job in order to concentrate on writing full-time.[17]

Carson was inundated with requests for speaking engagements, fan mail and other correspondence regarding The Sea Around Us, along with work on the script that she had secured the right to review.[18] She was very unhappy with the final version of the script by writer, director, and producer Irwin Allen; she found it untrue to the atmosphere of the book and scientifically embarrassing, describing it as "a cross between a believe-it-or-not and a breezy travelogue."[19] However, she discovered that her right to review the script did not extend to any control over its content. This led to many scientific inconsistencies inside the film. Despite Carson's requests to resolve these problems, Allen went forward with the script. He succeeded in producing a very successful documentary. It went on to win the 1953 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. However, Carson was so embittered by the experience that she never again sold film rights to her work.[20]

Relationship with Dorothy Freeman

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Carson met Dorothy M. Freeman in the summer of 1953 on Southport Island, Maine. Freeman had written to Carson welcoming her to the area when she had heard that the famous author was to become her neighbor. It was the beginning of a devoted friendship that lasted the rest of Carson's life. Their relationship was conducted mainly through letters and during summers spent together in Maine. Over 12 years, they exchanged around 900 letters. Many of these were published in the book Always, Rachel, published in 1995 by Beacon Press.

Carson's biographer, Linda J. Lear, writes that "Carson sorely needed a devoted friend and kindred spirit who would listen to her without advising and accept her wholly, the writer as well as the woman."[21] She found this in Freeman. The two women had common interests, nature chief among them, and began exchanging letters regularly while apart. They shared summers for the remainder of Carson's life and met whenever else their schedules permitted.[22]

Concerning the depth of their relationship, commentators have said: "the expression of their love was limited almost wholly to letters and very occasional farewell kisses or holding of hands".[23] Freeman shared parts of Carson's letters with her husband to help him understand the relationship, but much of their correspondence was carefully guarded.[24] Some believe Freeman and Carson's relationship was romantic in nature.[25][26] One of the letters from Carson to Freeman reads: "But, oh darling, I want to be with you so terribly that it hurts!", while in another, Freeman writes: "I love you beyond expression... My love is boundless as the Sea."[27] Carson's last letter to Freeman before her death ends with: "Never forget, dear one, how deeply I have loved you all these years."[28]

Shortly before Carson's death, she and Freeman destroyed hundreds of letters. The surviving correspondence was published in 1995 as Always, Rachel: The Letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, 1952–1964: An Intimate Portrait of a Remarkable Friendship, edited by Martha Freeman, Dorothy's granddaughter, who wrote at publication: "A few comments in early letters indicate that Rachel and Dorothy were initially cautious about the romantic tone and terminology of their correspondence. I believe this caution prompted their destruction of some letters within the first two years of their friendship..."[29] According to one reviewer, the pair "fit Carolyn Heilbrun's characterization of a strong female friendship, where what matters is 'not whether friends are homosexual or heterosexual, lovers or not, but whether they share the wonderful energy of work in the public sphere.'"[30]

According to her biographer, Linda Lear, there was a disagreement about the final arrangements for Rachel. Her brother, Robert Carson, insisted that her cremated remains be buried beside their mother in Maryland. This was against her wishes to be buried in Maine. In the end, a compromise was reached. Carson's wishes were carried out by an organizing committee, including her agent (Marie Rodell), her editor (Paul Brooks), and Dorothy Freeman. In the spring of 1964, Dorothy received half of Rachel's ashes in the mail sent to her by Robert Carson. In the summer of that year, Dorothy carried out Rachel's final wishes, scattering her ashes along the rocky shores of Sheepscot Bay in Maine.[31]

The Edge of the Sea and transition to conservation work

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Early in 1953, Carson began library and field research on the ecology and organisms of the Atlantic shore.[32] In 1955, she completed the third volume of her sea trilogy, The Edge of the Sea, which focuses on life in coastal ecosystems, particularly along the Eastern Seaboard. It appeared in The New Yorker in two condensed installments shortly before its October 26 book release by Houghton Mifflin (again a new publisher). By this time, Carson's reputation for clear and poetical prose was well established; The Edge of the Sea received highly favorable reviews, if not quite as enthusiastic as for The Sea Around Us.[33]

Through 1955 and 1956, Carson worked on several projects—including the script for an Omnibus episode, "Something About the Sky"—and wrote articles for popular magazines. Her plan for the next book was to address evolution. However, the publication of Julian Huxley's Evolution in Action—and her own difficulty in finding a clear and compelling approach to the topic—led her to abandon the project. Instead, her interests were turning to conservation. She considered an environment-themed book project tentatively titled Remembrance of the Earth and became involved with The Nature Conservancy and other conservation groups. She also made plans to buy and preserve from development an area in Maine she and Freeman called the "Lost Woods."[34]

In early 1957, a family tragedy struck for the third time when one of her nieces she had cared for since the 1940s died at the age of 31, leaving her 5-year-old son, Roger Christie, an orphan. Carson took on the responsibility for Roger when she adopted him, along with caring for her aging mother. Carson moved to Silver Spring, Maryland to care for Roger and spent much of 1957 putting together a new living situation and studying specific environmental threats.

By late 1957, Carson was closely following federal proposals for widespread pesticide spraying; the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) planned to eradicate fire ants. Other spraying programs involving chlorinated hydrocarbons and organophosphates were on the rise.[35] For the rest of her life, Carson's main professional focus would be the dangers of pesticide overuse.

Silent Spring

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Main article: Silent Spring
See also: DDT

Silent Spring, Carson's most influential book, was published by Houghton Mifflin on September 27, 1962.[36] The book described the harmful effects of pesticides on the environment, and is widely credited with helping launch the environmental movement.[37] Carson was not the first or the only person to raise concern about DDT,[38] but her combination of "scientific knowledge and poetic writing" reached a broad audience and helped to focus opposition to DDT use.[39] In 1994, an edition of Silent Spring was published with an introduction written by Vice President Al Gore.[40][41] In 2012 Silent Spring was designated a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society for its role in the development of the modern environmental movement.[42]

Research and writing

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Carson's house in Colesville, Maryland, where she wrote Silent Spring

Starting in the mid-1940s, Carson had become concerned about the use of synthetic pesticides, many of which had been developed through the military funding of science since World War II. However, the United States federal government's 1957 gypsy moth, now called spongy moth, eradication program prompted Carson to devote her research and her next book to pesticides and environmental poisons. The gypsy moth program involved aerial spraying of DDT and other pesticides mixed with fuel oil, including the spraying of private land. Landowners on Long Island filed a lawsuit to have the spraying stopped, and many in affected regions followed the case closely.[4] Though the suit was lost, the Supreme Court granted petitioners the right to gain injunctions against potential environmental damage in the future; this laid the basis for later successful environmental actions.[4][43][44]

The Audubon Naturalist Society also actively opposed such spraying programs and recruited Carson to help make public the government's exact spraying practices and the related research.[45] Carson began the four-year project of what would become Silent Spring by gathering examples of environmental damage attributed to DDT. She also attempted to enlist others to join the cause, such as essayist E. B. White and several journalists and scientists. By 1958, Carson had arranged a book deal, with plans to co-write with Newsweek science journalist Edwin Diamond. However, when The New Yorker commissioned a long and well-paid article on the topic from Carson, she began considering writing more than simply the introduction and conclusion as planned; soon, it was a solo project. (Diamond would later write one of the harshest critiques of Silent Spring).[46]

As her research progressed, Carson found a sizable community of scientists who were documenting the physiological and environmental effects of pesticides.[4] She also took advantage of her connections with many government scientists, who supplied her with confidential information. From reading the scientific literature and interviewing scientists, Carson found two scientific camps when it came to pesticides: those who dismissed the possible danger of pesticide spraying barring conclusive proof, and those who were open to the possibility of harm and willing to consider alternative methods such as biological pest control.[47]

She also found significant support and extensive evidence from a group of biodynamic agriculture organic market gardeners, their adviser, Dr. Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, other contacts, and their suite of legal actions (1957–1960) against the U.S. Government. According to recent research by Paull (2013), this may have been the primary and (for strategic reasons) uncredited source for Carson's book. Marjorie Spock and Mary T. Richards of Long Island, New York, contested the aerial spraying of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT). They compiled their evidence and shared it with Carson, who used it, their extensive contacts, and the trial transcripts as a primary input for Silent Spring. Carson wrote of the content as "a gold mine of information" and says, "I feel guilty about the mass of your material I have here"[48] and makes multiple references to Pfeiffer and his correspondence.[49][50]

By 1959, the USDA's Agricultural Research Service responded to the criticism by Carson and others with a public service film, Fire Ant on Trial; Carson characterized it as "flagrant propaganda" that ignored the dangers that spraying pesticides (especially dieldrin and heptachlor) posed to humans and wildlife. That spring, Carson wrote a letter, published in The Washington Post, that attributed the recent decline in bird populations—in her words, the "silencing of birds"—to pesticide overuse.[51] That was also the year of the "Great Cranberry Scandal": the 1957, 1958, and 1959 crops of U.S. cranberries were found to contain high levels of the herbicide aminotriazole (which caused cancer in laboratory rats), and the sale of all cranberry products was halted. Carson attended the subsequent FDA hearings on revising pesticide regulations; she came away discouraged by the aggressive tactics of the chemical industry representatives, which included expert testimony that was firmly contradicted by the bulk of the scientific literature she had been studying. She also wondered about the possible "financial inducements behind certain pesticide programs."[52]

Research at the Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health brought Carson into contact with medical researchers investigating the gamut of cancer-causing chemicals. Of particular significance was the work of National Cancer Institute researcher and environmental cancer section founding director Wilhelm Hueper, who classified many pesticides as carcinogens. Carson and her research assistant Jeanne Davis, with the help of NIH librarian Dorothy Algire, found evidence to support the pesticide-cancer connection; to Carson, the evidence for the toxicity of a wide array of synthetic pesticides was clear-cut, though such conclusions were very controversial beyond the small community of scientists studying pesticide carcinogenesis.[53]

By 1960, Carson had more than enough research material, and the writing was progressing rapidly. In addition to the thorough literature search, she had investigated hundreds of individual incidents of pesticide exposure and the human sickness and ecological damage that resulted. However, in January, a duodenal ulcer followed by several infections kept her bedridden for weeks, greatly delaying the completion of Silent Spring. As she was nearing full recovery in March (just as she was completing drafts of the two cancer chapters of her book), she discovered cysts in her left breast, one of which necessitated a mastectomy. Though her doctor described the procedure as precautionary and recommended no further treatment, by December, Carson discovered that the tumor was malignant and the cancer had metastasized.[54] Her research was also delayed by revision work for a new edition of The Sea Around Us and by a collaborative photo essay with Erich Hartmann.[55] Most of the research and writing was done by the fall of 1960, except for the discussion of recent research on biological pest controls and investigations of a handful of new pesticides. However, further health troubles slowed the final revisions in 1961 and early 1962.[56] While writing the book, Carson chose to hide her illness so that the pesticide companies could not use it against her (she worried that if the companies knew, they would use it as ammunition to make her book look untrustworthy and biased).[57]

Finding a title for the book proved difficult; "Silent Spring" was initially suggested as a title for the chapter on birds. By August 1961, Carson finally agreed to the suggestion of her literary agent Marie Rodell: Silent Spring would be a metaphorical title for the entire book, suggesting a bleak future for the whole natural world, rather than a single chapter title about the literal absence of birdsong.[58] With Carson's approval, editor Paul Brooks at Houghton Mifflin arranged for illustrations by Louis and Lois Darling, who also designed the cover. The final writing was the first chapter, A Fable for Tomorrow, which Carson intended as a gentle introduction to what might otherwise be a forbiddingly serious topic. By mid-1962, Brooks and Carson had essentially finished the editing and were laying the groundwork for promoting the book by sending the manuscript out to select individuals for final suggestions.[59]

Content

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Biographer Mark Hamilton Lytle writes that Carson "quite self-consciously decided to write a book calling into question the paradigm of scientific progress that defined post-war American culture." The overriding theme of Silent Spring is the powerful—and often adverse—effect humans have on the natural world.[60]

Carson's main argument is that pesticides have detrimental effects on the environment; they are more properly termed biocides, she argues, because their effects are rarely limited to the target pests. DDT is a prime example, but other synthetic pesticides come under scrutiny, many of which are subject to bioaccumulation. Carson also accuses the chemical industry of intentionally spreading disinformation and public officials of accepting industry claims uncritically. Most of the book is devoted to pesticides' effects on natural ecosystems. However, four chapters also detail cases of human pesticide poisoning, cancer, and other illnesses attributed to pesticides.[61] Regarding DDT and cancer, the subject of so much subsequent debate, Carson only briefly mentions the topic:

In laboratory tests on animal subjects, DDT has produced suspicious liver tumors. Scientists of the Food and Drug Administration who reported the discovery of these tumors were uncertain how to classify them but felt there was some "justification for considering them low grade hepatic cell carcinomas." Dr. Hueper [author of Occupational Tumors and Allied Diseases] now gives DDT the definite rating of a "chemical carcinogen."[62]

Carson predicted increased consequences in the future, especially as targeted pests develop pesticide resistance. At the same time, weakened ecosystems fall prey to unanticipated invasive species. The book closes with a call for a biotic approach to pest control as an alternative to chemical pesticides.[63]

Regarding DDT, Carson never called for an outright ban. Part of the argument she made in Silent Spring was that even if DDT and other insecticides had no environmental side effects, their indiscriminate overuse was counter-productive because it would create insect resistance, making them useless in eliminating the target insect populations:

No responsible person contends that insect-borne disease should be ignored. The question that has now urgently presented itself is whether it is either wise or responsible to attack the problem by methods that are rapidly making it worse. The world has heard much of the triumphant war against disease by controlling insect vectors of infection. However, it has heard little of the other side of the story—the defeats, the short-lived triumphs that now strongly support the alarming view that the insect enemy has been made actually stronger by our efforts. Even worse, we may have destroyed our very means of fighting.[64]

Carson further noted that "Malaria programmes are threatened by resistance among mosquitoes"[65] and emphasized the advice given by the director of Holland's Plant Protection Service: "Practical advice should be 'Spray as little as you possibly can' rather than 'Spray to the limit of your capacity' ... Pressure on the pest population should always be as slight as possible."[66]

Promotion and reception

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Carson and the others involved with the publication of Silent Spring expected fierce criticism. They were particularly concerned about the possibility of being sued for libel. Carson was also undergoing radiation therapy to combat her spreading cancer and expected to have little energy to devote to defending her work and responding to critics. In preparation for the anticipated attacks, Carson and her agent attempted to amass as many prominent supporters as possible before the book's release.[67]

Most of the book's scientific chapters were reviewed by scientists with relevant expertise, among whom Carson found strong support. Carson attended the White House Conference on Conservation in May 1962; Houghton Mifflin distributed proof copies of Silent Spring to many of the delegates and promoted the upcoming New Yorker serialization. Among many others, Carson also sent a proof copy to Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas, a longtime environmental advocate who had argued against the court's rejection of the Long Island pesticide spraying case (and who had provided Carson with some of the material included in her chapter on herbicides).[68]

Though Silent Spring had generated a relatively high level of interest based on pre-publication promotion, this became much more intense with the serialization in The New Yorker, which began on June 16, 1962, issue. This brought the book to the attention of the chemical industry and its lobbyists and a wide swath of the American populace. Around that time, Carson also learned that Silent Spring had been selected as the Book of the Month for October; as she put it, this would "carry it to farms and hamlets all over that country that don't know what a bookstore looks like—much less The New Yorker."[69] Other publicity included a positive editorial in The New York Times and excerpts of the serialized version in Audubon magazine, with another round of publicity in July and August as chemical companies responded. The story of the birth defect-causing drug thalidomide broke just before the book's publication as well, inviting comparisons between Carson and Frances Oldham Kelsey, the Food and Drug Administration reviewer who had blocked the drug's sale in the United States.[70]

In the weeks leading up to the September 27, 1962, publication, there was strong opposition to Silent Spring from the chemical industry. DuPont (a main manufacturer of DDT and 2,4-D) and Velsicol Chemical Corporation (exclusive manufacturer of chlordane and heptachlor) were among the first to respond. DuPont compiled an extensive report on the book's press coverage and estimated impact on public opinion. Velsicol threatened legal action against Houghton Mifflin and The New Yorker and Audubon unless the planned Silent Spring features were canceled. Chemical industry representatives and lobbyists also lodged a range of non-specific complaints, some anonymously. Chemical companies and associated organizations produced a number of their own brochures and articles promoting and defending pesticide use. However, Carson's and the publishers' lawyers were confident in the vetting process Silent Spring had undergone. The magazine and book publications proceeded as planned, as did the large Book-of-the-Month printing (which included a pamphlet endorsing the book by William O. Douglas).[71]

American Cyanamid biochemist Robert White-Stevens and former Cyanamid chemist Thomas Jukes were among the most aggressive critics, especially of Carson's analysis of DDT.[72] According to White-Stevens, "If man were to follow the teachings of Miss Carson, we would return to the Dark Ages, and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the earth."[73] Others went further, attacking Carson's scientific credentials (because her training was in marine biology rather than biochemistry) and her character. White-Stevens labeled her "...a fanatic defender of the cult of the balance of nature,"[74] while former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson, in a letter to former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, reportedly concluded that because she was unmarried despite being physically attractive, she was "probably a Communist."[75]

Many critics repeatedly asserted that she was calling for the elimination of all pesticides. However, Carson had made it clear she was not advocating the banning or complete withdrawal of helpful pesticides but was instead encouraging responsible and carefully managed use with an awareness of the chemicals' impact on the entire ecosystem.[76] In fact, she concludes her section on DDT in Silent Spring not by urging a total ban but with advice for spraying as little as possible to limit the development of resistance.[66]

The academic community, including prominent defenders such as H. J. Muller, Loren Eiseley, Clarence Cottam, and Frank Egler, by and large, backed the book's scientific claims; public opinion soon turned Carson's way as well. The chemical industry campaign backfired, as the controversy greatly increased public awareness of potential pesticide dangers, as well as Silent Spring book sales. Pesticide use became a major public issue, especially after the CBS Reports TV special The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson that aired April 3, 1963. The program included segments of Carson reading from Silent Spring and interviews with several other experts, mostly critics (including White-Stevens); according to biographer Linda Lear, "in juxtaposition to the wild-eyed, loud-voiced Dr. Robert White-Stevens in white lab coat, Carson appeared anything but the hysterical alarmist that her critics contended."[77] Reactions from the estimated audience of ten to fifteen million were overwhelmingly positive, and the program spurred a congressional review of pesticide dangers and the public release of a pesticide report by the President's Science Advisory Committee.[78] Within a year or so of publication, the attacks on the book and Carson had largely lost momentum.[79][80]

In one of her last public appearances, Carson testified before President John F. Kennedy's Science Advisory Committee. The committee issued its report on May 15, 1963, largely backing Carson's scientific claims.[81] Following the report's release, she also testified before a United States Senate subcommittee to make policy recommendations. Though Carson received hundreds of other speaking invitations, she could not accept the great majority of them. Her health was steadily declining as her cancer outpaced the radiation therapy, with only brief periods of remission. She spoke as much as she was physically able, however, including a notable appearance on The Today Show and speeches at several dinners held in her honor. In late 1963, she received a flurry of awards and honors: the Audubon Medal (from the National Audubon Society), the Cullum Geographical Medal (from the American Geographical Society), and induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.[82]

Death

[edit]

Weakened from breast cancer and her treatment regimen, Carson became ill with a respiratory virus in January 1964. Her condition worsened, and in February, doctors found that she had severe anemia from her radiation treatments. In March, they discovered that the cancer had reached her liver. She died of a heart attack on April 14, 1964, in her home in Silver Spring, Maryland.[1][83][84]

Her body was cremated, and some of her ashes were buried beside her mother at Parklawn Memorial Gardens in Rockville, Maryland.[85] The rest were scattered along the coast of Squirrel Island near Sheepscot River in Maine.

Legacy

[edit]
Statue of Carson at the Museo Rocsen in Nono, Córdoba, Argentina

Collected papers and posthumous publications

[edit]

Carson bequeathed her manuscripts and papers to Yale University to take advantage of the new state-of-the-art preservations facilities of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Her longtime agent and literary executor Marie Rodell spent nearly two years organizing and cataloging Carson's papers and correspondence, distributing all the letters to their senders so that only what each correspondent approved would be submitted to the archive.[86]

In 1965, Rodell arranged for the publication of an essay Carson had intended to expand into a book: The Sense of Wonder. The essay, which was combined with photographs by Charles Pratt and others, exhorts parents to help their children experience the "...lasting pleasures of contact with the natural world ... available to anyone who will place himself under the influence of earth, sea, and sky and their amazing life."[87]

In addition to the letters in Always Rachel, in 1998, a volume of Carson's previously unpublished work was published as Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson, edited by Linda Lear. All of Carson's books remain in print.[87]

Grassroots environmentalism and the EPA

[edit]

Carson's work had a powerful impact on the environmental movement. Silent Spring, in particular, was a rallying point for the fledgling social movement in the 1960s. According to environmental engineer and Carson scholar H. Patricia Hynes, "Silent Spring altered the balance of power in the world. No one since would be able to sell pollution as the necessary underside of progress so easily or uncritically."[88] Carson's work, and the activism it inspired, are at least partly responsible for the deep ecology movement and the overall strength of the grassroots environmental movement since the 1960s. It was also influential on the rise of ecofeminism and on many feminist scientists.[89]

While there remains no evidence that Carson was openly a women's rights activist, her work and its subsequent criticisms have left an iconic legacy for the ecofeminist movement.[9] Attacks on Carson's credibility included criticism of her credentials in which she was labeled an "amateur." It was said that her writing was too "emotional."[9] Ecofeminist scholars argue that not only was the dissenting rhetoric gendered to paint Carson as hysterical but was done because her arguments challenged the capitalist production of large agri-business corporations.[9] Others, such as Yaakov Garb, suggest that in addition to not being a women's rights activist, Carson also had no anti-capitalist agenda and that such attacks were unwarranted.[9] Additionally, the way photos of Carson were used to portray her are often questioned because of few representations of her engaging in work typical of a scientist, but instead of her leisure activities.[9]

Carson's most direct legacy in the environmental movement was the campaign to ban DDT in the United States (and related efforts to ban or limit its use throughout the world). Though environmental concerns about DDT had been considered by government agencies as early as Carson's testimony before the President's Science Advisory Committee, the 1967 formation of the Environmental Defense Fund was the first significant milestone in the campaign against DDT. The organization brought lawsuits against the government to "establish a citizen's right to a clean environment," and the arguments employed against DDT largely mirrored Carson's. By 1972, the Environmental Defense Fund and other activist groups had succeeded in securing a phase-out of DDT use in the United States (except in emergency cases).[90]

The creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by the Nixon Administration in 1970 addressed another concern that Carson had brought to light. Until then, the same agency (the USDA) was responsible both for regulating pesticides and promoting the concerns of the agriculture industry; Carson saw this as a conflict of interest since the agency was not responsible for effects on wildlife or other environmental concerns beyond farm policy. Fifteen years after its creation, one journalist described the EPA as "the extended shadow of Silent Spring." Much of the agency's early work, such as enforcing the 1972 Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, was directly related to Carson's work.[91]

In the 1980s, the policies of the Reagan Administration emphasized economic growth, rolling back many of the environmental policies adopted in response to Carson and her work.[92]

Posthumous honors

[edit]
The Rachel Carson Bridge in Pittsburgh in 1999
The statue of Rachel Carson in Woods Hole in May 2016

Various groups ranging from government institutions to environmental and conservation organizations to scholarly societies have celebrated Carson's life and work since her death. Perhaps most significantly, on June 9, 1980, Carson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States. A 17¢ Great Americans series postage stamp was issued in her honor the following year; several other countries have since issued Carson postage as well.[93] In 1973, Carson was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.[94]

The University of California, Santa Cruz, named one of its colleges, formerly known as College Eight, Rachel Carson College in 2016.[95] Rachel Carson College is the first college at the university to bear a woman's name.

Munich's Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society was founded in 2009. An international, interdisciplinary center for research and education in the environmental humanities and social sciences, it was established as a joint initiative of Munich's Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität and the Deutsches Museum, with the support of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

Carson's birthplace and childhood home in Springdale, Pennsylvania, now known as the Rachel Carson Homestead, became a National Register of Historic Places site and the nonprofit Rachel Carson Homestead Association was created in 1975 to manage it.[96] Her home in Colesville, Maryland, where she wrote Silent Spring, was named a National Historic Landmark in 1991.[97] Near Pittsburgh, a 35.7 miles (57 km) hiking trail, the Rachel Carson Trail and maintained by the Rachel Carson Trails Conservancy, was dedicated to Carson in 1975.[98] A Pittsburgh bridge was renamed in Carson's honor as the Rachel Carson Bridge.[99] The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection State Office Building in Harrisburg is named in her honor.

Elementary schools in Gaithersburg, Maryland,[100] Sammamish, Washington[101] and San Jose, California[102] middle schools in Beaverton, Oregon[103] Queens, New York City, Rachel Carson Intermediate School, in Herndon, Virginia,[104] Rachel Carson Middle School, and a high school in Brooklyn, New York City were all named in her honor.[105]

Two research vessels have sailed in the United States bearing the name R/V Rachel Carson. One is on the west coast, owned by Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI),[106] and the other is on the east coast, operated by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. Another vessel of the name, now scrapped, was a former naval vessel obtained and converted by the United States EPA. It operated on the Great Lakes. The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary also operates a mooring buoy maintenance vessel named the Rachel Carson.[107]

The ceremonial auditorium on the third floor of EPA headquarters, the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building, is named after Carson. The Rachel Carson Room is close to the EPA Administrator's office. It has been the site of numerous important announcements, including the Clean Air Interstate Rule.[108]

A number of conservation areas have been named for Carson as well. Between 1964 and 1990, 650 acres (263 ha) near Brookeville in Montgomery County, Maryland were acquired and set aside as the Rachel Carson Conservation Park, administered by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.[109] In 1969, the Coastal Maine National Wildlife Refuge became the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge; expansions will bring the size of the refuge to about 9,125 acres (3,693 ha).[110] In 1985, North Carolina renamed one of its estuarine reserves in honor of Carson, in Beaufort.[111][112]

Carson is also a frequent namesake for prizes awarded by philanthropic, educational and scholarly institutions. The Rachel Carson Prize, founded in Stavanger, Norway in 1991, is awarded to women who have made a contribution in the field of environmental protection.[113] The American Society for Environmental History has awarded the Rachel Carson Prize for Best Dissertation since 1993.[114] Since 1998, the Society for Social Studies of Science has awarded an annual Rachel Carson Book Prize for "a book length work of social or political relevance in the area of science and technology studies."[115] The Society of Environmental Journalists gives an annual award and two honourable mentions for books on environmental issues in Carson's name, such as was awarded to Joe Roman's Listed: Dispatches from America's Endangered Species Act[116] in 2012.[117] The Sierra Club and its foundation recognize donors who have provided for the club in their estate plans as the Rachel Carson Society.[118] The Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Germany) awards post-doctoral fellowships in the area of the environment and society.[119]

The Rachel Carson sculpture in Woods Hole, Massachusetts was unveiled on July 14, 2013.[120] Google created a Google Doodle for Carson's 107th birthday on May 27, 2014.[121] Carson was featured during the "HerStory" video tribute to notable women on U2's tour in 2017 for the 30th anniversary of The Joshua Tree during a performance of "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)"[122] from the band's 1991 album Achtung Baby.

Centennial events

[edit]
External videos
video icon Panel discussion on Rachel Carson's centennial with Roland Clement, Annick Smith, Stewart Udall, and Edward O. Wilson, June 2, 2007, C-SPAN
The celebration of the 100th anniversary of Carson's birth in May 2007 in Springdale, Pennsylvania

The centennial of Carson's birth occurred in 2007. On Earth Day (April 22), Courage for the Earth: Writers, Scientists, and Activists Celebrate the Life and Writing of Rachel Carson released as "a centennial appreciation of Rachel Carson's brave life and transformative writing." It included 13 essays by environmental writers and scientists.[123]

Democratic Senator Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland had intended to submit a resolution celebrating Carson for her "legacy of scientific rigor coupled with poetic sensibility" on the 100th anniversary of her birth. The resolution was blocked by Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.[124]

On May 27, 2007, the Rachel Carson Homestead Association held a birthday party and sustainable feast at her birthplace and home in Springdale, Pennsylvania, and the first Rachel Carson Legacy Conference in Pittsburgh with E. O. Wilson as keynote speaker. Both Rachel's Sustainable Feast and the conference continue as annual events.

Also in 2007, American author Ginger Wadsworth wrote a biography of Carson.[125][126]

List of works

[edit]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]

Citations

[edit]
  1. ^ Jump up to:a b "Rachel Carson biography". Women In History. Archived from the original on 8 August 2012. Retrieved 13 August 2012.
  2. ^ Jump up to:a b "National Book Awards—1952". National Book Foundation. Retrieved March 19, 2012.
    (With acceptance speech by Carson and essay by Neil Baldwin from the Awards 50th-anniversary publications.)
  3. ^ Popova, Maria (2022-12-01). "The Poetry of Science and Wonder as an Antidote to Self-Destruction: Rachel Carson's Magnificent 1952 National Book Award Acceptance Speech". The Marginalian. Retrieved 2024-03-03.
  4. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Paull, John (2013) "The Rachel Carson Letters and the Making of Silent Spring", SAGE Open, 3 (July): 1–12. doi:10.1177/2158244013494861
  5. ^ "Maine Women Writers Collection—Research—Featured Writers—Rachel L. Carson Collection, 1946–1964". University of New England. Retrieved 2014-08-04.
  6. ^ Lear, pp. 7–24
  7. ^ "Rachel Carson". U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Retrieved 23 April 2014.
  8. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 27–62
  9. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f Smith, Michael (Autumn 2011). "'Silence, Miss Carson!' Science, Gender, and the Reception of 'Silent Spring'". Feminist Studies. 27 (3): 733–752. doi:10.2307/317881. JSTOR 3178817.
  10. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 63–79
  11. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 79–82
  12. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 82–85
  13. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 85–113
  14. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 114–120
  15. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 121–160
  16. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 163–164.
    • An apocryphal story holds that over twenty publishers rejected the book before Oxford University Press. In fact, it may have only been sent to one other publisher before being accepted. However, Rodell and Carson worked extensively to place chapters and excerpts in periodicals.
  17. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 164–241
  18. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 206–234
  19. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 215–216, 238–239. Quotation from a letter to Carson's film agent Shirley Collier, November 9, 1952. Quoted in Lear, p. 239.
  20. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 239–240
  21. ^ Lear 1997, p. 248
  22. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 243–288
  23. ^ Montefiore, Janet (2001). "'The fact that possesses my imagination': Rachel Carson, Science and Writing". Women: A Cultural Review. 12 (1): 48. doi:10.1080/09574040110034110. S2CID 161571630.
  24. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 255–256
  25. ^ Gornick, Vivian (2013-02-19). "A Deliberate Pace: On Rachel Carson". The Nation. ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved 2019-08-05.
  26. ^ Lepore, Jill (2018-03-19). "The Right Way to Remember Rachel Carson". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2019-08-05.
  27. ^ Popova, Maria (2017-01-13). "Rachel Carson's Touching Farewell to Her Dearest Friend and Beloved". Brain Pickings. Retrieved 2019-08-05.
  28. ^ "Year 135 – 1995: Always, Rachel: The Letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, 1952–1964 | 150 Years in the Stacks". Retrieved 2019-08-05.
  29. ^ Carson, Rachel; Freeman, Dorothy; Freeman, Martha E. (1994). Always, Rachel: The Letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, 1952–1964. Boston: Beacon Press. pp. XVI.
  30. ^ Tjossem, Sarah F. (1995). "Review of Always Rachel: The Letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, 1952–1964". Isis. 86 (4): 687–688. doi:10.1086/357392. quoting from: Heilbrun, Carolyn (1988). Writing a Woman's Life. Ballantine. p. 108. ISBN 0-345-36256-X.
  31. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 482–483
  32. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 223–244
  33. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 261–276
  34. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 276–300
  35. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 305–313
  36. ^ McLaughlin, Dorothy. "Fooling with Nature: Silent Spring Revisited". Frontline. PBS. Retrieved August 24, 2010.
  37. ^ Josie Glausiusz. (2007), Better Planet: Can A Maligned Pesticide Save Lives? Discover Magazine. p. 34
  38. ^ Conis, Elena (2017). "Beyond Silent Spring: An Alternate History of DDT". Distillations. 2 (4): 16–23. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
  39. ^ "Rachel Carson". Science History Institute. June 2016. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
  40. ^ "Rachel Carson". National Archives and Records Administration. Archived from the original on 2001-03-20. Retrieved 13 August 2012.
  41. ^ Carson, Rachel (1994). "Introduction" (PDF). Silent spring. Introduction by Al Gore. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. pp. XV–XXVI. ISBN 0395683297. OCLC 30924447.
  42. ^ "Legacy of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring". National Historic Chemical Landmarks. American Chemical Society. 2012. Retrieved July 12, 2014.
  43. ^ Fay, S. (January 30, 2008). "Marjorie Spock". The Ellsworth American: 7.
  44. ^ Greene, Jennifer (February 2008). "Obituary for Marjorie Spock" (PDF). Newsletter of the Portland Branch of Anthroposophical Society in Portland, Oregon. 4 (2): 7. Archived from the original on 29 August 2015. Retrieved 29 August 2015.
  45. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 312–317
  46. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 317–327
  47. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 327–336
  48. ^ Carson, R. (1958 c.). MS typewritten letter: Dear Miss Spock; 12/8/1958. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
  49. ^ Paull, John (2013). "The Rachel Carson Letters and the Making of Silent Spring". SAGE Open. 3 (3): 215824401349486. doi:10.1177/2158244013494861. ISSN 2158-2440. S2CID 145185549.
  50. ^ Carson, R. (1958f). MS typewritten letter: Dear Mrs. Spock; 26/3/1958 (1 p.). New Haven, Connecticut: Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
  51. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 342–346
  52. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 358–361
  53. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 355–358
  54. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 360–368
  55. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 372–373. The photo essay, The Sea, was published in Johns Hopkins Magazine, May/June 1961; Carson provided the captions for Hartmann's photographs.
  56. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 376–377
  57. ^ Koehn, Nancy (3 October 2017). Forged in crisis : the power of courageous leadership in turbulent times (First Scribner hardcoverition ed.). Simon and Schuster. p. 416. ISBN 9781501174445.
  58. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 375, 377–378, 386–387, 389
  59. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 390–397
  60. ^ Lytle 2007, pp. 166–176
  61. ^ Lytle 2007, pp. 166–172
  62. ^ Carson 1962, p. 225
  63. ^ Lytle 2007, pp. 169, 173
  64. ^ Carson 1962, p. 266
  65. ^ Carson 1962, p. 267
  66. ^ Jump up to:a b Carson 1962, p. 275
  67. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 397–400
  68. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 375, 377, 400–407. Douglas's dissenting opinion on the rejection of the case, Robert Cushman Murphy et al., v. Butler et al., from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, is from March 28, 1960.
  69. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 407–408. Quotation (p. 408) from a June 13, 1962, letter from Carson to Dorothy Freeman.
  70. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 409–413
  71. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 412–420
  72. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 433–434
  73. ^ "Special Reports – Silent Spring Revisited | Fooling With Nature | FRONTLINE | PBS". www.pbs.org. Retrieved 2023-07-02.
  74. ^ Quoted in Lear 1997, p. 434
  75. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 429–430. Benson's supposed comments were widely repeated at the time but have not been directly confirmed.
  76. ^ Murphy 2005, p. 9
  77. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 437–449; quotation from 449.
  78. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 449–450
  79. ^ "TIME 100: Scientists & Thinkers – Rachel Carson". 2000-09-19. Archived from the original on 2000-09-19. Retrieved 2023-07-02.
  80. ^ Lear 1997, p. 461
  81. ^ "2003 National Women's History Month Honorees: Rachel Carlson". Archived from the original on 2005-12-08. Retrieved 2014-03-13.. Retrieved September 23, 2007.
  82. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 451–461, 469–473
  83. ^ Carson, Rachel (2010 ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. in full Rachel Louise Carson born May 27, 1907, Springdale, Pennsylvania, U.S. died April 14, 1964, Silver Spring, Maryland.
  84. ^ Lear 1997, pp. 476–480
  85. ^ Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Locations 7513–7514). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.
  86. ^ "Collection: Rachel Carson papers | Archives at Yale". archives.yale.edu. pp. 467–458, 477, 482–448, See also the Beinecke finding aid for the Rachel Carson Papers. Retrieved 2023-07-02.
  87. ^ Jump up to:a b Murphy, 25; quotations from The Sense of Wonder, 95. The essay was originally published in 1956 in Woman's Home Companion.
  88. ^ Hynes 1989, p. 3
  89. ^ Hynes 1989, pp. 8–9
  90. ^ Hynes 1989, pp. 46–47
  91. ^ Hynes 1989, pp. 47–48, 148–163
  92. ^ Lytle 2007, pp. 217–220; Jeffrey K. Stine, "Natural Resources and Environmental Policy" in The Reagan Presidency: Pragmatic Conservatism and Its Legacies, edited by W. Elliott Brownlee and Hugh Davis Graham. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2003. ISBN 0-7006-1268-8
  93. ^ Marshall Is 2000, Palau 1998 Archived 2011-07-16 at the Wayback Machine, Zambia 2000 Archived 2011-07-16 at the Wayback Machine
  94. ^ "Carson, Rachel". National Women’s Hall of Fame. Retrieved 2023-07-02.
  95. ^ "College Eight becomes Rachel Carson College using a gift from the Helen and Will Webster Foundation". UC Santa Cruz. 15 September 2016.
  96. ^ "Rachel Carson Homestead – Rachel Carson Homestead". rachelcarsonhomestead.org. Retrieved 2023-07-02.
  97. ^ "Maryland Historical Trust". National Register of Historic Places: Properties in Montgomery County. Maryland Historical Trust. June 8, 2008.
  98. ^ "Rachel Carson Trail". Rachel Carson Trails Conservancy. Retrieved 2023-07-02.
  99. ^ "Environmentalist Rachel Carson's legacy remembered on Earth Day". old.post-gazette.com. Retrieved 2023-07-02.
  100. ^ Rachel Carson Elementary School Archived 2012-03-07 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved February 22, 2008.
  101. ^ Rachel Carson Elementary Archived 2011-08-09 at the Wayback Machine . Retrieved 15 June 2011.
  102. ^ "Rachel Carson Elementary School". sjusd.org. San José Unified School District. Archived from the original on October 13, 2012. Retrieved October 5, 2012.
  103. ^ "Rachel Carson Environmental Middle School". rachelcarsonems.wordpress.com. Rachel Carson Environmental Middle School. April 21, 2016. Archived from the original on December 4, 2012. Retrieved October 5, 2012.
  104. ^ "Rachel Carson Middle School | Home of the Panthers! | Fairfax County Public Schools | Rachel Carson Middle School". carsonms.fcps.edu. Retrieved 2023-07-02.
  105. ^ "Find a School – New York City Department of Education". schools.nyc.gov. Retrieved 5 October 2012.
  106. ^ "Vessels and Vehicles—R/V Rachel Carson". Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. 24 November 2015. Retrieved 29 December 2016.
  107. ^ Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (February 2005). "Appendix 19 Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Management Plan" (PDF). Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Retrieved 20 March 2017.
  108. ^ CAIR News Advisory. Retrieved August 18, 2009.
  109. ^ "Rachel Carson Conservation Park". Montgomery Parks. Montgomery County (Maryland) Department of Parks. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
  110. ^ Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge. Retrieved September 11, 2007.
  111. ^ Rachel Carson Estuarine Research Reserve Archived 2008-05-09 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved October 12, 2007.
  112. ^ "North Carolina Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Research Reserve". North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Archived from the original on 26 August 2018. Retrieved 29 August 2015.
  113. ^ "What is the Rachel Carson Prize?". Rachel Carson-prisen. Archived from the original on March 13, 2011. Retrieved March 15, 2010.
  114. ^ Award Recipients—American Society for Environmental History Archived 2015-02-14 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved February 14, 2015.
  115. ^ Rachel Carson Book Prize, 4S Archived 2007-12-27 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved September 11, 2007.
  116. ^ Roman, Joe (2011). Listed: Dispatches from America's Endangered Species Act. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674061279.
  117. ^ "Winners: SEJ 11th Annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment". Society of Environmental Journalists. October 17, 2012. Archived from the original on 2017-08-24. Retrieved July 15, 2017.
  118. ^ "Rachel Carson Society". Sierra Club Foundation. Archived from the original on 10 May 2021. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  119. ^ "Fellowships – Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society – LMU Munich". www.carsoncenter.uni-muenchen.de. Retrieved 2022-01-19.
  120. ^ Shanklin, Radford (2013). "A Rachel Carson Memorial". Chemical & Engineering News. 91 (36). American Chemical Society: 8–9.
  121. ^ Cavna, Michael (May 27, 2014). "RACHEL LOUISE CARSON: Google lets fly a Doodle true to 'Silent Spring' writer's nature". Washington Post. Retrieved May 28, 2014.
  122. ^ Sams, Initial design & architecture by Carl Uebelhart. Further development by Aaron. "u2songs – The Women of Ultra Violet: Light My (Mysterious) Ways: Leg 1 –". www.u2songs.com.
  123. ^ Houghton Mifflin Trade and Reference Division, Courage for the Earth release information Archived 2007-09-29 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved September 23, 2007.
  124. ^ David A. Fahrenthold (May 23, 2007). "Bill to honor Rachel Carson Blocked". Washington Post.
  125. ^ Susan M. Tierney (1 November 2007). Children's Writer Guide To 2008. Writer's Institute Publications. ISBN 978-1-889715-38-4.
  126. ^ Philpot, Chelsey (June 10, 2012). "Young readers' (nonrequired) summer books list – The Boston Globe". BostonGlobe.com. Retrieved 2023-07-02.

Works cited

[edit]
External videos
video icon Presentation by Linda Lear on Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature, October 2, 1997, C-SPAN

Further reading

[edit]
External videos
video icon Presentation by William Souder on On a Farther Shore, October 3, 2012, C-SPAN
Library resources about
Rachel Carson
By Rachel Carson
[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rachel Carson.
Wikiquote has quotations related to Rachel Carson.

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Rachel Carson Dies of Cancer

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Rachel Carson the biologist and writer on nature and science, whose book “Silent Spring” touched off a major controversy on the effects of pesticides, died yesterday in her home in Silver Spring, Md. She was 56 years old.

Her death was reported in New York by Marie Rodell, her literary agent. Miss Rodell said that Miss Carson had had can­cer “for some years,” and that she had been aware of her ill­ness.

With the publication of “Silent Spring” in 1962, Rachel Louise Carson, the essence of gentle scholarship, set off a na­tionally publicized struggle be­tween the proponents and op‐

Some of Miss Carson's crit­ics, admiringly and some not so admiringly, compared her to Carrie Nation, the hatchet­wielding temperance advocate.

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This comparison was rejected quietly by Miss Carson, who in her very mild but firm manner refused to accept the identifi­cation of an emotional crusader.

Miss Carson's position, as a biologist, was simply that she was a natural scientist in search of truth and that the indiscriminate use of poisonous

She emphasized that she was not opposed to the use of pois­onous chemical sprays—only their “indiscriminate use,” and, at a time when their potential was not truly known.

Quoting Jean Rostand, the French writer and biologist, she said: “The obligation to endure gives us the right to know.”

On April 3, 1963, the Colum­bia Broadcasting System's tel­evision series “C.S.S. Reports” presented the program “The Si­lent Spring of Rachel Carson.”In it, Miss Carson said:

“It is the public that is be­ing asked to assume the risks that the insect controllers cal­culate. The public must decide whether it wishes to continue on the present road, and it can do so only when in full pos­session of the facts.

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“We still talk in terms of conquest. We still haven't be­come mature enough to think of ourselves as only a tiny part of a vast and incredible universe. Man's attitude toward nature is today critically im­portant simply because we have now acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature.

But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself. The rains have become an instrument to bring down from the atmosphere the deadly products of atomic explosions. Water, which is probably our most important natural re­source, is now used and re‐used with incredible recklessness.

“Now, I truly believe, that we in this generation, must come to terms with nature, and I think we're challenged as man­kind has never been challenged before to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves.”

3 EarlierWorks

Miss Carson, thanks to her remarkable knack for taking dull scientific facts and trans­lating them into poetical and lyrical prose that enchanted the lay public, had a substantial public image before she rocked the American public and much of the world with “Silent Spring.”

This was established by three books, “Under the Sea Wind,” “The Sea Around Us,” and “The Edge of the Sea.” “The Sea Around Us” moved quickly into the national best‐seller lists, where it remained for 86 weeks, 39 of them in first place. By 1962 it had been published in 30 languages.

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“Silent Spring,” four‐and‐a­half years in preparation and published in September of 1962, hit the affluent chemical indus­try and the general public with the devastating effect of a Bi­blical plague of locusts. The title came from an apocalyptic opening chapter, which pictured how an entire area could be de­stroyed by indiscriminate spraying.

Legislative bodies ranging from New England town meet­ings to the Congress joined in the discussion. President Ken­nedy, asked about the pesticide problem during a press confer­ence, announced that Federal agencies were taking a closer look at the problem because of the public's concern.

The essence of the debate was: Are pesticides publicly danger ous or aren't they?

‘They Should Be Called Biocide

Miss Carson's position had been summarized this way: “Chemicals are the sinister and little‐recognized partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world‐the very nature of life.

“Since the mid‐nineteen for­ties, over 200 basic chem­icals have been created for use in killing insects; weeds, ro­dents and other organisms des­cribed in the modern vernacu­lar as pests, and they are sold under several thousand dif­ferent brand names.

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“The sprays, dusts and aero­sols are now applied almost uni­versally to farms, gardens, for­ests and homes—non‐selective 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 soil—all this, though the intended tar­get may be only a few weeds or insects.

“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 ? They should

The chemical industry was quick to dispute this.

Dr. Robert White‐Stevens, a spokesman for the industry, said:

“The major claims of Miss Rachel Carson's book,‘Silent Spring.’ are gross distortions of the actual facts, completely un­supported by scientific, experi­mental evidence, and general practical experience in the field. Her suggestion that pesticides are in fact biocides destroying all life is obviously absurd in the light of the fact that with­out selective biologicals these compounds would be completely useless.

“The real threat, then, to the survival of man is not chemi­cal but biological, in the shape of hordes of insects that can denude our forests, sweep over our crop lands, ravage our food supply and leave in their wake a train of destitution and hunger, conveying to an under­nourished population the major diseases scourges of man­kind.”

The Monsanto Company, one of the nation's largest chemical concerns, used parody as a wea­pon in the counterattack against Miss Carson. Without mentioning her book, the com­pany adopted her poetic style in an article labeled “The Deso­late Year,” which began: “Quietly, then, the desolate year began . .” and wove its own apocalyptic word picture—but one that showed insects strip­ping the countryside and win­ning.

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As the chemical industry con­tinued to make her a target for criticism, Miss Carson re­mained calm.

“We must have insect con­trol,” she reiterated. “I do not favor turning nature over to in­sects. I favor the sparing, se­lective and intelligent use of chemicals. It is the indiscrimi­nate, blankdt spraying that I oppose.”

Actually, chemical pest con­trol has been practiced to some extent for centuries. However, it was not until 1942 that DDT, a synthetic compound, was in­troduced in the wake of experi­ments that included those with poison gas. Its long‐term pois­onous potency was augmented by its ability to kill some in­sects upon contact and without being ingested. This opened a new era in pest control and led to the development of addition­al new synthetic poisons far more effective even than DDT.

As the pesticide controversy grew into a national quarrel, support was quick in going to the side of Miss Carson.

Supreme Court Justice Wil­liam O. Douglas, an ardent na­turalist, declared, “We need a Bill of Rights against the 20th century poisoners of the human race.”

Earlier, an editorial in The New York Times had said:

“If her series [then running in part in The New Yorker pub­lication of the book] helps arouse public concern to immu­nize Government agencies against the blandishments of the hucksters and enforces ade­quate controls, the author will be as deserving of the Nobel Prize as was the inventor of DDT.”

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Presidential Report

In May 1963, after a long study, President Kennedy's Sci­ence Advisory Committee, is­sued its pesticide report.

It stressed that pesticides must be used to maintain the quality of the nation's food and health, but it warned against their indiscriminate use. It called for more research into potential health hazards in the interim, urged more judicious care in the use of pesticides in homes andin the field.

The committee chairman, Dr. Jerome B. Wiesner, said the un­controlled use of poisonous chemicals, including pesticides, was “potentially a much greate hazard” than radioactive fall­out.

Miss Carson appeared before the Senate Committee on Com­merce, which was hearing tes­timony on the Chemical Pes­ticides Coordination Act, and a bill that would require labels to tell how to avert damage to fish and wildlife.

“I suggest,” she said, “that the report by the President's Science Advisors has created a climate in which creation of a Pesticide Commission within the Executive Department might be considered.”

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One of the sparks that caused Miss Carson to undertake the task of writing the book (whose documentation alone fills a list of 55 pages of sources), was a letter she had received from old friends, Stuart and Olga Huckins. It told of the destruc‐

Miss Carson, convinced that she must write about the situation and particularly about the effects of spraying on eco­logical factors, found an inter­ested listener in Paul Brooks, editor in chief of the Houghton­Mifflin Company, the Boston publishing house that had brought out “The Edge of the Sea.”

As to her own writing habits, Miss Carson once wrote for 20th Century Authors:

“I write slowly, often in long­hand, with frequent revision. Being sensitive to interruption, I write most freely at night.

“As a writer, my interest is divided between the presenta­tion of facts and the in­terpretation of their signifi­cance, with emphasis, I think toward the latter.”

“Silent Spring” became a best seller even before its pub­lication date because its release date was broken. It also be­came a best seller in England after its publication there in March, 1963.

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One of Miss Carson's great­est fans, according to her agent, Marie Rodell, was her mother. Miss Rodell recalled that the mother, who died of pneumonia and a heart ailment in 1960, had sat in the family car in 1952 writing letters while Miss Carson and Miss Rodell ex­plored the sea's edge near Boothbay Harbor. To passers‐by the mother would say, point­ing, “That's my daughter, Rachel Carson. She wrote cThe Sea Around Us.”

People remembered Miss Car­son for her shyness and reserve as well as for her writing and scholarship. And so when she received a telephone call after the publication of “The Sea Around Us,” asking her to speak in the Astor Hotel at a luncheon, she asked Miss Rodell what she should do.

The agent counseled her to concentrate on writing. Miss Carson nodded in agreement, went to the phone, and shortly came back and said somewhat helplessly: “I said I'd do it.”

There were 1,500 persons at the luncheon, Miss Carson was “scared to death,” but she plunged into the talk and ac­quitted herself. As part of her program she played a record­ing of the sounds of underseas, including the clicking of shrimp and the squeeks of dolphins and whales. With the ice broken as a public speaker, Miss Car­son continued with others spo­radically.

Did Research by Herself

Miss Carson had some pre­liminary help in researching “Silent Spring” but soon found that she could go faster by doing the work herself because she could skim past so much that she already knew.

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Miss Carson had few ma­terialistic leanings. When she found “The Sea Around Us” was a great financial success, her first extravagance was the purchase of a very fine binocu­lar‐microscope, which she had always wanted. Her second luxury was the summer cottage on the Maine coast.

Her agent said that Miss Car­son's work was her hobby but that she was very fond of her flower garden at Silver Spring, Md., where she also loved to watch the birds that came to visit

Miss Carson had two favor­ite birds, a member of the thrush family called the veery, and the tern, a small, black­capped gull‐like bird with swal‐lowlike forked tails.

She once told an interviewer that she was enchanted by the “hunting, mystical call” of the veery, which is found in moist woods and bottomlands from Newfoundland to southern Manitoba, and in mountains to northern Georgia.

In manner, Miss Carson was a small, solemn‐looking woman with the steady forthright gaze of a type that is sometimes common to thoughtful children who prefer to listen rather than to talk. She was politely friend­ly but reserved and was not given to quick smiles or to en­couraging conversation even with her fans.

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The most recent flare‐up in the continuing pesticide con­troversy occurred early this month when the Public Health Service announced that the pe­riodic huge‐scale deaths of fish on the lower Mississippi River had been traced over the last four years to toxic ingredients in three kinds of pesticides. Some persons believed that the pesticides drained into the river from neighboring farm lands.

A hearing by the Agriculture

Miss Carson was born May 27, 1907, in Sprnggdale, Pa . the daughter of Robert Warden Carson and the former Maria McLean. She was brought up in Springdale and in nearby Parnassus.

She owed her love of nature in large measure to her mother, who once wrote in The Satur­day Review of Literature, that she had taught her daughter “as a tiny child joy in the out‐of­doors and the lore of birds, in­sects, and residents of streams and ponds.” She was a rather solitary child. She never married.

After being graduated from Parnassus High School, she en­rolled in the Pennsylvania Col­lege for Women at Pittsburgh with the intention of making a career of writing. First she spe­cialized in English composition. Later biology fascinated her and she switched to that field, go­ing on to graduate work at Johns Hopkins University.

She then taught for seven consecutive sessions at the Johns Hopkins Summer School. In 1931 she became a member of the zoology staff of the Uni­versity of Maryland. She remained five years. Her Mas­ter of Arts degree was con­ferred by Johns Hopkins in 1932.

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Meanwhile, a childhood curi­osity about the sea stayed with her. She absorbed all that she could read about the biology

In 1936 she was offered a position as aquatic biologist with the Bureau of Fisheries in Washington. She continued with the bureau and its suc­cessor, the Fish and Wildlife In 1937, an article, “Undersea,” in Atlantic led to her first book, “Under the Sea Wind,” in 1941, and this was followed by her appointment as editor in chief of the Fish and Wildlife Service‐blending her two worlds: biology and writing.

“The Sea Around Us,” pub­lished in 1951, made her world famous, and she received nu­merous honors. They included the Gold Medal of the New Zoological Society, the John Burroughs Medal, the Gold Medal of the Geographical So­ciety of Philadelphia and the National Book Award.

Meanwhile, in 1952, she re­signed from her government post to continue her writing. She was no armchair naturalist. To gain experience the hard way, she once sailed in a fish­ing trawler to the rugged Georges Banks off the Massa­chusetts coast. “The Edge of the Sea” was published in 1955, and before long she was at work researching material for “Si­lent Spring.”

Miss Carson leaves a brother, Robert M. Carson, and an adopted son, Roger Christie, who was her grandnephew.

Funeral plans were incom­plete last night.


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