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Rachel Carson Article hen a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. ... There was a strange stillness. ... The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of scores of bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh. Rachel Carson, Silent Spring Table of Contents A Quiet Woman Whose Book Spoke Loudly By Phyllis McIntosh A Book That Changed a Nation 5 By Michael Jay Friedman A Persistent Controversy, a Still Valid Warning 8 By May Berenbaum Rachel Carson’s Legacy A photo essay Bibliography 4 Additional readings and Web pages Cover photo: Rachel Carson at her microscope, 1951. Above: Baby wrens call for their supper. A Quiet Woman Whose Book Spoke Loudly By Phyllis McIntosh shy, unassuming scientist every thing related to the ocean.” She also was and former civil servant, determined that one day she would be a writer. Rachel Carson seemed an unlikely candidate to be- As a student at Pennsylvania College for Women, come one of the most in- she majored in English until her junior year, when fluential women in mod- she switched to biology–a bold move at a time ern America. But Carson when few women entered the sciences. She went had two lifelong passions–a on to graduate cum laude love of nature and a love of from Johns Hopkins Uni- writing–that compelled her versity with a master’s de- in 962 to publish Silent gree in marine biology in Spring, the book that awak- 932. While teaching zo- ened environmental con- ology at the University of sciousness in the American Maryland, Carson spent public and led to an unprec- summers studying at the edented national effort to Woods Hole Marine safeguard the natural world Biological Laboratory in from chemical destruction. Massachusetts, where she saw her beloved sea for As a trained scientist, Car- the first time. son meticulously docu- mented her conclusions She began her civil ser- about the long-term dan- vice career writing science gers of pesticides; as a radio scripts for the U.S. skilled writer, she commu- Bureau of Fisheries and in nicated those dangers in 936 was offered a job as language the average reader an aquatic biologist, only could understand. Renowned author Rachel Carson at her home near the second women ever Washington, D.C, March 1963. hired by the agency in a professional position. Car- A Born Naturalist son spent 5 years in the federal government writ- ing educational materials about conservation and Rachel Carson was born 00 years ago in a small natural resources and editing scientific articles. By town in western Pennsylvania. Even though she the time she retired in 952, she had risen to edi- grew up far from the seacoast, she recalled that tor-in chief of publications for the U.S. Fish and even as a child she felt “absolute fascination for Wildlife Service. Clockwise from upper left: Rachel Carson as a young girl; sits on her moth- er’s lap, circa 1910, next to sister Marian and brother Robert; works on her studies in Woods Hole, Massachusetts; one of Carson’s many drawings of plants and animals. 2 While with the government, Carson continued to write independently about her love of the sea. In A Crusading Scientist 94, she published her first book,Under the Sea- Although most of her writing focused on the sea, Wind, a naturalist’s look at the struggle for life Carson had long been concerned about environ- in the sea and along its shores. A second book, mental damage from overuse of chemical pesti- The Sea Around Us, which cides and as early as 945 described the processes had tried unsuccessfully to that formed the earth sell an article about pes- and the oceans, became ticide testing to Reader’s a best-seller and won her Digest magazine. In 958, worldwide acclaim. with evidence mounting about the hazards of DDT The financial success of and other pesticides, Car- her books made it pos- son was moved by a letter sible for Carson to retire she received from friends from the government on Cape Cod, Massachu- and build a cottage on setts, describing how aer- the coast of Maine. Con- ial spraying of DDT had tinuing her research on killed numerous birds on the sea, she once boarded their private land. a trawler and sailed to the rough waters of the She resolved to alert the Georges Banks fishing public to the dangers and, grounds off the Massa- once again unable to sell chusetts coast. Her third a magazine article on the book, The Edge of the Sea, subject, set to work on Si- a guide to marine life, was lent Spring. Over the next published in 955. four years, she meticulously Above: Carson, shown here in 1950, was already start- researched the book and, ing to be known as an author of popular books about anticipating sharp criti- sea life. Below: An aircraft sprays DDT to prevent ticks on these sheep in Oregon in 1948; years later Carson cism from chemical com- wrote her most famous book about the misuse of DDT. panies, compiled 55 pages of sources and an extensive list of experts who had reviewed her manuscript. When the first installment of the book appeared in the New Yorker magazine in summer 962, the chemical industry, as expected, decried her as a “hysterical woman.” The book quickly found fa- vor with the public, however, especially after a major television network aired a special about pesticides that featured an interview with a calm, reasoned Carson. In addition to TV appearances and interviews, Carson testified before several congressional 3 provided a compelling example of the power of the single individual to bring about change.” Phyllis McIntosh, a former contributing editor of National Wildlife magazine, frequently writes about health issues. Carson testifies at a 1963 Senate hearing on pesticides, where she advocated creating a government regulatory agency for pesticides. committees and called for establishment of a “Pesticide Commission” or some type of regula- tory agency to protect people and the environ- ment from chemical hazards. Lasting Legacy Seven years later, in 970, Congress created the Environmental Protection Agency, a direct result of the environmental movement sparked by Silent Spring. In 972, the government banned DDT, the pesticide that had helped push America’s na- tional symbol, the bald eagle, and other birds to the brink of extinction. Few people knew at the time that while Rachel Carson was writing Silent Spring and enduring the controversy that followed its publication, she was waging a losing battle against breast cancer. In April 964, at age 56, she died at her home in Silver Spring, Maryland, just outside Washing- ton, D.C., never knowing of the landmark legis- lation that resulted from her work. “Now I can believe that I have at least helped a lit- tle,” she had written modestly to a friend in 962. “It would be unrealistic to believe one book could bring a complete change.” She could not have Photographed in Maine a year before her 1964 death from been more wrong. As Carson biographer Linda breast cancer, Carson did not realize the extent of the move- Lear has noted: “In the face of personal attack, ment her book started. and in spite of being gravely ill, Rachel Carson 4 A Book That Changed a Nation By Michael Jay Friedman n 992, a panel of notable Only a few works have similarly catalyzed Amer- Americans offered their ican public opinion as a force for change. Carson’s choices for the single book impact compares with that of Thomas Paine, whose published during the previ- 776 pamphlet Common Sense spurred popular ous half century that most support for American independence from Great profoundly influenced the Britain. American works of comparable influ- thoughts and actions of hu- ence might also include Uncle Tom’s Cabin (852) mankind. More panelists cited Rachel Carson’s by Harriet Beecher Stowe, which energized the Silent Spring than any other title. struggle against slavery, and The Jungle (906) by Upton Sinclair, which described Silent Spring’s lasting power to unhealthful meatpacking practices inspire flows less from Carson’s and sparked the passage of federal diligent research—even before food inspection laws. publication, critics attacked some of her findings—but Toxic Connections rather from its elegant prose, effective presentation, and for- Rachel Carson had long suspected tuitous timing. Silent Spring that increasingly powerful chemi- focused the attention of mil- cal pesticides were being used lions, in America and then carelessly, and she feared their im- throughout the world, on an pact on the environment. In 958, idea they were increasingly Carson’s friends Stuart and Olga prepared to consider: that the Huckins propelled her investiga- indiscriminate use of pesti- tions. The Huckinses owned a two- cides threatened profoundly acre bird sanctuary near Duxbury, both the health of mankind A first edition of Silent Spring, now val- Massachusetts. After the govern- and that of the world in which ued at $500. Its famous “Fable for To- ment doused it with pesticides as he lived. morrow” is excerpted on a National Park part of a mosquito eradication pro- Service Web page at http://planning. nps.gov/wilderness/idea61.cfm. gram, many native songbirds per- As Yale University historian ished, their nesting places, ponds, Daniel J. Keveles has written: and birdbaths contaminated. “Carson’s book probably did more than any other single publication or event to set off the new en- For the next four years, Carson consulted with sci- vironmental movement that emerged in the Six- entific experts.
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