Carson, Rachel

Researchers Rachel Carson and Bob Hines at work on the coast of Florida in 1952, the year after the publication of her best-selling second book, The Sea Around Us.

Photo credit: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

A nature writer and a marine biologist, Rachel Louise Carson (1907–64) is best known for her book Silent Spring (1962), which spearheaded the modern environmental movement in the United States by sparking public awareness about the impacts of pesticides on the environment. Carson was likely imbued with a devotion to the Earth's beauty by her mother, Maria, who had taught her as a tiny child the joy of the outdoors and the lore of birds, insects, and the creatures of streams and ponds. Her sense of wonder at the brilliance of ...

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