Carson, Rachel (1907–61)

In 1962, houghton mifflin published Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Although the book had received considerable attention prior to its publication, its actual appearance still created a sensation. The book provides a thorough, systematic, and yet passionate expose of the careless uses of chemicals by agricultural and industrial concerns, often in collusion with governmental agencies that were shortsighted in their attempts to promote increased productivity. In particular, Carson highlighted the enormous environmental hazards created by the widespread use of the pesticide DDT. Because of the book's unprecedented impact, the publication of Silent Spring has often been identified as the genesis of the environmental movement in the United States.

Silent Spring represented the culmination of Carson's career as a scientist and as a writer. On the basis of three previous books, Carson had earned considerable respect as a scientist and something of a literary reputation as a prose stylist. In Silent Spring, she supported her own observations and conclusions with references to the work of a broad spectrum of other scientists. Following its publication, many other prominent scientists came forcefully to her defense when her positions were challenged.

Nonetheless, the chemical industry marshaled its considerable resources to impugn not only Carson's thesis and supporting evidence, but also her character and motives. Carson had taken on the chemical industry at a time when it had achieved an unprecedented importance within the American economy, and the criticism was not unexpected, even though its ferocity struck her and many others as excessive. The attacks on Carson were ultimately counterproductive because they created widespread curiosity about Silent Spring, in which Carson's sincerity, clarity, and rationality were persuasively displayed.

Carson was born in 1907 in Springdale, Pennsylvania. Growing up among the Allegheny Mountains, she spent many solitary hours observing the natural world up close and then making precocious efforts to put her observations into words. When she enrolled in the Pennsylvania College for Women, located in Pittsburgh, she initially declared English as her major, but eventually switched to biology, graduating magna cum laude in 1929. She then completed a Master's degree in zoology at Johns Hopkins University and began completing coursework toward a doctoral degree. However, following her father's death, she assumed the responsibility for supporting her mother; about a decade later, following her sister's death, she raised her two nieces. Thus, it became financially unfeasible for her to complete a doctoral degree.

After teaching zoology for five years at the University of Maryland, Carson worked for the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries as an aquatic biologist. One of [Page 223]her major responsibilities involved writing feature articles on the Bureau's activities that could be disseminated to general periodicals and newspapers. Eventually, she began to supplement her income by writing, on her own time, on nature-related topics for major periodicals such as the Atlantic Monthly and for newspapers such as the Baltimore Sun. One article for the Atlantic Monthly prompted Simon and Schuster to offer her a contract to expand it into a book. That first book, Under the Sea-Wind (1941), was released shortly before the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor and was more critically than commercially successful. In contrast, the second volume of what would become a trilogy about the sea, The Sea Around Us (1952), achieved great commercial and critical success, spending 86 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list and winning a National Book Award for nonfiction. The income from this book permitted Carson to resign from her position with the Bureau of Fisheries in order to concentrate on her writing. She completed the trilogy with The Edge of the Sea (1955).

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