Rachel Carson

Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-born zoologist and biologist whose landmark book, Silent Spring, is often credited with having launched the global environmental movement. Silent Spring had an immense effect in the United States, where it spurred a reversal in national pesticide policy.

Early career and publications

At the Bureau, Carson worked on everything from cookbooks to scientific journals, and became known for her ruthless insistence on high standards of writing. Early in her career, the head of the Bureau's Division of Scientific Inquiry, who had been instrumental in finding a position for her in the first place, rejected one of Carson's radio scripts because it was "too literary". He suggested that she submit it to the Atlantic Monthly. To Carson's astonishment and delight, it was accepted, and published as Undersea in 1937. (Other sources have it that it was the editor of The Baltimore Sun who made the Atlantic Monthly suggestion - Carson had been supplementing her meager income by writing short articles for that paper for some time.) Carson's family responsibilities further increased that year when her older sister died at the age of 40, and she had to take on responsibility for her two nieces.

Related Topics:
Atlantic Monthly - 1937 - The Baltimore Sun

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Publishing house Simon & Schuster, impressed by Undersea, contacted Carson and suggested that she expand it into book form. Several years of working in the evenings resulted in Under the Sea-Wind (1941) which received excellent reviews but was a commercial flop. It had the misfortune to be released just a month before the Pearl Harbor raid catapulted America into World War II.

Related Topics:
Simon & Schuster - 1941 - Pearl Harbor - World War II

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Carson rose within the Bureau (by then transformed into the Fish and Wildlife Service), becoming chief editor of publications in 1949. For some time she had been working on material for a second book: it was rejected by fifteen different magazines before The New Yorker serialized parts of it as A Profile of the Sea in 1951. Other parts soon appeared in Nature, and Oxford University Press published it in book form as The Sea Around Us. It remained on the New York Times bestseller list for 86 weeks, was abridged by Reader's Digest, won the National Book Award, and resulted in Carson being awarded two honorary doctorates.

Related Topics:
1949 - 1951 - New York Times - Reader's Digest - Doctorate

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With success came financial security, and Carson was able to give up her job in 1952 to concentrate on writing full time: completing the third volume of her sea trilogy, The Edge of the Sea in 1955. It was also a bestseller, winning further awards, and it was made into an Oscar-winning documentary film. This severely embarrassed Carson: she was appalled at the film's sensational style and distortion of fact, and disassociated herself from it. Through 1956 and 1957, Carson worked on a number of projects, and wrote articles for popular magazines.

Related Topics:
1952 - 1955 - Oscar - Documentary film - 1956 - 1957

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Family tragedy struck a third time when one of the nieces she had cared for in the 1940s died at the age of 36, leaving a five-year-old orphan son. Carson took on that responsibility alongside the continuing one of caring for her mother, who was almost 90 by this time. She adopted the boy and, needing a suitable place to raise him, bought a rural property in Maryland. This environment was to be a major factor in the choice of her next topic.

Related Topics:
1940s - Maryland

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