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 life and education

Carson was born in 1907 on a small family farm in the Pittsburgh suburb of Springdale, Pennsylvania. She originally went to school to study English but switched her major to biology. Her talent for writing would help her in her new field, as she resolved to "make animals in the woods or waters, where they live, as alive to others as they are to me". She graduated from the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham College) in 1929 with magna cum laude honors. Despite financial difficulties, she continued her studies in zoology and genetics at Johns Hopkins University, earning a master's degree in zoology in 1932.

Related Topics:
Pittsburgh - Springdale - Pennsylvania - Biology - Chatham College - 1929 - Magna cum laude - Johns Hopkins University - Zoology - 1932

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Carson taught zoology at Johns Hopkins and at the University of Maryland for several years. She continued to study towards her doctoral degree, particularly at the Marine Biological Laboratories in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Her financial situation, never satisfactory, became worse in 1932 when her father died, leaving Carson to care for her aging mother; this burden made continued doctoral studies impossible. She took on a part-time position at the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries as a science writer working on radio scripts. In the process, she had to overcome resistance to the then-radical idea of having a woman sit for the Civil Service exam. In spite of the odds, she outscored all other applicants on the exam and in 1936 became only the second woman to be hired by the Bureau of Fisheries for a full-time, professional position, as a junior aquatic biologist.

Related Topics:
University of Maryland - Woods Hole - Massachusetts - 1932 - U.S. Bureau of Fisheries - Civil Service - 1936

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