Rachel Carson Born: May 27, 1907 in Springdale, Pennsylvania Died: April 14, 1964 in Silver Spring,

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Rachel Carson Born May 27, 1907 in
Springdale, PennsylvaniaDied April 14, 1964
in Silver Spring, Maryland
One species man has acquired significant
power to alter the nature of his world
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Writer, scientist, and ecologist
One of the 20th Centurys most important
people. (1960-1980) Conservation and
environmental movement took off fueled by a
number of books and essays Silent Spring, by
Rachel Carson
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Born in Springdale, Pennsylvania May 27, 1907
This is the house that Rachel and her family
lived in.
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What was Rachel Carsons life like?
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Her family
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1917
-- Rachel's first story was published in St.
Nicholas Magazine
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1929
Rachel saw the ocean for the first time The stock
market crashed and the Great Depression began.
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She loved the Sea, and nature
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Educated as a Scientist
1929-- Rachel attends Pennsylvania College for
Women 1932 -- MA in zoology from Johns Hopkins
Universit Biology or writing?
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Her career
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Combining Writing Science

• U.S. Bureau of Fisheries to write radio scripts
  during the Depression.
• Wrote feature articles on natural history for the
  Baltimore Sun.
• Federal service as a scientist and editor
• Later became Editor-in-Chief of all publications
  for the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

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Writing Science Books
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1941
1941 -- Rachel's first book Under the Sea Wind is
published Pearl Harbor, Hawaii is
bombed
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Eventually it dawned on me that by becoming a
biologist I would be giving myself something to
write about."
1950 -- The Sea Around Us is published 1951 --
The Sea Around Us receives the National Book
Award 1952 -- Under the Sea Wind and The Sea
Around Us become bestsellers (her favorite
book) 1955 -- The Edge of the Sea is published
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Widespread Use of Pesticides
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Rachel become alarmed by government abuse of new
chemical pesticides such as DDT, in particular
the "predator" and "pest" control programs, which
were broadcasting poisons with little regard for
the welfare of other creatures. Chemical
companies made other pesticides dieldrin,
parathion, heptachlor, malathion and other
compounds many times stronger than DDT The
government planned to distribute these poisons
through the Department of Agriculture for public
use and commercial manufacture.
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1962 -- Silent Spring was published
The book that launched the environmental
movement
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Chemical Industry uproar
She was immediately assailed by threats of
lawsuits and derision, including suggestions that
this meticulous scientist was a "hysterical
woman" unqualified to write such a book.
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Courageously speaking out
Testifying before Congress in 1963, Carson called
for new policies to protect human health and the
environment.
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a cry in the wilderness
1964 -- Rachel dies of cancer Rachel Carson
brought us back to a fundamental idea lost to an
amazing degree in modern civilization the
interconnection of human beings and the natural
environment. Al Gore
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Rachel Carsons Silent Spring
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(No Transcript)
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Chapter 1. A Fable for Tomorrow "There was once a
town in the heart of America where all life
seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings.
The town lay in the midst of a checkerboard of
prosperous farms, with fields of grains and
hillsides of orchards where, in spring, white
clouds of bloom drifted above the green fields .
The countryside was, in fact, famous for the
abundance and variety of its bird life, and
when the flood of migrants was pouring through
in spring and fall people travel from great
distances to observe them.
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... Then 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. Even the
streams were now lifeless...
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On the farms the hens brooded, but no chicks
hatched. The farmers complained that they were
unable to raise any pigsthe litters were small
and the young survived only a few days. The
apple trees were coming into bloom but no bees
droned among the blossoms, so there was no
pollination and there would be no fruit.
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In the gutters under the eaves and between the
shingles of the roofs, a white granular powder
still showed a few patches some weeks before it
had fallen like snow upon the roofs and the
lawns, the field and the streams. No
witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the
rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The
people had done it themselves. Rachel Carson,
Silent Spring (Boston Houghton Mifflin, 1962),
pp. 2-3
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(No Transcript)
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Resources Rachel Carson Biography http//www.rach
elcarson.org/index.cfm?fuseactionbio Interesting
Facts about Rachel Carson http//www.eiu.edu/wow
/carsfacts.html 1994 Introduction to Silent
Spring by Al Gore http//www.uneco.org/ssalgoreint
ro.html