Significant Women in History

Rachel Carson was born on May 27, 1907 in Springdale, Pennsylvania. She was the youngest of three children. With his mother’s influence, Carson grew to truly love nature, which she expressed through her writing and studies of biology.

Carson entered Pennsylvania College for women in 1925, at first determined to be a writer. She had a change of heart and switched her major to biology half way. Her first experience with the ocean took place at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory. Carson eventually graduated from college in 1929 and received a scholarship for further continue her studies at Johns Hopkins University. In 1932, she received a masters degree in zoology from Johns Hopkins.

After her education, Carson was hired by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries to write seven-minute radio programs for a show called “Romance Under the Waters” during the Depression. Meanwhile, she wrote on natural history as well as on conservation for the Baltimore Sun.

In 1936, Carson became the first woman to pass the civil service test and was appointed junior aquatic biologists. This began her fifteen year service in the federal government. Carson eventually rose up the ranks to become editor-in-chief of all the publications of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Her job was to review manuscripts, oversee the staff, prepare testimonies, and writes speeches.

In her free time, Carson particularly enjoyed writing lyrical prose. She usually wrote about observations of life under the sea, which was relatively unknown to people. The first of these works was the article “Undersea”, which was published in Atlantic Monthly in 1937. Next, her book, Under the Sea-wind was published in 1941.

Carson’s award winning book The Sea Around Us was published in 1952 and later translated into 32 languages. It was on the New York Times’ Bestseller list for eighty-one weeks. The success of The Sea Around Us led to Carson quitting her job in the federal government in 1952 to become a full time writer.

Next, “The Edge of The Sea” was published in 1955 and especially written to teach people about the beauty of the natural world and create a new view on ecology.

Carson started writing her most famous book, Silent Spring in 1957. It was finally published in 1962 and showed the effects of synthetic chemical pesticides such as DDT on the environment. In addition, Carson provided much evidence through marine studies and research. Silent Spring awakened humans to realize the effect they had on the environment and challenged popular agricultural practice.

As a result, Carson was heavily attacked by the chemical industry. Yet, she remained determined and continued to speak out against pesticides. Her actions influenced President Kennedy to call for the testing of all the chemicals mentioned in Silent Spring. This directly led a ban of DDT. Hence, Carson is known as the mother of the modern environmental movement. She lost her battle to breast cancer in 1964.