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Rachel Carson

Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist, writer, and conservationist whose sea trilogy (1941–1955) and book Silent Spring (1962) are credited with advancing marine conservation and the global environmental movement.

For other uses, see Rachel Carson (disambiguation).

Rachel Carson

(1907-05-27)May 27, 1907
Springdale, Pennsylvania, U.S.

April 14, 1964(1964-04-14) (aged 56)
Silver Spring, Maryland, U.S.[1]

Marine biologist, author and environmentalist

Chatham University (BA)
Johns Hopkins University (MS)

1937–1964

Nature writing

Marine biology, ecology, pesticides

Under the Sea Wind (1941)
The Sea Around Us (1951)
The Edge of the Sea (1955)
Silent Spring (1962)

Carson began her career as an aquatic biologist in the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, and became a full-time nature writer in the 1950s. Her widely praised 1951 bestseller The Sea Around Us won her a U.S. National Book Award,[2][3] recognition as a gifted writer and financial security. Her next book, The Edge of the Sea , and the post-war reissued version of her first book, Under the Sea Wind, were also bestsellers. This sea trilogy explores the whole of ocean life from the shores to the depths.


Late in the 1950s, Carson turned her attention to conservation, especially some problems she believed were caused by synthetic pesticides. The result was the book Silent Spring (1962), which brought environmental concerns to an unprecedented share of the American people. Although Silent Spring was met with fierce opposition by chemical companies, it spurred a reversal in national pesticide policy, which led to a nationwide ban on DDT and other pesticides. It also inspired a grassroots environmental movement that led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.[4] Carson was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter.

Death[edit]

Weakened from breast cancer and her treatment regimen, Carson became ill with a respiratory virus in January 1964. Her condition worsened, and in February, doctors found that she had severe anemia from her radiation treatments. In March, they discovered that the cancer had reached her liver. She died of a heart attack on April 14, 1964, in her home in Silver Spring, Maryland.[1][83][84]


Her body was cremated, and some of her ashes were buried beside her mother at Parklawn Memorial Gardens in Rockville, Maryland.[85] The rest were scattered along the coast of Squirrel Island near Sheepscot River in Maine.

, 1941, Simon & Schuster, Penguin Group, 1996, ISBN 0-14-025380-7

Under the Sea Wind

(PDF). Us Fish & Wildlife Publications. United States Government Printing Office. 1943.

"Food From the Sea: Fish and Shellfish of New England"

Carson, Rachel (1943). (PDF). Us Fish & Wildlife Publications. United States Government Printing Office.

"Food From Home Waters: Fishes of the Middle West"

(PDF). Us Fish & Wildlife Publications. United States Government Printing Office. 1944.

"Fish and Shellfish of the South Atlantic and Gulf Coasts"

Carson, Rachel (1945). (PDF). Us Fish & Wildlife Publications. United States Government Printing Office.

"Fish and Shellfish of the Middle Atlantic Coast"

Carson, Rachel (1947). (PDF). Us Fish & Wildlife Publications. United States Government Printing Office.

"Chincoteague: A National Wildlife Refuge"

Carson, Rachel (1947). (PDF). Us Fish & Wildlife Publications. United States Government Printing Office.

"Mattamuskeet: A National Wildlife Refuge"

Carson, Rachel (1947). (PDF). Us Fish & Wildlife Publications. United States Government Printing Office.

"Parker River: A National Wildlife Refuge"

Wilson, Vanez; Carson, Rachel (1950). (PDF). Us Fish & Wildlife Publications. United States Government Printing Office. (with Vanez T. Wilson)

"Bear River: A National Wildlife Refuge"

, Oxford University Press, 1951; Oxford University Press, 1991, ISBN 0-19-506997-8

The Sea Around Us

The Edge of the Sea, Houghton Mifflin 1955; Mariner Books, 1998,  0-395-92496-0

ISBN

Silent Spring

The Sense of Wonder, 1965, HarperCollins, 1998:  0-06-757520-X published posthumously

ISBN

Always, Rachel: The Letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman 1952–1964 An Intimate Portrait of a Remarkable Friendship, Beacon Press, 1995,  0-8070-7010-6 edited by Martha Freeman (granddaughter of Dorothy Freeman)

ISBN

Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson, Beacon Press, 1998,  0-8070-8547-2

ISBN

Bedrock: Writers on the Wonders of Geology, edited by Lauret E. Savoy, , and Judith E. Moores, Trinity University Press, 2006, ISBN 1-59534-022-X

Eldridge M. Moores

Air pollution

Environmentalist

Environmental history of the United States

Environmental toxicology

(three trails in Central Maryland)

Rachel Carson Greenway

Silent Spring Institute

Women and the environment

Carson, Rachel (1962). . Houghton Mifflin.

Silent Spring

Hynes, H. Patricia (1989). . Athene series. New York: Pergamon Press. ISBN 0-08-037117-5.

The Recurring Silent Spring

Lear, Linda (1997). . New York: Henry Holt. ISBN 0-8050-3428-5.

Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature

Lytle, Mark Hamilton (2007). . New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-517246-1.

The Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the Environmental Movement

Murphy, Priscilla Coit (2005). . Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 978-1-55849-582-1.

What a Book Can Do: The Publication and Reception of Silent Spring

Brinkley, Douglas. Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the Great Environmental Awakening (2022)

excerpt

Brooks, Paul (1972). . Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-13517-6. This book is a personal memoir by Carson's Houghton Mifflin editor and close friend Paul Brooks. Brooks' papers are housed at the Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods Library.

The House of Life: Rachel Carson at Work

Gottlieb, Robert (2005). Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement. Washington D.C.: Island Press.  978-1-55963-832-6.

ISBN

(1988). Rachel Carson: Biologist and Author. American women of achievement. Chelsea House Publications. ISBN 1-55546-646-X.

Jezer, Marty

Kline, B. First Along the River. Maryland. Rowma & Littlefield.

"The Shore Bird: Rachel Carson and the rising of the seas", The New Yorker, 26 March 2018, pp. 64–66, 68–72.

Lepore, Jill

Lutts, R (1985). Chemical fallout: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Radioactive Fallout, and the Environmental Movement. Environmental Review.

, ed. (2007). Courage for the Earth: Writers, Scientists, and Activists Celebrate the Life and Writing of Rachel Carson. Mariner Books. ISBN 978-0-618-87276-3.

Matthiessen, Peter

Moore, Kathleen Dean; Sideris, Lisa H. (2008). . Albany, New York: SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-7471-6.

Rachel Carson: Legacy and Challenge

Quaratiello, Arlene (2010). Rachel Carson: A Biography. : Prometheus. ISBN 978-1-61614-187-5.

Amherst, New York

Sideris, Lisa H. (Fall–Winter 2009). "Fact and Fiction, Fear and Wonder: The Legacy of Rachel Carson". Soundings. 91 (3–4): 335–69.  41179228.

JSTOR

Souder, William (2012). . New York, NY: Crown Publishers. ISBN 978-0-307-46220-6.

On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson

Collombat, Isabelle (2021). (in French). Actes Sud junior. ISBN 978-2-330-15053-2.

Rachel Carson : "Non à la destruction de la nature"

documentary about Rachel Carson

American Experience

 : 2010 PBS Documentary / Interviews with Rachel Carson

A Sense of Wonder

. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

Rachel Carson Papers

at Faded Page (Canada)

Works by Rachel Carson

New York Times obituary

—Web site by Carson biographer Linda J. Lear

RachelCarson.org

Time, Mar. 29, 1999, Environmentalist RACHEL CARSON

"From Calm Leadership, Lasting Change", The New York Times, October 27, 2012.

Koehn, Nancy

—Bill Moyer's Journal, PBS.org, September 21, 2007

Revisiting Rachel Carson

—a two-act play about Carson, written and performed by Kaiulani Lee, based on posthumous work of the same name

A Sense of Wonder

on YouTube

Clip of Bill Moyers television on Lee's one-woman show

—early article by Rachel Carson about how the ocean's currents affect climate (excerpt from her 1951 book, The Sea Around Us).

"Why Our Winters Are Getting Warmer," November 1951, Popular Science

(Rachel L. Carson as Interpreted by Irwin Allen—TCM Movie Morlocks on The Sea Around Us)

curated by the Michigan State University Museum

Silent Spring, A Visual History

Michals, Debra. . National Women's History Museum. 2015.

"Rachel Carson"

"For the Birds," episode 6 of podcast by Jill Lepore, released July 9, 2020.

The Last Archive

1962-00-00, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed June 7, 2021.

"Roundtable Discussion of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson,"

Carson-related organizations