Everything about Rachel Carson totally explained
Rachel Louise Carson (
May 27,
1907 –
April 14,
1964) was an
American marine biologist and
nature writer whose writings are credited with advancing the global
environmental movement.
Carson started her career as a 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 financial security and recognition as a gifted writer. Her next book,
The Edge of the Sea, and the republished version of her first book,
Under the Sea-Wind, were also bestsellers. Together, her sea trilogy explores the whole of ocean life, from the shores to the surface to the deep sea.
In the late 1950s, Carson turned her attention to conservation and the environmental problems caused by synthetic
pesticides. The result was
Silent Spring (1962), which brought environmental concerns to an unprecedented portion of the American public.
Silent Spring spurred a reversal in national pesticide policy—leading to a nationwide ban on
DDT and other pesticides—and the
grassroots environmental movement it inspired the creation of the
Environmental Protection Agency. Carson was posthumously awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Life and work
Early life and education
Rachel Carson was born on
May 27,
1907, on a small family farm near
Springdale,
Pennsylvania, just up the
Allegheny River from
Pittsburgh. As a child, she spent many hours learning about ponds, fields, and forests from her mother, who taught Rachel and her older brother and sister the lessons of
nature-study. Carson was an avid reader, and, from a remarkably young age, a talented writer. She also spent a lot of time exploring around her 65-acre farm. She began writing stories (often involving animals) at age eight, and had her first published story at age ten. She especially enjoyed the
St. Nicholas Magazine (which carried her first published stories), the works of
Beatrix Potter, and the novels of
Gene Stratton Porter, and in her teen years,
Herman Melville,
Joseph Conrad and
Robert Louis Stevenson. The natural world, particularly the ocean, was the common thread of her favorite literature. Carson attended Springdale's small school through tenth grade, then completed high school in nearby
Parnassus, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1925 at the top of her class of forty-four students.
At the Pennsylvania College for Women (today known as
Chatham University), as in high school, Carson was somewhat of a loner. She originally studied English, but switched her major to biology in January 1928, though she continued contributing to the school's student newspaper and literary supplement. Though admitted to graduate standing at
Johns Hopkins University in 1928, she was forced to remain at the Pennsylvania College for Women for her senior year due to financial difficulties; she graduated
magna cum laude in 1929. After a summer course at the
Marine Biological Laboratory, she continued her studies in
zoology and
genetics at Johns Hopkins in the fall of 1929.
After her first year of graduate school, Carson became a part-time student, taking an assistantship in
Raymond Pearl's laboratory, where she worked with rats and
Drosophila, to earn money for tuition. After false starts with
pit vipers and
squirrels, she completed a dissertation project on the embryonic development of the
pronephros in fish. She earned a master's degree in zoology in June 1932. She had intended to continue for a doctorate, but in 1934 Carson was forced to leave Johns Hopkins to search for a full-time teaching position to help support her family. In 1935, her father died suddenly, leaving Carson to care for her aging mother and making the financial situation even more critical. At the urging of her undergraduate biology mentor Mary Scott Skinker, she settled for a temporary position with the
U.S. Bureau of Fisheries writing radio copy for a series of weekly educational broadcasts entitled "Romance Under the Waters". The series of fifty-two seven-minute programs focused on aquatic life and was intended to generate public interest in fish biology and in the work of the bureau—a task the several writers before Carson hadn't managed. Carson also began submitting articles on marine life in the
Chesapeake Bay, based on her research for the series, to local newspapers and magazines.
Carson's supervisor, pleased with the success of the radio series, asked her to write the introduction to a public brochure about the fisheries bureau; he also worked to secure her the first full-time position that became available. Sitting for the
civil service exam, she outscored all other applicants 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.
Early career and publications
At the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, Carson's main responsibilities were to analyze and report field data on fish populations, and to write brochures and other literature for the public. Using her research and consultations with marine biologists as starting points, she also wrote a steady stream of articles for
The Baltimore Sun and other newspapers. However, her family responsibilities further increased in January 1937 when her older sister died, leaving Carson as the sole breadwinner for her mother and two nieces.
In July 1937, the
Atlantic Monthly accepted a revised version of an essay, "The World of Waters", that she'd originally written for her first fisheries bureau brochure; her supervisor had deemed it too good for that purpose. The essay, published as "Undersea", was a vivid narrative of a journey along the ocean floor. It marked a major turning point in Carson's writing career. Publishing house
Simon & Schuster, impressed by "Undersea", contacted Carson and suggested that she expand it into book form. Several years of writing resulted in
Under the Sea-Wind (1941), which received excellent reviews but sold poorly. In the meantime, Carson's article-writing success continued—her features appeared in
Sun Magazine,
Nature, and
Collier's.
Carson attempted to leave the Bureau (by then transformed into the
Fish and Wildlife Service) in 1945, but few jobs for naturalists were available as most money for science was focused on technical fields in the wake of the
Manhattan Project. In mid-1945, Carson first encountered the subject of
DDT, a revolutionary new pesticide (lauded as the "insect bomb" after the
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) that was only beginning to undergo tests for safety and ecological effects. DDT was but one of Carson's many writing interests at the time, and editors found the subject unappealing; she published nothing on DDT until 1962.
Carson rose within the Fish and Wildlife Service, supervising a small writing staff by 1945 and becoming chief editor of publications in 1949. Though her position provided increasing opportunities for fieldwork and freedom in choosing her writing projects, it also entailed increasingly tedious administrative responsibilities. By 1948, Carson was working on material for a second book and had made the conscious decision to begin a transition to writing full-time. That year, she took on a literary agent,
Marie Rodell; they formed a close professional relationship that would last the rest of Carson's career.
Oxford University Press expressed interest in Carson's book proposal for a life history of the ocean, spurring her to complete the manuscript of what would become
The Sea Around Us by early 1950. Chapters appeared in
Science Digest and the
Yale Review—the latter chapter, "The Birth of an Island", winning the
American Association for the Advancement of Science's George Westinghouse Science Writing Prize—and nine chapters were serialized in
The New Yorker.
The Sea Around Us remained on the
New York Times bestseller list for 86 weeks, was abridged by
Reader's Digest, won the 1952
National Book Award and the
Burroughs Medal, and resulted in Carson being awarded two honorary doctorates. She also licensed a documentary film to be based on
The Sea Around Us. The book's success led to the republication of
Under the Sea-Wind, which also became a best-seller. With success came financial security, and Carson was able to give up her job in 1952 to concentrate on writing full time.
Carson was inundated with speaking engagements,
fan mail and other correspondence regarding
The Sea Around Us, along with work on the documentary script that she'd secured the right to review. She was extremely unhappy with the final version of the script by writer, director and producer
Irwin Allen; she found it untrue to the atmosphere of the book and scientifically embarrassing, describing it as "a cross between a believe-it-or-not and a breezy travelogue." She discovered, however, that her right to review the script didn't extend to any control over its content. Allen proceeded in spite of Carson's objections to produce a very successful documentary. It won the 1953
Oscar for Best Documentary, but Carson was so embittered by the experience that she never again sold film rights to her work.
Relationship with Dorothy Freeman
Carson moved with her mother to
Southport Island, Maine in 1953, and in July of that year met
Dorothy Freeman (1898–1978)—the beginning of an extremely close relationship that would last the rest of Carson's life. The nature of the relationship between Carson and Freeman has been the subject of much interest and speculation. It is probably best described as a
romantic friendship. Carson met Freeman, a summer resident of the island along with her husband, after Freeman had written to Carson to welcome her. Freeman had read
The Sea Around Us, a gift from her son, and was excited to have the prominent author as a neighbor. Carson's biographer Linda Lear writes that "Carson sorely needed a devoted friend and kindred spirit who would listen to her without advising and accept her wholly, the writer as well as the woman." She found this in Freeman. The two women had a number of common interests, nature chief among them, and began exchanging letters regularly while apart. They would continue to share every summer for the remainder of Carson's life, and meet whenever else their schedules permitted.
Though Lear doesn't explicitly describe the relationship as romantic, others (such as the encyclopedia
glbtq) have noted that Carson and Freeman knew that their letters could be interpreted as
lesbian, even though "the expression of their love was limited almost wholly to letters and very occasional farewell kisses or holding of hands." Freeman shared parts of Carson's letters with her husband to help him understand the relationship, but much of their correspondence was carefully guarded. Shortly before Carson's death, she and Freeman destroyed hundreds of letters. The surviving correspondence was published in 1995 as
Always, Rachel: The Letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, 1952–1964: An Intimate Portrait of a Remarkable Friendship, edited by Freeman's granddaughter. According to one reviewer, the pair "fit Carolyn Heilbrun's characterization of a strong female friendship, where what matters is 'not whether friends are homosexual or heterosexual, lovers or not, but whether they share the wonderful energy of work in the public sphere'".
The Edge of the Sea and transition to conservation work
In early 1953 Carson began library and field research on the ecology and organisms of the Atlantic shore. In 1955, she completed the third volume of her sea trilogy,
The Edge of the Sea, which focuses on life in
coastal ecosystems (particularly along the
Eastern Seaboard). It appeared in
The New Yorker in two condensed installments shortly before the October 26 book release. By this time, Carson's reputation for clear and poetical prose was well-established;
The Edge of the Sea received highly favorable reviews, if not quite as enthusiastic as for
The Sea Around Us.
Through 1955 and 1956, Carson worked on a number of projects—including the script for an
Omnibus episode, "Something About the Sky"—and wrote articles for popular magazines. Her plan for the next book was to address
evolution, but the publication of
Julian Huxley's
Evolution in Action—and her own difficulty in finding a clear and compelling approach to the topic—led her to abandon the project. Instead, her interests were turning to conservation. She considered an environment-themed book project tentatively entitled
Remembrance of the Earth and became involved with
The Nature Conservancy and other conservation groups. She also made plans to buy and preserve from development an area in Maine she and Freeman called the "Lost Woods".
Early in 1957, family tragedy struck a third time when one of the nieces she'd cared for in the 1940s died at the age of 31, leaving a five-year-old orphan son, Roger Christie. Carson took on that responsibility, adopting the boy, alongside continuing to care for her aging mother; this took a considerable toll on Carson. She moved to
Silver Spring,
Maryland to care for Roger, and much of 1957 was spent putting their new living situation in order and focusing on specific environmental threats.
By fall 1957, Carson was closely following federal proposals for widespread pesticide spraying; the
USDA planned to eradicate
fire ants, and other spraying programs involving
chlorinated hydrocarbons and
organophosphates were on the rise. For the rest of her life, Carson's main professional focus would be the dangers of pesticide overuse.
Silent Spring
Research and writing
Starting in the mid-1940s, Carson had become concerned about the use of synthetic pesticides, many of which had been developed through the
military funding of science since
World War II. It was the USDA's 1957 fire ant eradication program, however, that prompted Carson to devote her research, and her next book, to pesticides and environmental poisons. The fire ant program involved aerial spraying of
DDT and other pesticides (mixed with
fuel oil), including the spraying of private land. Landowners in Long Island filed a suit to have the spraying stopped, and many in affected regions followed the case closely. Though the suit was lost, the
Supreme Court granted petitioners the right to gain injunctions against potential environmental damage in future; this laid the basis for later successful environmental actions.
The Washington, D.C. chapter of the
Audubon Society also actively opposed such spraying programs, and recruited Carson to help make public the government's exact spraying practices and the related research. Carson began the four-year project of what would become
Silent Spring by gathering examples of environmental damage attributed to DDT. She also attempted to enlist others to join the cause: essayist
E. B. White, and a number of journalists and scientists. By 1958, Carson had arranged a book deal, with plans to co-write with
Newsweek science journalist Edwin Diamond. However, when
The New Yorker commissioned a long and well-paid article on the topic from Carson, she began considering writing more than simply the introduction and conclusion as planned; soon it was a solo project. (Diamond would later write one of the harshest critiques of
Silent Spring.)
As her research progressed, Carson found a sizable community of scientists who were documenting the physiological and environmental effects of pesticides. She also took advantage of her personal connections with many government scientists, who supplied her with confidential information. From reading the scientific literature and interviewing scientists, Carson found two scientific camps when it came to pesticides: those who dismissed the possible danger of pesticide spraying barring conclusive proof, and those who were open to the possibility of harm and willing to consider alternative methods such as
biological pest control.
By 1959, the
USDA's
Agricultural Research Service responded to the criticism of Carson and others with a public service film,
Fire Ants on Trial; Carson characterized it as "flagrant
propaganda" that ignored the dangers that spraying pesticides (especially
dieldrin and
heptachlor) posed to humans and wildlife. That spring, Carson wrote a letter, published in
The Washington Post, that attributed the recent decline in bird populations—in her words, the "silencing of birds"—to pesticide overuse. That was also the year of the "Great Cranberry Scandal": the 1957, 1958, and 1959 crops of U.S.
cranberries were found to contain high levels of the herbicide
aminotriazole (which caused cancer in laboratory rats) and the sale of all cranberry products was halted. Carson attended the ensuing FDA hearings on revising pesticide regulations; she came away discouraged by the aggressive tactics of the chemical industry representatives, which included expert testimony that was firmly contradicted by the bulk of the scientific literature she'd been studying. She also wondered about the possible "financial inducements behind certain pesticide programs".
Research at the
Library of Medicine of the
National Institutes of Health brought Carson into contact with medical researchers investigating the gamut of cancer-causing chemicals. Of particular significance was the work of
National Cancer Institute researcher and founding director of the environmental cancer section
Wilhelm Hueper, who classified many pesticides as carcinogens. Carson and her research assistant Jeanne Davis, with the help of NIH librarian Dorothy Algire, found evidence to support the pesticide-cancer connection; to Carson the evidence for the toxicity of a wide array of synthetic pesticides was clear-cut, though such conclusions were very controversial beyond the small community of scientists studying pesticide
carcinogenesis.
By 1960, Carson had more than enough research material, and the writing was progressing rapidly. In addition to the thorough literature search, she'd investigated hundreds of individual incidents of pesticide exposure and the human sickness and ecological damage that resulted. However, in January, a duodenal ulcer followed by several infections kept her bedridden for weeks, greatly delaying the completion of
Silent Spring. As she was nearing full recovery in March (just as she was completing drafts of the two cancer chapters of her book), she discovered cysts in her left breast, one of which necessitated a
mastectomy. Though her doctor described the procedure as precautionary and recommended no further treatment, by December Carson discovered that the tumor was in fact
malignant and the cancer had
metastasized. Her research was also delayed by revision work for a new edition of
The Sea Around Us, and by a collaborative photo essay with
Erich Hartmann. Most of the research and writing was done by the fall of 1960, except for the discussion of recent research on
biological controls and investigations of a handful of new pesticides. However, further health troubles slowed the final revisions in 1961 and early 1962.
It was difficult finding a title for the book; "Silent Spring" was initially suggested as a title for the chapter on birds. By August 1961, Carson finally agreed to the suggestion of her literary agent Marie Rodell:
Silent Spring would be a metaphorical title for the entire book—suggesting a bleak future for the whole natural world—rather than a literal chapter title about the absence of birdsong. With Carson's approval, editor Paul Brooks at
Houghton Mifflin arranged for illustrations by Louis and Lois Darling, who also designed the cover. The final writing was the first chapter, "A Fable for Tomorrow", which was intended to provide a gentler introduction to what might otherwise be a forbiddingly serious topic. By mid-1962, Brooks and Carson had largely finished the editing, and were laying the groundwork for promoting the book by sending the manuscript out to select individuals for final suggestions.
Argument
As biographer Mark Hamilton Lytle writes, Carson "quite self-consciously decided to write a book calling into question the
paradigm of
scientific progress that defined
postwar American culture." The overriding theme of
Silent Spring is the powerful—and often negative—effect humans have on the natural world.
Carson's main argument is that
pesticides have detrimental effects on the environment; they're more properly termed "
biocides", she argues, because their effects are rarely limited to the target pests. DDT is a prime example, but other synthetic pesticides come under scrutiny as well—many of which are subject to
bioaccumulation. Carson also accuses the
chemical industry of intentionally spreading
disinformation and public officials of accepting industry claims uncritically. Most of the book is devoted to pesticides' effects on natural ecosystems, but four chapters also detail cases of human pesticide poisoning, cancer, and other illnesses attributed to pesticides. About DDT and cancer, the subject of so much subsequent debate, Carson says only a little:
Carson predicts increased consequences in the future, especially as targeted pests develop
resistance to pesticides while weakened ecosystems fall prey to unanticipated
invasive species. The book closes with a call for a
biotic approach to pest control as an alternative to chemical pesticides.
Promotion and reception
Carson and the others involved with publication of
Silent Spring expected fierce criticism. They were particularly concerned about the possibility of being sued for
libel. Carson was also undergoing
radiation therapy to combat her spreading cancer, and expected to have little energy to devote to defending her work and responding to critics. In preparation for the anticipated attacks, Carson and her agent attempted to amass as many prominent supporters as possible before the book's release.
Most of the book's scientific chapters were reviewed by scientists with relevant expertise, among whom Carson found strong support. Carson attended the White House Conference on Conservation in May, 1962; Houghton Mifflin distributed proof copies of
Silent Spring to many of the delegates, and promoted the upcoming
New Yorker serialization. Among many others, Carson also sent a proof copy to Supreme Court Justice
William O. Douglas, a long-time environmental advocate who had argued against the court's rejection of the Long Island pesticide spraying case (and who had provided Carson with some of the material included in her chapter on herbicides).
Though
Silent Spring had generated a fairly high level of interest based on pre-publication promotion, this became much more intense with the serialization in
The New Yorker, which began in the
June 16,
1962 issue. This brought the book to the attention of the chemical industry and its lobbyists, as well as a wide swath of the American populace. Around that time Carson also learned that
Silent Spring had been selected as the
Book-of-the-Month for October; as she put it, this would "carry it to farms and hamlets all over that country that don't know what a bookstore looks like—much less
The New Yorker." Other publicity included a positive editorial in
The New York Times and excerpts of the serialized version in
Audubon Magazine, with another round of publicity in July and August as chemical companies responded. The story of the birth defect-causing drug
thalidomide broke just before the book's publication as well, inviting comparisons between Carson and
Frances Oldham Kelsey, the
Food and Drug Administration reviewer who had blocked the drug's sale in the United States.
In the weeks leading up to the September 27 publication there was strong opposition to
Silent Spring.
DuPont (a main manufacturer of DDT and
2,4-D) and
Velsicol Chemical Company (exclusive manufacturer of
chlordane and
heptachlor) were among the first to respond. DuPont compiled an extensive report on the book's press coverage and estimated impact on public opinion. Velsicol threatened legal action against Houghton Mifflin as well as
The New Yorker and
Audubon Magazine unless the planned
Silent Spring features were canceled. Chemical industry representatives and lobbyists also lodged a range of non-specific complaints, some anonymously. Chemical companies and associated organizations produced a number of their own brochures and articles promoting and defending pesticide use. However, Carson's and the publishers' lawyers were confident in the vetting process
Silent Spring had undergone. The magazine and book publications proceeded as planned, as did the large Book-of-the-Month printing (which included a pamphlet endorsing the book by William O. Douglas).
American Cyanamid biochemist
Robert White-Stevens and former Cyanamid chemist
Thomas Jukes were among the most aggressive critics, especially of Carson's analysis of DDT. According to White-Stevens, "If man were to follow the teachings of Miss Carson, we'd return to the Dark Ages, and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the earth." Others went further, attacking Carson's scientific credentials (because her training was in marine biology rather than biochemistry) and her personal character. White-Stevens labeled her "a fanatic defender of the cult of the balance of nature", while former Secretary of Agriculture
Ezra Taft Benson—in a letter to
Dwight D. Eisenhower—reportedly concluded that because she was unmarried despite being physically attractive, she was "probably a Communist".
Many critics repeatedly asserted that she was calling for the elimination of all pesticides. Yet Carson had made it clear she wasn't advocating the banning or complete withdrawal of helpful pesticides, but was instead encouraging responsible and carefully managed use with an awareness of the chemicals' impact on the entire ecosystem. In fact, she concludes her section on DDT in
Silent Spring not by urging a total ban, but with advice for spraying as little as possible to limit the development of resistance.
The academic community—including prominent defenders such as
H. J. Muller,
Loren Eisley,
Clarence Cottam, and
Frank Egler—by and large backed the book's scientific claims; public opinion soon turned Carson's way as well. The chemical industry campaign backfired, as the controversy greatly increased public awareness of potential pesticide dangers, as well as
Silent Spring book sales. Pesticide use became a major public issue, especially after the
CBS Reports TV special "The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson" that aired
April 3,
1963. The program included segments of Carson reading from
Silent Spring and interviews with a number of other experts, mostly critics (including White-Stevens); according to biographer Linda Lear, "in juxtaposition to the wild-eyed, loud-voiced Dr. Robert White-Stevens in white lab coat, Carson appeared anything but the hysterical alarmist that her critics contended." Reactions from the estimated audience of ten to fifteen million were overwhelmingly positive, and the program spurred a congressional review of pesticide dangers and the public release of a pesticide report by the
President's Science Advisory Committee. Within a year or so of publication, the attacks on the book and on Carson had largely lost momentum.
In one of her last public appearances, Carson had testified before President Kennedy's Science Advisory Committee. The committee issued its report on
May 15,
1963, largely backing Carson's scientific claims. Following the report's release, she also testified before a Senate subcommittee to make policy recommendations. Though Carson received hundreds of other speaking invitations, she was unable to accept the great majority of them. Her health was steadily declining as her cancer outpaced the radiation therapy, with only brief periods of remission. She spoke as much as she was physically able, however, including a notable appearance on
The Today Show and speeches at several dinners held in her honor. In late 1963, she received a flurry of awards and honors: the
Paul Bartsch Award (from the
Audubon Naturalist Society), the
Audubon Medal (from the
American Geographical Society), and induction into the
American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Weakened from breast cancer and her treatment regimen, Carson became ill with a respiratory virus in January 1964. Her condition worsened from there: in February, doctors found that she'd severe anemia from her radiation treatments, and in March they discovered that the cancer had reached her liver. She died of a
heart attack on
April 14,
1964, at the age of 56.
Legacy
Collected papers and posthumous publications
Carson bequeathed her manuscripts and papers to
Yale University, to take advantage of the new state-of-the-art preservations facilities of the
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Her longtime agent and literary executor
Marie Rodell spent nearly two years organizing and cataloging Carson's papers and correspondence, distributing all the letters to their senders so that only what each correspondent approved of would be submitted to the archive.
In 1965, Rodell arranged for the publication of an essay Carson had intended to expand into a book:
A Sense of Wonder. The essay, which was combined with photographs by
Charles Pratt and others, exhorts parents to help their children experience the "lasting pleasures of contact with the natural world", which "are available to anyone who will place himself under the influence of earth, sea and sky and their amazing life."
In addition to the letters in
Always Rachel, in 1998 a volume of Carson's previously unpublished work was published as
Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson, edited by Linda Lear. All of Carson's books remain in print. Carson's work, and the activism it inspired, are at least partly responsible for the
deep ecology movement, and the overall strength of the grassroots environmental movement since the 1960s. It was also influential on the rise of
ecofeminism and on many feminist scientists.
Carson's most direct legacy in the environmental movement was the campaign to ban the use of DDT in the United States (and related efforts to ban or limit its use throughout the world). Though environmental concerns about DDT had been considered by government agencies as early as Carson's testimony before the President's Science Advisory Committee, the 1967 formation of the
Environmental Defense Fund was the first major milestone in the campaign against DDT. The organization brought lawsuits against the government to "establish a citizen's right to a clean environment", and the arguments employed against DDT largely mirrored Carson's. By 1972, the Environmental Defense Fund and other activist groups had succeeded in securing a phase-out of DDT use in the United States (except in emergency cases).
The creation, in 1970, of the
Environmental Protection Agency addressed another concern that Carson had brought to light. Until then, the same agency (the
USDA) was responsible both for regulating pesticides and promoting the concerns of the agriculture industry; Carson saw this as a
conflict of interest, since the agency wasn't responsible for effects on wildlife or other environmental concerns beyond farm policy. Fifteen years after its creation, one journalist described the EPA as "the extended shadow of
Silent Spring". Much of the agency's early work, such as enforcement of the 1972
Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, was directly related to Carson's work.
Criticisms of environmentalism and DDT restrictions
Carson and the environmental movement were—and continue to be—criticized by some
conservatives, who argue that restrictions placed on pesticides have caused needless deaths and hampered agriculture, and more generally that environmental regulation unnecessarily restricts
economic freedom. For example, the conservative magazine
Human Events gave
Silent Spring an honorable mention for the "Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries". In the 1980s, the
Reagan administration sought to undo as much of the environmental legacy of the 1960s and 1970s as possible, and Carson and her work were obvious targets.
Carson's attack on DDT has come under the most intense fire. Political scientist Charles Rubin was one of the most vociferous critics in the 1980s and 1990s, though he accused her merely of selective use of source and fanaticism (rather than the more severe criticism Carson received upon
Silent Spring's release). In the 2000s, critics have claimed that Carson is responsible for millions of
malaria deaths, because of the DDT bans her work prompted. Biographer Mark Hamilton Lytle finds these estimates unrealistic, even assuming that Carson can be "blamed" for worldwide DDT policies, and suggests that malaria is much less significant than a number of other widespread preventable public health problems in Africa. Carson never actually called for an outright ban on DDT.
Some experts have argued that restrictions placed on the agricultural use of DDT have increased its effectiveness as a tool for battling malaria. According to pro-DDT advocate
Amir Attaran the result of the 2004
Stockholm Convention banning DDT's use in agriculture "is arguably better than the status quo…For the first time, there's now an insecticide which is restricted to vector control only, meaning that the selection of resistant mosquitoes will be slower than before." But though Carson's legacy has been closely tied to DDT,
Roger Bate of the DDT advocacy organization
Africa Fighting Malaria warns that "A lot of people have used Carson to push their own agendas. We just have to be a little careful when you're talking about someone who died in 1964."
Posthumous honors
A variety of groups ranging from government institutions to environmental and conservation organizations to scholarly societies have celebrated Carson's life and work since her death. Perhaps most significantly, on
June 9,
1980 Carson was awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States, in recognition of her influence on President Kennedy and her foundational role in the environmental movement. A
U.S. postage stamp was issued in her honor the following year; several other countries have since issued Carson postage as well.
Carson's birthplace and childhood home in
Springdale,
Pennsylvania—now known as the
Rachel Carson Homestead—became a
National Register of Historic Places site, and the
nonprofit Rachel Carson Homestead Association was created in 1975 to manage it. Near
Pittsburgh, a hiking trail, maintained by the Rachel Carson Trails Conservancy, was dedicated to Carson in 1975. A Pittsburgh bridge was also renamed in Carson's honor as the
Rachel Carson Bridge. The
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection State Office Building in
Harrisburg is named in her honor. An elementary school in
Gaithersburg,
Montgomery County, MD, built in 1990, was named in her honor, as was a
middle school in
Herndon, VA.
A number of
conservation areas have been named for Carson as well. Between 1964 and 1990, near
Brookeville in
Montgomery County, Maryland were acquired and set aside as the Rachel Carson Conservation Park, administered by the
Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. In 1969, the Coastal Maine National Wildlife Refuge became the
Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge; expansions will bring the size of the refuge to about . In 1985,
North Carolina renamed one of its
estuarine reserves in honor of Carson, in
Beaufort.
Carson is also a frequent namesake for prizes awarded by philanthropic, educational and scholarly institutions. The
Rachel Carson Prize, founded in
Stavanger,
Norway in 1991, is awarded to women who have made a contribution in the field of environmental protection. The
American Society for Environmental History has awarded the Rachel Carson Prize for Best Dissertation since 1993. Since 1998, the
Society for Social Studies of Science has awarded an annual Rachel Carson Book Prize for "a book length work of social or political relevance in the area of science and technology studies."
Centennial events
2007 was the centennial of Carson's birth. On
Earth Day (
April 22,
2007),
Courage for the Earth: Writers, Scientists, and Activists Celebrate the Life and Writing of Rachel Carson was released as "a centennial appreciation of Rachel Carson's brave life and transformative writing", thirteen essays by prominent environmental writers and scientists. Democratic Senator
Benjamin L. Cardin,
Maryland, had intended to submit a resolution celebrating Carson for her "legacy of scientific rigor coupled with poetic sensibility" on the 100th anniversary of her birth. The resolution was blocked by Republican Senator
Tom Coburn,
Oklahoma, who said that "The junk science and stigma surrounding DDT—the cheapest and most effective insecticide on the planet—have finally been jettisoned." The
Rachel Carson Homestead Association held a May 27 birthday party and sustainable feast at her birthplace and home in
Springdale, Pennsylvania, and planned several other events throughout the year.
List of works
- Under the Sea Wind, 1941, Simon & Schuster, Penguin Group, 1996, ISBN 0-14-025380-7
- The Sea Around Us, 1951, Oxford University Press, 1991, ISBN 0-19-506997-8
- The Edge of the Sea, 1955, Mariner Books, 1998, ISBN 0-395-92496-0
- Silent Spring, Houghton Mifflin, 1962, Mariner Books, 2002, ISBN 0-618-24906-0
- The Sense of Wonder, 1965, HarperCollins, 1998: ISBN 0-06-757520-X published posthumously
- Always, Rachel: The Letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman 1952–1964 An Intimate Portrait of a Remarkable Friendship, Beacon Press, 1995, ISBN 0-8070-7010-6 edited by Martha Freeman (granddaughter of Dorothy Freeman)
- Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson, Beacon Press, 1998, ISBN 0-8070-8547-2
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