Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Rachel Carson was born in 1907 in Springdale, Pennsylvania. She studied biology at the Pennsylvania College for Women and earned a master’s degree in zoology at Johns Hopkins.
She joined the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, later the Fish and Wildlife Service, where she wrote and edited publications.
Writing about the sea
Her book “The Sea Around Us,” published in 1951, was a best seller and won the National Book Award. Its success let her leave government work to write full time.
Silent Spring
Carson grew alarmed about the heavy spraying of synthetic pesticides such as DDT. She spent years gathering research. “Silent Spring” came out in 1962 and argued the chemicals were harming birds, fish and possibly people.
Chemical companies attacked the book and her. President John F. Kennedy’s science advisory committee reviewed the issue and largely backed her. She testified before Congress in 1963.
Carson was fighting breast cancer while she wrote, and she died in 1964. The Environmental Protection Agency was created in 1970, and the U.S. banned most uses of DDT in 1972.
