Last year my family and I had the opportunity to attend the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute‘s (MBAR) Open House in Moss Landing, CA. The event was set up beside their research boat The R/V Rachel Carson. I knew the name, but never thought of her in the context of marine science so I did a little digging and discovered that Rachel Carson, who most of us know as an Environmentalist and one of the first to sound the warning about the dangers of DDT, actually began her work in the oceans.
Born in 1907 in Springdale, Pennsylvania, USA, Rachel Carson studied biology at Chatham University (formerly Pennsylvania College for Women), graduating magna cum laude in 1929. She did a summer course at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA, and went on to study zoology and genetics at Johns Hopkins, earning her master’s in zoology in 1932. Unfortunately, financial and personal hardships derailed her plans for a PhD.
Carson went on to worked as a copy writer for the US Bureau of Fisheries for their weekly radio program about aquatic life. This lead to her publishing articles about the marine life in her area. In 1936 she became a full time junior aquatic biologist for the Bureau.
Before ’Silent Spring’, the book that put Carson on the Environmental studies map, she wrote a trio of detailed and beautifully lyrical books about our oceans. ‘The Sea Around Us’, the second, and most successful of the three, was published by Oxford University Press in 1951, remaining on the NYT bestseller list for 86 weeks. It went on to win the National Book Award for Nonfiction and the John Burroughs Medal.
Carson’s interested in environmental issues began in the mid 40s but it wasn’t until the US government’s program to eradicate the gypsy month that she turned her focus to the issues surrounding DDT and other synthetic pesticides. This lead to the publication of ’Silent Spring’ in 1962 and helped bring about a nationwide ban on DDT ten years later.
While writing ’Silent Spring’ Carson found herself dealing with health issues including breast cancer. She passed away in April of 1964. A decade later she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, and later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
For more information visit Rachelcarson.org
You can also find a links to many of Rachel Carson’s US Fish and Wildlife publications in Wikipedia’s list of her works