Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring", a Woman and a Book that Changed the World
The history books say that the American environmental movement began on 16 June 1962, the date of the New Yorker magazine that contained the first of three excerpts from Rachel Carson’s new book, Silent Spring. Controversy ignited immediately. Just five weeks later, before the book was even out, a 22 July headline in the New York Times declared, “‘Silent Spring’ Is Now Noisy Summer.” Houghton Mifflin released Silent Spring on 27 September. It sold hundreds of thousands of copies and stayed on the best seller list for thirty-one months.
...
Quiet, reserved, and very private, Silent Spring’s author was no radical rabble-rouser. Carson was born on 27 May 1907 in Springdale, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. From an early age she aspired to be a writer but at college she switched her major from English to biology. Carson earned a masters’ degree in zoology from Johns Hopkins University in 1932 but interrupted her doctoral studies due to financial problems during the Great Depression. She took a job as a biologist with the US Bureau of Fisheries—later the US Fish and Wildlife Service—and wrote and edited informational materials for the public.
In her spare time Carson wrote Under the Sea-Wind, published in 1941. Her second book, The Sea Around Us, was a fantastic success. It zoomed to the top of the best seller list in 1952 and remained there for a record eighty-six weeks. A new edition of Under the Sea-Wind joined it there. Success enabled Carson to resign from her job and write full time. In 1955 her third book, The Edge of the Sea, reached the best seller lists, too.
Carson then turned her attention to a problem that had concerned her for at least a decade: the use and abuse of dangerous new chemicals in agriculture and pest control. She tried to get other authors interested in the topic, but in the end she found that she had to write the book herself—Silent Spring.
...
Quiet, reserved, and very private, Silent Spring’s author was no radical rabble-rouser. Carson was born on 27 May 1907 in Springdale, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. From an early age she aspired to be a writer but at college she switched her major from English to biology. Carson earned a masters’ degree in zoology from Johns Hopkins University in 1932 but interrupted her doctoral studies due to financial problems during the Great Depression. She took a job as a biologist with the US Bureau of Fisheries—later the US Fish and Wildlife Service—and wrote and edited informational materials for the public.
In her spare time Carson wrote Under the Sea-Wind, published in 1941. Her second book, The Sea Around Us, was a fantastic success. It zoomed to the top of the best seller list in 1952 and remained there for a record eighty-six weeks. A new edition of Under the Sea-Wind joined it there. Success enabled Carson to resign from her job and write full time. In 1955 her third book, The Edge of the Sea, reached the best seller lists, too.
Carson then turned her attention to a problem that had concerned her for at least a decade: the use and abuse of dangerous new chemicals in agriculture and pest control. She tried to get other authors interested in the topic, but in the end she found that she had to write the book herself—Silent Spring.
http://www.environmentandsociety.org/exhibitions/silent-spring/overview
A very detailed review of the makings and impact of the book and of Carson herself, the beloved writer of 1952's runaway best seller "The Sea Around Us", who was battling breast cancer as "Silent Spring" was published. The writer nicely ties in the work of other scientists and advocates at the time who happened to be female such as Frances Kelsey who is credited with single-handedly preventing the sale of thalidomide in the US.
For me, personally, Silent Spring had a profound impact. It was one of the books we read at home at my mother’s insistence and then discussed around the dinner table. . . . Rachel Carson was one of the reasons why I became so conscious of the environment and so involved with environmental issues. Her example inspired me to write Earth in the Balance. . . . Her picture hangs on my office wall among those of political leaders. . . . Carson has had as much or more effect on me than any of them, and perhaps than all of them together.
—Vice President Al Gore, “Introduction,” Silent Spring (1994 ed.), xiii
—Vice President Al Gore, “Introduction,” Silent Spring (1994 ed.), xiii
6 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
