Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson was a marine biologist, writer, and conservationist whose Sea Trilogy (Under the Sea Wind, The Sea Around Us, The Edge of the Sea; 1941–1955) and Silent Spring (1962) were instrumental in launching the modern global environmental movement.

Educated at Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham University; B.A., 1929), Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole (1929), and Johns Hopkins University (M.S. in zoology, 1932), she began her career as an aquatic biologist in the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, the second woman hired by the Bureau for a full-time professional position. Her book The Sea Around Us (1951) won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, bringing her national recognition.

In the late 1950s, Carson turned to conservation, with a focus on the damaging effects of synthetic pesticides. Her findings, published in Silent Spring, gained national attention through serial publication in The New Yorker and a CBS Reports TV special, “The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson,” which was seen by about fifteen million viewers. Troubled by her findings, President John F. Kennedy asked his Science Advisory Committee to investigate her claims, and they validated her research. Although met with fierce opposition by chemical companies, her work spurred a nationwide ban on DDT and other pesticides. It also inspired a grassroots environmental movement that spurred the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. For her work, she was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980.