Rachel Louise Carson and the Environmental Movement

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Rachel Louise Carson was born on May 27, 1907 in Springdale Pennsylvania.1 As a young child, Carson had already exhibited signs of great intelligence and a deep adoration of the ocean and nature. She made the decision to pursue her lifelong love of the ocean and became a Marine Biology student at the Pennsylvania College for Women, where she graduated in 1929. But it was not until the 1940’s when Carson was working as a scientist and editor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Fisheries Bureau, that her passion and literary work would take her to a level of popularity she had never known before. By 1958, Carson had become very popular as a writer and environmentalist. When she found out about the United States tampering with the creation of synthetic chemical insecticides, namely the new and incredibly harmful chemical DDT (dichloride-diphenyl-trichloro-ethane) and its indiscriminate usage on insects, she knew she had to take action. Carson strongly believed that humans were dangerously working against nature with their heinous misuse of these pesticides and decided to take a strand by combining her knowledge on government research and her profound love for nature to create literary works of art that would be read by millions. The difference Rachel Carson made in ecology and environmental conservation with the publication of her most famous novel, Silent Spring, would be one of the major important outcomes of the 20th century.
Carson graduated from college knowing she wanted to be an author. Her first novel, Under the Sea-Wind, received positive reviews but was released a month before the attack on Pearl Harbor.3 The country went to war and Carson’s novel did not receive as much attention as she had hoped. “The world rec...

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...Electronic Information:
Doyle, Jack. “Power in the Pen, Silent Spring: 1962,”
PopHistoryDig.com, 21 February 2012. Available from http://www.pophistorydig.com/?tag=rachel-carson-senate-hearings Accessed 8 November 2013
Lear, Linda. “Rachel Carson and the Awakening of Environmental Consciousness.” National Humanities Center, June 2002. Available from http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/nattrans/ntwilderness/essays/carson.htm Accessed 6 November 2013
McKie, Robin. “Rachel Carson and the legacy of Silent Spring” The Guardian, May 2012. Available from http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/may/27/rachel-carson-silent-spring-anniversary Accessed on 8 November 2013
No Author. “Rachel Carson and Silent Spring” Indiana University Class webs, Available from http://classwebs.spea.indiana.edu/bakerr/v600/rachel_carson_and_silent_spring.htm Accessed on 8 November 2013

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