Rachel Carson
Marine biologist and nature writer
Rachel Carson was an American marine biologist and conservationist. Her 1962 book Silent Spring is credited with helping drive the global environmental movement.
1 summary 15 min of listening
American Born 1907 in Rachel Carson Homestead, United States Died 1964
About Rachel Carson
Rachel Carson (1907-1964) was born in Springdale, Pennsylvania. She started out as an aquatic biologist with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, and turned to nature writing full time in the 1950s. Her 1951 bestseller The Sea Around Us won a U.S. National Book Award. Under the Sea Wind and The Edge of the Sea were bestsellers as well, and the three books together form her sea trilogy. Late in the 1950s she turned to conservation, especially problems she believed synthetic pesticides had caused. The result was Silent Spring (1962). Chemical companies fiercely opposed it, yet it prompted a shift in national pesticide policy and a nationwide ban on DDT. Carson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom after her death, in 1980.