Rachel
Carson
, author and ecologist, attended Pennsylvania College for Women,
majoring in English with a career in writing in mind. Two years later a
required course in biology changed her mind and she became a zoology major.
Later in life, she combined the two fields, and became an influential force
in the ecology movement.
She taught zoology after receiving her Masters degree from Johns
Hopkins University in 1932. Her writing career began with a series of articles
on aquatic life for the Baltimore
Sunday Sun
. Subsequently, she
secured a civil service appointment with the Fish and Wildlife Service
as a "Junior aquatic biologist." In 1952, she retired as biologist and
chief editor. Her associates remember her wit and humor as well as her
literary talents.
Silent Spring
, one of her most famous and controversial works,
was published in 1962, and was called by Justice William O. Douglass, "the
most important chronicle of this century for the human race." In
Silent
Spring
, Carson warned against the indiscriminate use of chemicals upsetting
the balance of nature. The book prompted a controversy among conservationists,
the chemical industry, and the Department of Agriculture. Ms. Carson learned
that she had cancer during the writing of
Silent Spring
. She died
in 1964 at her home in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Many awards came to her the last year of her life, and she was able
to receive them herself. Among them, her most treasured was the Cullum
Medal of the American Geographical Society, which was awarded to only three
other women at that time. Rachel Carson believed that "what is important
is the relation of man to all life."
Biography courtesy of the Maryland Commission for Women, 1985.
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