[Did beach time last week on the Outer Banks. I’d rather not, but, then, somebody’s got to. I hope you enjoy this post from July 18, 2021. See new question for comment at the bottom.]
I just met the most amazing person, and I can’t wait to tell you about her, but I’m pretty sure everybody else in my world met her years ago, read her books, discussed her work, sang her praises, and likely paid homage at one or more monuments to her life. So when I tell you who this amazing person is, I imagine you’ll react the way I’d react to someone who couldn’t wait to tell me about St. Francis, Helen Keller, or Martin Luther King Jr.
Really, dude? Where have you been?!
Okay. Here goes. I just met Rachel Carson and realized that I had somehow confused her with Annie Dillard.
WHAT?! EVERYBODY KNOWS RACHEL CARSON IS NOT ANNIE DILLARD. Dillard wrote Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Carson wrote Silent Spring.
And everybody’s read Silent Spring.
Not me.
But I just did, and just like that I am now enthralled with the soul and work of this amazing woman.
Rachel was born May 27, 1907, in Springdale, Pennsylvania. Her mother, Maria, was a devout Presbyterian who embraced John Calvin’s (little known) idea that God is immanent in nature, or as Calvin put it: The natural world is the theater of God’s glory. She enrolled Rachel in the American Nature Study Movement and urged her to practice “reverence for all life.”
Rachel became a published author in 1941 (Under the Sea Wind), a marine biologist, and the second woman ever hired by the US Fish & Wildlife Service as a full-time professional.
In the early 1950s a friend wrote her a letter concerning the sudden silence of songbirds. Did Rachel know what might be causing their demise?
Rachel looked into it and didn’t stop looking. In 1962 she published her findings in a book and dedicated it to Albert Schweitzer.
Rachel alerted the world to the dangers of the indiscriminate use of pesticides, DDT being the most notorious but far from the only fatal toxin found in air, water, and soil, and slowly accumulating in the bodies of animals, including the human animal. Rachel was viciously attacked by the chemical industry and accused of being a communist. She held her ground even while she was quietly dying of cancer.
Rachel died in 1964, age 56.
Rachel Carson is rightfully called the Mother of the Environmental Movement.
I stand with those, like Margaret Atwood, who call Rachel Carson a saint.
What impact did Silent Spring have on you?
_______________________
See Paula’s photo on home page. Scroll down to “visual explorations.” Posted July 7, 2024
Share this post with friends. Use links below.
Not a subscriber? Subscribe here. Free. No ads. Unsubscribe anytime.
Rachel Carson came into my consciousness in the 1970s in a science class. Then I visited key areas where she worked and studied in Maine. She is an example of another voice crying out truth from the wilderness. Our listening skills are weak, and actions based on truth often weaker.
Awareness, my parents were aware and so I was aware. Thank you, parents? Book on the shelf. Well recall seeing her on tv and how young I must’ve been. Thank you, parents. Thank you, Rachel Carson.
“Silent Spring” didn’t have much impact on me because it was required reading in a 10th grade biology class. But it sowed a seed that sprouted and bloomed later. I now look back on trying to get my wandering teenage mind around the alarm Carson was sounding. (Incidentally, my mind still wanders and questions.) I now admire what a forward looking and thinking mind this biology teacher possessed. That’s the way it goes with teaching. One never knows when or where sown seeds will spout and bloom.
I still have not read the book, though my life from my twenties forward has been conscious of and guided by her teachings. It will remain a painful fact that societies’ most unbending powerful go after light bearers, to the real detriment of all. “Reverence for all life” makes a sound universal mission statement. It has been mine, as well. 🌹🪰🪺🌹🙏🏼
Oops! Emoji boo-boo! Meant 🐝 instead of 🪰!
I hope y’all have had a great time at the beach. Great historian Douglas Brinkley was at NCTC a few months ago for a talk about his book about Carson and Silent Spring. What a wonderful, amazing woman, scientist and writer she was.
I encountered Rachel when I was a kid. My relationship with my father, the chemical engineer whose company sold DDT, never did recover. He’s long gone now. And I now live in a place brimming with bluebirds. I often wonder if my dad might be among them.
I recall reading in her book a quote from the then-Surgeon General of the U.S. stating that food (what we put into our bodies) had no effect on our health… Rachel had to fight against many dragons in high places.