Women Scientists

Rachel Carson 1907-1964

At a glance:

a scientist turned influential environmental campaigner

Rachel Carson was bought up in a farm in Pennsylvania. Initially she studied English but swapped to biology, completing an MA in zoology at Johns Hopkins. She worked at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory before taking a job as a staff aquatic biologist with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. She was a gifted writer and ended up as their Chief Editor. An early book on oceans 'The Sea was around us' was a bestseller and she resigned her job in 1952 to concentrate on writing. She is best known for 'Silent Spring' published in 1952 after four years of careful research. Because of her job, she had unprecedented access to government scientists and papers. It documents the dangers of pesticides and herbicides and in particular the long lasting presence of toxic chemicals in water and mother's milk. The book was the subject of constant assault from the chemicals industry from the start but John F Kennedy read it and ordered a presidential advisory committee which issued a report in 1963 backing Carson. Silent Spring was enormously influential; it is credited with the setting up of the Environmental Protection Agency in the US, the banning of DDT and in kick starting the environmentalist movement.
Rachel Carson

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