Marine Biologist, Conservationist and Writer Rachel Carson and The Silent Spring

Rachel Carson, linocut print, 9.25" x 12.5" by Ele Willoughby, 2026

The 4th prompt for #PrinterSolstice2526 is "subtraction" so I thought of a scientist and talented writer who brought the world's attention to what was missing. After publishing the sea trilogy in the 40s and 50s, when marine biologist and conservationist Rachel Carson (1907-1964) published Silent Spring in 1962 she captured the world's attention to the risks to health and environment posed by pesticides and DDT in particular. What was missing after indiscriminate spraying of DDT, to eliminate agricultural insect pests and for disease prevention, was birdsong. Pesticide overuse was "silencing the birds" and rapidly decreasing their populations. She inspired the creation of grassroots environmental groups which culminated in the creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency and ultimately to the US banning DDT for agricultural use in 1972 and a worldwide ban on agricultural use under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants since 2004. 

Rachel Carson

A bookish child fond of animals, marine biologist Rachel Carson was born in 1907, and grew up roaming her family's 65-acre farm near Springdale, Pennsylvania. She was the youngest of Robert and Maria Maclean Carson's three children. Her mother taught her "as a tiny child joy in the out-of-doors and the lore of birds, insects, and residents of streams and ponds." Her favourite stories involved the ocean and she began writing her own by age 8. She published her first story in a children's literary magazine by the age of 10. She attended the small local school till grade ten when she transferred to the high school in Parnassus, where she graduated the top of class. She went to the Pennsylvania College for Women in Pittsburgh (now Chatham University) where she majored in English but transferred to biology and wrote for the school newspaper and literary supplement. She was admitted to grad school at Johns Hopkins in 1928 but remained at the Pennsylvania College for Women for financial reasons, where she graduated magna cum laude in 1929. She then went to a summer course at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. It was her first sight of the ocean. She then proceeded to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore to study zoology and genetics in the fall. Money was tight and after her first year, she switched to part time studies so she could earn money working with rats and Drosophila as an assistant in Robert Pearl's lab. She tried research projects working with pit vipers, then squirrels but finally settled on the embryonic development of the urinary organ in fish, earning her master's in 1932. She planned to continue and complete her doctorate but was forced to leave Johns Hopkins in 1934 and earn an income as a teacher to help support her family during the Depression. Then in 1935 her father died suddenly, compounding their financial straights. Rachel had to care for her mother. 

Her undergraduate mentor Mary Scott Skinner encouraged Rachel to take a temporary position with the US Bureau of Fisheries, writing weekly radio copy for educational broadcasts called Romance Under the Waters. The Bureau had been trying, and failing, to generate interest in fish biology and their role, but Rachel proved more successful. Rachel submitted work on marine life in Chesapeake Bay based on her own research to both the show and to local newspapers and magazines. She further supplemented her income lecturing at the University of Maryland's Dental and Pharmacy schools as well as at Johns Hopkins. Her boss at the Bureau invited her to write a public brochure about their work and tried to find her a full-time position. She aced the civil service exam, outscoring all other applicants, and became the second woman to get a full position with the Bureau of Fisheries, as junior aquatic biologist. 

Detail of colour print magazine ad
for Pennsalt DDT products.
This ad appeared in Time Magazine,
 June 30, 1947.

Using her own research and by interviewing colleagues she published a string of articles for the public in the Baltimore Sun and other newspapers. Then in 1937, her older sister died, leaving her the sole bread earner for her mother and two nieces, and she had to take on more family duties. Her supervisor deemed her draft of a brochure too good and too poetic for that purpose and with his encouragement she revised it and published it as Undersea, a vivid tale of a journey to the seafloor, in the Atlantic Monthly. Her lyrical writing drew the reader in. She wrote, "Who has known the ocean? Neither you nor I, with our earth-bound senses, know the foam and surge of the tide that beats over the crab hiding under the seaweed of his tide-pool home; or the lilt of the long, slow swells of mid-ocean, where shoals of wandering fish prey and are preyed upon, and the dolphin breaks the waves to breathe the upper atmosphere." It caught the attention of Simon & Schuster who suggested she expand the essay into a book. She published the result, Under the Sea Wind in 1941 to critical acclaim but poor sales. Meanwhile she published many articles with Sun Magazine, Nature and Collier's. 

By 1945, she wanted to leave the Bureau, by then known as the US Fish and Wildlife Service, but there were few science jobs for naturalists. She had risen through the ranks and was supervising a small writing staff. That year she learned of Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), grandly described as the "insect bomb" after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, initially intended to protect soldiers from insect-borne malaria. It was beginning tests for safety and ecological effects. DDT was lauded as a miracle for warding off disease and maximizing crop yields, though some were concerned about unintended potential impacts. Swiss chemist Paul Herman Müller, who discovered its insecticidal action in 1939 was rewarded with the 1948 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Rachel was interested in writing about it but editors found pesticides an unappealing subject. She gathered a large file but did not manage to publish on the subject until 1962. By 1948 she was working on a second book and hoping to become a full-time writer; she took on literary agent Marie Rodell with whom she shared a close working relationship for the rest of her career. Studies in 1949 found DDT had made its way into the milk supply and newspapers noted that the "slow insidious poison" was built up in the body. That year she was promoted to chief editor of publications which allowed her more freedom to choose projects and do fieldwork but also required much more administration. 

Oxford University Press was interested in her proposed life history of the ocean and she submitted her manuscript of The Sea Around Us in 1950. She published chapters in Science Digest, and The Yale Review, where "The Birth of an Island" won the American Association for the Advancement of Science's George Westinghouse Science Writing Prize. In 1951 she serialized 9 chapters in The New Yorker and published the full book with OUP. It remained on the New York Times Bestseller List for 86 weeks, 39 of those weeks in first place, was abridged in Reader's Digest, won the 1952 National Book Award for Nonfiction, the Gold Medal for the New York Zoological Society and the John Burrows Medal for natural history writing. She was awarded two honorary doctorates, and a Guggenheim science writing grant and was finally able to leave her government job to write full time. She indulged herself by purchasing a very fine binocular microscope, like she had always wanted and moved to Southport Island, Maine.

Irvin Allen wrote a script for a documentary called The Sea based on and licensed from The Sea Around Us. Carson's right to review the script did not actually allow her to request revisions and she found it inconsistent, scientifically embarrassing, untrue to the tone of her book and "a cross between a believe-it-or-not and a breezy travelogue." Allen did not take her advice and nonetheless produced a very successful film which won the 1953 Academy Award for Best Documentary. Carson was so frustrated by errors in the film she never again sold the film rights to her writing.  Nonetheless, the film's success resulted in the reissue of Under the Sea Wind, and it too became a bestseller. 

That summer she began the defining relationship of her life when she met a soul mate, in kindred spirit and nature lover Dorothy M. Freeman, a summer resident of Maine. They spent their summers together when in Maine and exchanged about 900 letters when apart. The surviving letters were published posthumously in Always, Rachel: The Letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, 1952-1964: An Intimate Portrait of a Remarkable Friendship (1995) by Freeman's granddaughter Martha Freeman. Dorothy shared parts of their letters with her husband to explain their relationship, but carefully guarded others. It seems likely this was a chaste but romantic relationship. Carson wrote Freeman, "But, oh darling, I want to be with you so terribly that it hurts!" and Freeman wrote to Carson, "I love you beyond expression... My love is as boundless as the Sea." Freeman was devoted, accepted Carson wholly and was a much needed listener. They destroyed hundreds of their letters shortly before Carson's death. 

She completed her third book in the sea trilogy, The Edge of the Sea, about coastal ecosystems, especially those she studied on the Eastern seaboard, in 1955. She documented the well recognized fact of climate change and its impact on the ocean but mainly she celebrated ocean life. She published it in two instalments in The New Yorker and as a book with Houghton Mifflin, to good reviews. She wrote an episode of an educational variety television show called Omnibus called "Something About the Sky" and several magazine articles. She planned a book on evolution but opted to veer instead towards writing about conservation. She became involved with The Nature Conservancy, and bought property in Maine to save it from development. She and Dorothy called it the "Lost Woods." Then, in 1957 tragically, one of the nieces she had cared for since the 40s died at age 31, leaving her 5 year old son Roger Christie an orphan. Rachel adopted Roger, and moved to Silver Spring Maryland to care for her grandnephew along with her aging mother. 

Her research for writing became focused on environmental issues and she closely followed federal plans for widespread pesticide spraying by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to eradicate fire ants and spongy moths (also known as gypsy moths).  DDT mixed with fuel oils was sprayed to kill the spongy moths, including on private land. Landowners on Long Island sued, unsuccessfully, to have the spraying stopped, but the Supreme Court did grant petitioners the right to gain injections against potential environmental damage in the future, a right which has since been used successfully.  The Audubon Naturalist Society also objected and commissioned Carson to help them publicize the government's actions and the related research on the effects of DDT. This became a four year project. First she tried to enlist other writers or co-write with Newsweek science journalist Edwin Diamond, planning only to write the introduction and conclusion. But when The New Yorker commissioned a long, well-paid article she decided to adapt this to a solo writing project. The resulting book, warning of the dangers of indiscriminate pesticide use, Silent Spring, published in hardcover in 1962 and softcover in 1964, was her most influential book. Her scientific expertise, ability to synthesize and articulately explain disparate existing studies along with her clear, griping yet poetic writing allowed her to draw the attention of a much wider audience to the dangers of DDT use. In 2012, the American Chemical Society made Silent Spring a National Historic Chemical Landmark for its role in spurring the modern environmental movement.

She found many scientists were documenting both health and environmental impacts of DDT use and tapped her network of government scientists to get access to confidential data. She found scientists were divided into those who dismissed the cause for concern about pesticides without conclusive data and those who did not and advocated investigating tools other than pesticides like biological pest control. A group of biodynamic agriculture organic market gardeners, advised by soil scientist Dr. Ehrenfried Pfeiffer had had a suite of legal actions against the government over pesticide use, and shared their compiled evidence and trial transcripts with Carson. In 1959, the USDA's Agricultural Research Service made a public service film called "Fire Ants on Trial" which Carson called "flagrant propaganda." She wrote a letter to the Washington Post about the decline in and "silencing of the birds" due to pesticide use. Meanwhile, the 1957, 1958, and 1959 US cranberry crops were found to be high in the herbicide aminotriazole (a known carcinogen in rats) and the sale of crops were halted in what was known as the "Great Cranberry Scandal." Carson attended the resulting FDA hearing on revising pesticide regulations and was upset to hear aggressive testimony by chemical industry representatives which she knew did not represent the consensus in the scientific literature and worried about financial inducements behind pesticide plans. On the health front, she found that many pesticides had been shown to be carcinogens by the National Cancer Institute and researcher and environmental cancer section founding director Wilhelm Hueper. Carson found the evidence clear and convincing though still controversial outside the community studying pesticide carcinogenesis. She also documented hundreds of individual pesticide exposures and resulting illnesses and ecological damage. 

In 1960 a duodenal ulcer kept her bedridden for weeks, and then she discovered a cyst in her left breast and had to have a mastectomy, described as merely precautionary. By December, she had found her tumour was malignant and had metastasized. Her health slowed her revisions, but she chose to hide her condition, fearing chemical companies would use her cancer to argue she was biased. She knew that her book would face push-back. It called into question the post-WWII paradigm of American scientific progress. It made the case that pesticides are in fact more broadly biocides whose effects negatively impact health and environment, often through bioaccumulation, beyond their effect on target insects. Further, she was accusing the chemical industry of spreading disinformation and the government of accepting their claims unquestioningly. She warned that target pests would develop resistance and weakened ecosystems would be at risk to invasive species. She made the case for biotic controls and alternatives to chemical pesticides, but did not call for an outright DDT ban, acknowledging the risks of insect-borne diseases. She quoted Holland's Plant Protection Services which advocated spraying as little as possible rather than to the limit of capacity. She and her agent tried to gather as much advanced support for the book as possible, knowing she would be undergoing radiation therapy and not have the energy to defend her work. They provided copies to attendees of the 1962 White House Conference on Conservation and Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas who had argued against the court's rejection of the Long Island pesticide case. Interest spiked when she serialized the work in The New Yorker and when it was selected as the Book for the Month for October (complete with endorsement from William O. Douglas). Positive editorials started to come out. 

She had caught the chemical industry and their lobbyists' attention. Attacks were swift, personal and gendered. She was called a "spinster," a "bird and bunny lover" and a "woman out of control." Dupont collected a report on press for the book. Monsanto published an apocalyptic parody of her warning, The Desolate Year, in which farmers are unable to feed the populace without pesticides and herbicides, and people would die of preventable diseases, mocking her poetic style. Velsicol Chemical Corporation threatened legal action against her publisher Houghton Mifflin, The New Yorker and Audubon unless they cancelled the book and features. They put out their own brochures arguing for pesticides, which only succeeded in raising public awareness of the controversy and eventually to accidentally leading to increased book sales. Luckily, Carson and colleagues were confident in how carefully the book had been vetted and they proceeded as planned with publication. American Cyanamid biochemist Robert White-Stevens claimed, "If man were to follow the teachings of Miss Carson, we would return to the Dark Ages, and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the earth" and called her the "fanatic defender of the cult of the balance of nature." Former US Secretary of Agriculture Benson told Eisenhower that, as an unmarried woman despite being attractive, she was "probably a Communist." Critiques wrongly insisted she was calling for an absolute pesticide ban, rather than responsible and limited use, but academic researchers defended her work and the public was swayed in her favour. CBS Reports hosted a TV special called The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson, where she read calmly from her book and it was her loud insistent critics who were perceived to be the alarmists, not her. She faced this expected backlash with courage, feeling it was her duty and knowing she "could never again listen happily to a thrush song if I had not done all I could." This resulted in a congressional review of pesticide use and dangers and a report from President Kennedy's Science Advisory Committee. 

Testifying for the Committee was one of her last public appearances; their May 15, 1963 report largely backed Carson's claims. She was able to testify to a US Senate subcommittee on policy recommendations, despite debilitating pain, and to appear on The Today Show, but had to decline most invitations to speak due to deteriorating health. She received several awards including the Audubon Medal, the American Geographic Society Cullum Geographical Medal and an induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Breast cancer and its treatment had weakened her. She became ill with a respiratory virus in January, 1964. By February she was diagnosed with anemia from the radiation. By March her cancer had reached her liver. In April, she died of a heart attack at home.  

After Carson's death her brother Robert insisted her ashes be buried next to their mother in Maryland, but Carson had wanted to be buried in Maine. As a compromise, he split her ashes, and sent half to Dorothy Freeman, her agent Marie Rodell and editor Paul Brooks to follow Carson's final wishes. Dorothy was able to spread her ashes in Sheepscot Bay, Maine, by her beloved sea, as Rachel had wished. Rodell was able to usher her essay The Sense of Wonder, into publication as a posthumous book illustrated with photographs, which encourages parents to introduce their children to the "...lasting pleasures of contact with the natural world... available to anyone who will place himself under the influence of earth, sea, and sky and their amazing life." Biographer Linda Lear also edited the posthumous book of her unpublished writings as Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson. 

Silent Spring electrified the fledgeling environmental movement and influenced the rise of ecofeminism. She brought the public's attention to the fragility and interconnectedness of nature, which includes us. The Environmental Defense Fund was formed in 1967 to argue a "citizen's right to a clean environment" and with others, secured a phase-out of DDT except in emergency situations within the US, by 1972. Carson had highlighted the conflict of interest between the USDA representing the agricultural industry and regulating pesticide use without being responsible for environmental impacts. This changed in 1970 when the Environmental Protection Agency was formed and its early work, enforcing the 1972 Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, could be traced to Carson's influence. Government regulations had previously only extolled the effectiveness of pesticides without also considering environmental impact and this change can be tied to the effectiveness of Carson's message. Her impact was seen in popular culture; in 1970's Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell was inspired by Silent Spring when she wrote the lyrics "Hey farmer - put away the DDT. Give me spots on my apples, but leave me the birds and bees. Please!" She had become the most celebrated science writer of her generation. She was inducted in to the Women's Hall of Fame in 1973. She posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980. Many schools, buildings, awards, colleges, societies, research vessels and conservation areas have been named in her honour. May we remember her and heed her advice that, "Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction." Science must be moored to morality, ethics and attention to its impacts, both planned and unforeseen. 

References

Carty, Ryan. Loud and Clear. Chemical Heritage, Summer 2012.

Conis, Elena. Beyond Silent Spring: An Alternate History of DDT, Distillations Magazine, Science History Institute Museum & Library. February 14, 2017.

DDT, Wikipedia, accessed January, 2026.

Leonard, Jonathan Norton. Rachel Carson Dies of Cancer; 'Silent Spring' Author Was 56, Obituary, New York Times, April 15, 1964.

Michals, Debra. Rachel Carson. National Women's History Museum. 2015.

Popova, Maria. The Story Behind "Silent Spring": How Rachel Carson's Countercultural Courage Catalyzed the Environmental Movement, The Marginalia, January 27, 2017.

Popova, Maria. Undersea: Rachel Carson's Lyrical and Revolutionary 1937 Masterpiece Inviting Humans to Explore the Earth from the Perspective of Other Creatures, The Marginalia, January 27, 2017.

Rachel Carson, Wikipedia, accessed January, 2026.

Silent Spring, Wikipedia, accessed January, 2026.