Rachel Carson

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Rachel Carson in the 1940s

Rachel Louise Carson (born May 27, 1907 in Springdale , Pennsylvania , † April 14, 1964 in Silver Spring , Maryland ) was an American zoologist , biologist , science journalist and non-fiction author whose main work Silent Spring (Silent Spring) from the year 1962 is often referred to as the starting point of the US environmental movement . She is considered one of the most important people of the 20th century.

She began her professional career as a biologist for the US Bureau of Fisheries . The first major literary success Rachel Carson was the 1951 published book The Sea Around Us (wonders of the sea) . The following year it was awarded the US National Book Award and the John Burroughs Medal . Her next book , The Edge of the Sea (At the edge of the tide) as well as their re-Lay-debut Under the Sea-Wind (Under the Sea Wind) were also bestsellers. After this trilogy, which thematized the life in the sea, she dealt increasingly with problems of environmental protection. 1962 appeared to her to today's best-known book Silent Spring (Silent Spring) , in which it the impact of a rigorous pesticide themed -Einsatzes on ecosystems. The book sparked a heated political debate in the United States and ultimately led to the subsequent ban on DDT .

Rachel Carson was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom , the highest civilian honor in the United States, in 1980.

Life

School and study

Rachel Carson was born in the village of Springdale near the industrial city of Pittsburgh, the youngest of three children to Maria McClean Carson and Robert Warden. Her sister Marian was ten, her brother Robert eight years older. The Washington-based parents owned some land in Springdale, but were not farmers, although they did keep a few chickens , sheep, and pigs . Father Robert Warden Carson, who also tried his hand at real estate brokerage, had acquired the land in 1900 with the expectation that the city of Pittsburgh would expand in that direction and the land would increase in value as a result. This should prove to be bad speculation. Robert Carson had a wide variety of professions throughout his life. Among other things, he worked as an office worker, insurance agent, electrician and supervisor in an electricity company, but was not successful in any activity in the long term. The family went through times when their financial situation was very tight.

Rachel Carson's birthplace

The mother, Maria McLean Carson, came from a Presbyterian pastor's family and was well educated for a woman of her time. Among other things, she had attended a private Presbyterian high school and took courses at a college . She had to give up her job as a teacher after her marriage, but shared the interest of her youngest daughter Rachel in nature observation.

Rachel Carson read a lot and began writing at a very young age. She published her first stories from the age of eleven in the children's magazine St. Nicholas for Boys and Girls , for which not only wrote children's stories such as Mark Twain , Louisa May Alcott , Rudyard Kipling and Joseph Conrad , but also wrote stories every month , Published poems, drawings or photographs by his young readers. While her older siblings left school without a high school diploma, Rachel Carson attended Springdale's small school through tenth grade and then high school in nearby Parnassus. There she finished her school education in 1925 as the best in class.

At the Pennsylvania College for Women (German: Pennsylvania High School for Women; today Chatham College ) in Pittsburgh, she first studied English literature. Paying tuition fees was a significant financial burden on the family: part of the fee was covered by a scholarship and to pay the remainder the family sold part of their property in Springdale. Rachel Carson switched to biology in January 1928. The college management had advised against this change: There were hardly any career opportunities for female scientists, and even outstanding female scientists like Lise Meitner , Rosalind Franklin or Barbara McClintock had to overcome considerable resistance because of their gender. The college management, however, trusted Rachel Carson, who had attracted attention several times in her previous major due to her short stories and narratives, a career as an author.

Johns Hopkins University - Rachel Carson studied here from 1929

Her college studies ended with Rachel Carson in 1929 magna cum laude . After a summer course at the Marine Laboratory Woods Hole , a research facility specializing in marine biology , she began studying zoology and genetics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland , in 1929 . She was only able to raise the fees due for the academic year with a scholarship. In her second year of study, she had to refuse the scholarship offered to her because it was tied to full-time study, but only covered a third of the tuition fees, which had meanwhile increased. In addition to her studies, she began to work as an assistant in the laboratory of Raymond Pearl for a year , where she carried out studies on rats and fruit flies . She then taught at times at Johns Hopkins University, and from September 1931 at the University of Maryland . She completed her studies in 1932 with a master's degree in zoology. She had to break off her doctoral project in 1934 in order to support her family financially with the salary from her teaching activity. After her father died suddenly in 1935, the family's financial situation worsened again significantly, and Rachel Carson now looked after her mother, her sick sister and their two daughters.

Worked for the US Bureau of Fisheries

At the urging of her former college professor Mary Scott Skinker, Rachel Carson took the American civil service exam in order to one day get a full-time position as a biologist with a state agency. At the same time, Rachel Carson took a temporary part-time position at the then US Fisheries Agency as a scientific writer. Your task was mainly to write reports for a radio series called Romance Under the Waters (German about: Adventure under water). The radio series, which consisted of 52 reports, each seven minutes long, focused on aquatic life and aimed to draw the public's attention to fish biology and the work of the fisheries authority. Based on her research for this series, Rachel Carson also began writing articles on marine life in Chesapeake Bay for several local newspapers and magazines . Her first report appeared on March 1, 1936 under the title It'll be Shad Time Soon and dealt with the fish genus Alosa , whose species return to spawn from the sea in freshwater rivers. This article already addressed the problems caused by pollution in the Chesapeake Bay.

Rachel Carson's manager, Elmer Higgins, who was extremely pleased with the success of the broadcast series, worked to ensure that she received a permanent, full-time job appropriate to her education. From 1936 she was employed as a biologist for the US Fisheries Authority. Rachel Carson was the second woman to hold a similar position within the agency. Her main task was to analyze fish stocks and to write brochures and documents for the public relations work of the authority. She continued to write articles for various newspapers on her evenings and weekends. When Rachel Carson's older sister Marian died in 1937, she used the income from these activities to support her mother and two nieces.

The first literary successes

In July 1937, the magazine Atlantic Monthly published Rachel Carson's article Undersea (German underwater world ), which vividly describes a journey along the seabed and which turned out to be a decisive turning point in Rachel Carson's literary activity. Quincey Howe, one of the editors-in-chief of the publishing house Simon & Schuster , liked the article, contacted Rachel Carson and suggested that she expand it into a book. It was published in 1941 under the title Under the Sea-Wind - A Naturalist's Picture of Ocean Life (German Unter dem Meerwind , Zurich 1947) and received good reviews: Critics praised Rachel Carson for unsentimental but never boring prose and her scientific accuracy. The book wasn't a huge hit, however, and Rachel Carson returned to focus on freelance writing for newspapers and magazines. As the author of a well-reviewed book, she found it easier to sell articles to larger and more prestigious magazines and journals. Among other things, she wrote for the journal Nature , and in 1944 she published an article in Collier’s , in which she compared echo sounding in animals with the new, war- essential radar technology . In August 1945 the article was also published in Reader's Digest , and the US Navy decided to make the article a brochure for those recruits who wanted to learn more about radar.

The second book project

Rachel Carson was now a member of the US Fisheries Department's hierarchy, leading a small group of scientific writers. Rachel Carson would have voluntarily given up her work for the agency, now trading as the Fish and Wildlife Service , in 1945. Her work, which still consisted mainly of revising and editing research reports and publications for the agency, increasingly bored her. At that time there were hardly any vacancies for natural scientists, as most research funds were spent on projects in the field of technology. For the few vacancies for biologists and science journalists, she competed with a large number of male colleagues who had ended their military service at the end of the Second World War . In a letter to a friend she wrote:

“I know that if I just wanted to make a living from writing, I could choose an ideal way of life. But I've done far too little to risk it. And at the same time, my job at the [Fish and Wildlife Service] is becoming more and more demanding and leaves me less and less time to write. And since my salary is growing slowly but steadily, it is also becoming increasingly difficult to do without it. "

More satisfying than her work on brochures designed to convince the US population to eat more fish, she found working on a series of brochures called Conservation in Action . The brochures published between 1946 and 1948 were intended to explain the function and importance of nature reserves to the population. In the preface to a brochure in this series, Rachel Carson wrote:

“... the preservation of wild creatures and their habitats also means the preservation of natural resources, on which humans are no less dependent than animals in order to be able to survive. Flora and fauna, water, forest and prairie are all components of an environment that is essential for humans ... "

From 1949 she became the editor-in-chief of the publications of the "Fish and Wildlife Service", which basically gave her greater leeway to determine the subjects of her studies and publications herself. The increase in responsibility, however, went hand in hand with increasing administrative work. Rachel Carson had already been collecting material for a second book since 1948 and had decided to give up her official work in the medium term and work as a freelance writer. For this reason, she worked with the literary agent Marie Rodell from that point on .

Oxford University Press showed interest in Rachel Carson's second book project, which prompted Rachel Carson to finish her manuscript in mid-1950. Individual chapters and excerpts were published in advance in Science Digest and Yale Review . The chapter The Birth of an Island won the George Westinghouse Science Writing Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science for the best scientific article of 1950. Nine chapters of the planned book were preprinted in the weekly magazine The New Yorker . When The Sea Around Us was first released as a book, it was on the New York Times bestseller list for 86 weeks ; it was later published in an abridged version on Reader's Digest . Rachel Carson received the National Book Award and the John Burroughs Medal and two honorary doctorates for her book in 1952 . The success of the book also led to a reprint of Under the Sea-Wind , which has now also become a bestseller. This gave her sufficient financial security to quit her job and concentrate fully on writing as a freelance writer. Among other things, she had sold the film rights to The Sea Around Us and reserved the right to review the script. However , she was very dissatisfied with the script by Irwin Allen , who was both producer and director of the film of the same name . She found that the film was too melodramatic, sensational and scientifically imprecise. However, she discovered that her contractual right to review the script did not give her the ability to directly influence the content of the film. Irwin Allen produced a very successful documentary despite Rachel Carson's objections, which won an Oscar in 1953 . Rachel Carson was so upset, however, that she decided not to sell any further film rights. In 1953 she was accepted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

The relationship with Dorothy Freeman

Rachel Carson moved to Southport Island, Maine with her mother in 1953, where she met Dorothy Freeman in July of that year, with whom she remained very close to the end of her life. Dorothy Freeman, married, lived on the island with her husband during the summer months and had written a welcome letter to Rachel Carson, whose books she knew, after they had moved into the neighborhood. They spent the summers together until Rachel Carson's death, but saw each other regularly and kept in close correspondence with one another. The nature of the relationship between Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman has repeatedly been speculated. Rachel Carson's biographer, Linda Lear, doesn't explicitly call the relationship a lesbian, but believes that Rachel Carson found in Dorothy Freeman just someone who supported her and with whom she shared the same interests. Others, such as the GLBTQ encyclopedia, classify the relationship as lesbian.

Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman may have been aware that their relationship could be classified as lesbian, although "their affection was largely expressed through letters, an occasional kiss goodbye, or holding hands." Dorothy Freeman showed, among other things, parts of the correspondence with Rachel Carson to her husband so that he could understand their relationship. Shortly before Rachel Carson's death, however, the two destroyed hundreds of her letters. The portion of the correspondence that did not fall victim to this extermination was published by Dorothy Freeman's granddaughter in 1995 entitled Always, Rachel: The Letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, 1952–1964: An Intimate Portrait of a Remarkable Friendship . According to one critic, the letters show that the focus here was not so much on a sexual relationship, but rather that the two women were connected primarily through their common interests.

Turning to topics of environmental protection

During 1952, Rachel Carson began literary studies and field research for her third book, the subject of the ecosystem and creatures of the Atlantic coast , which she completed in 1955. Parts of The Edge of the Sea ( At the edge of the tide ) published again in the weekly magazine The New Yorker , before the book was commercially available. Rachel Carson had now earned a reputation for writing in a language that was as clear as it was poetic. Similar to her second book, The Edge of the Sea also received positive reviews.

After completing her trilogy on marine ecosystems and creatures, she worked on a number of different projects. She wrote the screenplay Something About the Sky for a documentary series for US television and published several articles in well-known magazines. She had originally planned to write a book about evolution next . But after Julian Huxley had published Evolution in Action and she herself found it difficult to find a clear and interesting approach to this topic for the reader, she gave up her project again. Instead, she became increasingly concerned with the preservation of ecosystems and considered making environmental protection the subject of her book. She herself planned to purchase a small area of ​​land in Maine to save it from development . In early 1957, one of the two nieces she cared for in the 1940s died, leaving behind a five-year-old son whom Rachel Carson adopted and raised from that point on.

Increasing criticism of DDT and other synthetic pesticides

As part of her work for the US Fisheries Agency, Rachel Carson had occasionally studied the effects of pesticides, such as the harm to fish caused by chlorinated hydrocarbons . On Dichlordiphenyltrichlorethan (DDT) Rachel Carson was first called attention in the 1945th

As early as 1944, DDT was the standard insecticide for military uses
Large areas in the USA were treated with DDT on behalf of authorities, photo from 1958

The biological effectiveness of DDT was discovered in 1939 by the chemist Paul Müller . Just five years later, it was the standard insecticide for military uses: In the South Pacific, for example, DDT was used extensively to prevent soldiers from contracting malaria . At the same time, the chemical industry developed other and in some cases more effective pesticides such as dieldrin , aldrin and heptachlor . In August 1945, DDT was also released for civil use in the USA, although the US Food and Drug Administration expressed concerns as early as 1944 that DDT could accumulate in cow's milk and therefore warned against its use in animal feed. However, pesticides such as DDT were easy to use, inexpensive, and effective on a wide variety of insects, while it appeared to be ineffective on mammals.

Large areas have been treated with DDT on behalf of federal and state authorities to control introduced insects such as fire ants and gypsy moths and mosquitoes. DDT was often applied by airplanes. In early 1958, these spray flights caused the first pesticide trial in United States history. Long Island plaintiffs tried to prevent their gypsy moth control properties from being sprayed with DDT but lost the lawsuit. One of the plaintiffs was in correspondence with Rachel Carson. At the beginning of 1958, the journalist Olga Owens Huckins turned to Rachel Carson because numerous songbirds died after spray flights and insects such as bees and grasshoppers were absent in the bird sanctuary she oversees. Rachel Carson's literary agent Marie Rodell was trying to find people interested in a DDT-critical article and found it in The New Yorker magazine .

Rachel Carson's early research into the effects of synthetic pesticides on organisms and ecological systems made her think about a book on the same subject. However, she felt that her family responsibilities as an adoptive mother did not allow her to write an entire book on her own in a reasonable amount of time. The contract concluded with a publishing house in May 1958 therefore stipulated that Rachel Carson should only write the introductory and final chapters for a book with the working title Control of Nature (about "The Control of Nature"). Edwin Diamond, a science writer with Newsweek magazine , was to write the remaining chapters. Rachel Carson and Edwin Diamond, however, turned out to be too different to work together successfully. Rachel Carson therefore decided to write the book alone. In a letter to her former supervisor at the Fish and Wildlife Service, she explained her decision:

“… I did not expect that I would, but during the last winter I became aware of connections that disturbed me so much that I decided to postpone all other obligations and concentrate on [one topic] , which I see as a very urgent problem. "

The decision coincided with tragedies in the personal environment. Her mother was seriously ill and died in December 1958. Rachel Carson herself was suspected of cancer and suffered from arthritis and infectious diseases - so she was temporarily unable to continue working on the manuscript in the summer of 1959 and in the winter of the following year. In 1960, a tumor that turned out to be malignant was finally removed from her breast.

Work on Silent Spring

Until the publication of Silent Spring took four years. The extensive research work in advance took up most of the time. Due to her previous work at the “Fish and Wildlife Service” and her journalistic activities, she had an extensive network of experts who provided her with information. Dorothy Algire, one of her friends, was now a librarian at the National Institutes of Health and was able to do numerous studies for Rachel Carson. The work of Wilhelm Hueper , who was employed as a scientist at the National Cancer Institute and classified many pesticides as carcinogenic, was of particular importance . With the help of Dorothy Algire, Rachel Carson found a number of other studies to support this. Harold Peters, a biologist with the National Audubon Society , provided her with statistics on the effects of pesticides. William O. Douglas , a US Supreme Court Justice and longstanding environmental advocate, passed on material used in her chapter on herbicides. Reece Sailer, an entomologist at the USDA , also provided them with information, but asked them to keep their source confidential: In 1959, Rachel Carson criticized a film that the USDA used to advertise its use of pesticides against fire ants as irresponsible propaganda. The Department of the Interior had also classified Rachel Carson as a subversive, and the Department of Agriculture restricted her access to the Agricultural Research Service .

Cranberry Harvest - During the high cranberry season in 1959, the FDA banned the sale of the berries because there was suspicion that they were contaminated with a herbicide

As part of her research, Rachel Carson also attended the hearings of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as part of the “ Great Cranberry Scandal ”, in which it was about a change in the regulations on pesticide residues: In 1957, residues of the herbicide Amitrol were found in cranberries which was found to be a carcinogen in laboratory tests. The FDA then stopped sales just before Thanksgiving , the high season for cranberries. At the hearings, Rachel Carson noticed the aggressive behavior of representatives of the pesticide manufacturers. Her statements often contradicted most of the scientific papers she had read in connection with her book research. It also made clear to her the not inconsiderable financial interest of the chemical industry in continuing the use of DDT. In 1960 Rachel Carson had amassed sufficient research material. In addition to her literature research, she had investigated hundreds of individual incidents in which human disease and massive ecological damage had occurred after the use of pesticides. Each chapter that Rachel Carson considered finished was reviewed by experts she had learned from previous work. She did, however, be difficult to find an appropriate title for the book Silent Spring  - Silent Spring was originally intended only as a title for a chapter that should show the impact of pesticides on birds. In August 1961 Rachel Carson decided to follow the suggestion of her literary agent Marie Rodell and to give the book the title Silent Spring . In the summer of 1962, work on the book was largely complete.

The release of Silent Spring in 1962

The content and structure of the book is in the main article Silent Spring described

Rachel Carson and everyone else at the Houghton Mifflin publishing house involved in the publication of The Silent Spring expected the book to be heavily criticized from various quarters. They were particularly concerned about being sued for defamation or business harm. Rachel Carson also believed she would have limited time and energy to defend her book as she was about to be undergoing radiation therapy for cancer at the time of publication. In order to find potential supporters, the publishing house Houghton Mifflin sent a preprint of the book to a large number of influential people before it was published.

As with her previous books, a summary of the book first appeared as a three-part series of articles in The New Yorker magazine from June 16, 1962 . The series of articles attracted a lot of attention and The New Yorker received a large number of letters to the editor. Most were positive, but some suspected Rachel Carson of Communist sympathies. The reactions were so vivid that on July 22 in the New York Times about an article entitled The Silent Spring is now Noisy Summer  - Silent Spring is now a loud summer appeared. The series of articles also met with a political response. At a hearing on pesticide use, Congressman John V. Lindsay read parts of it in the House of Representatives. Even before sales began, John F. Kennedy referred to Rachel Carson's book, which was only available in bookstores from September 27, 1962. During a press conference at the White House, a reporter asked him whether the Department of Agriculture or the Public Health Service was looking into the long-term effects of pesticide use. John F. Kennedy confirmed this and cited Rachel Carson's book as an occasion for it. One of the major US book clubs already decided during this summer months to choose The Silent Spring as Book of the Month for October, which meant an additional circulation of 150,000 copies. In a letter to her friend Dorothy Freeman, Rachel Carson said she was particularly pleased because it would reach a readership in rural America who rarely went to bookstores or read magazines like The New Yorker .

The series of articles and the book appeared at a time when the American population was becoming increasingly receptive to issues critical to progress. US President John F. Kennedy called for in the already on February 23, 1961 Special Message on Natural Resources ( Score out of natural resources ) to the Congress a better coordination and harmonization of senior authorities. He noted that "one agency encourages the use of chemical pesticides even though they endanger songbirds and game birds, the conservation of which is advocated by another agency". After the cranberry scandal of 1959 and the lawsuits surrounding the large-scale spray flights, the thalidomide discussion was preoccupying the US population at the time of the Silent Spring publication . The substance, which severely damages embryos and which became known in German-speaking countries through the thalidomide scandal , was not brought onto the market thanks to the committed action of Frances Oldham Kelsey , an employee of the Food and Drug Administration. This too contributed significantly to the willingness of the public to question the belief in progress that was characteristic of the 1950s and early 1960s. A year later - in 1963 - the German translation appeared. Although excerpts from the book were printed in advance in time , Der stumme Frühling did not spark any discussion in Germany. From 1968 an inexpensive paperback edition ensured further distribution in Germany.

In his cultural history of the DDT Silent Spring, Christian Simon calls the “prototypical non-fiction book for environmental topics that aims to encourage action by showing the consequences of what is currently known”. The alternation of the presentation of dry facts with passages that reflect the experiences and experiences of individual people makes the book understandable and readable for the layman. Where conclusions are drawn, they are usually associated with the names of leading experts - a rhetorical known as securing authority. At the same time the book refrains from falling into an end times mood; this makes it easier for readers with reservations about Rachel Carson's views to study the contents of the book. Christian Simon also states that almost all of the arguments put forward by Rachel Carson in 1962 (at that time still speculative) have now established themselves as critical knowledge of pesticides.

The immediate criticism of Silent Spring

Even before the publication of the series of articles and the start of sales of the book, The Silent Spring caused fierce resistance from the chemical industry. The Chicago-based Velsicol Chemical Corporation, the only manufacturer of chlordane and heptachlor , put in a five-page letter to the publisher Houghton Mifflin close, the publication of Silent Spring to think again, and threatened with legal action, the series of articles in should New Yorkers appear . Velsicol also hinted in the letter that Rachel Carson might be part of a foreign conspiracy designed to harm US food production - a form of suspicion not uncommon during the Cold War . DuPont , one of the most important manufacturers of DDT, had the media reports published before the book went on sale and tried to assess their likely impact on public opinion. As a countermeasure, a number of brochures and articles were published advocating the use of pesticides. The "National Agricultural Chemicals Association" were no less than 250,000 USD in order to take action against Rachel Carson and her book, and the chemical company Monsanto publications include the satire The desolate year (The bleak year) , which in dark colors a life without pesticides painted. The information package the National Pest Control Association issued in response to Rachel Carson's book also contained a poem suggesting Rachel Carson attached greater importance to the lives of birds than to humans.

Among the harshest critics of Rachel Carson's book were the biochemist Robert White-Stevens and the chemist Thomas Jukes . If one followed the views and recommendations of Rachel Carson, man would live like in the Middle Ages in a world dominated by diseases and vermin, argued Robert White-Stevens, calling the author a fanatical believer in the cult of the balance of nature. Like Robert White-Stevens, many critics accused her of having spoken out against any use of pesticides. In fact, Rachel Carson was by no means advocating a complete ban on DDT, only the targeted use of DDT and similar pesticides in low doses. Other critics pointed to Rachel Carson's training as a marine biologist and concluded that she could not have written a scientifically sound book on biochemical topics. Some attacks were aimed directly at Rachel Carson's person. According to a rumor often repeated at the time, but never directly confirmed, former Agriculture Minister Ezra Taft Benson wrote in a letter to Dwight D. Eisenhower that Rachel Carson was a communist because she was unmarried as an attractive woman. A member of the Federal Pest Control Board derided that he did not understand that as an old maid she was concerned about heredity. Other critics described her as hysterical.

The positive reactions to Silent Spring

Harriet Beecher Stowe  - She influenced American politics with her book Onkel Toms Hütte . Rachel Carson is often compared to her.

Many scientists agreed with The Silent Spring's statements . Prominent advocates who advocated the book's statements included HJ Muller , Loren Eisley , Clarence Cottam, and Frank Egler . The Silent Spring received numerous reviews, which were often cautious or described the book as one-sided. The controversy surrounding the book, initiated by the chemical industry and similar stakeholders, turned out to be counterproductive as it boosted sales of the book and increased media interest in the pesticide issue. The broadcaster CBS aired on April 3, 1963 an hour-long program called The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson , which reached more than ten million viewers. In the show, which was to prove to be a huge success for Rachel Carson, several of her critics were interviewed alongside her. Agriculture Minister Orville Freeman initially defended the use of pesticides, but had to admit towards the end of the program that the population had not been sufficiently informed about the negative effects of pesticides. Rachel Carson, who is now seriously ill, also managed to free herself from the image of a hysterical exaggerator that critics had tried to attach to her. While she gave the impression of a serious, polite and calm scientist, her strongest critic Robert White-Stevens in particular, with his loud voice and wide eyes, appeared unobjective and frenetic . In the weeks after the show, new reviews of her book appeared in a number of magazines, which this time were more positive. The broadcast was also the impetus for Congress to revisit the dangers of pesticides. On May 15, 1963, the US President's Scientific Advisory Board published its report on pesticides, which it had been working on since 1962 and which confirmed Rachel Carson's warnings. The report known today as the Wiesner Report was a milestone in the search for a policy of more environmentally friendly pest control. Shortly after this report was published, hearings began in the US Senate on reforming pesticide use legislation, including a hearing from Rachel Carson.

Shortly after its appearance, the effect of Silent Spring was compared with Harriet Beecher Stowe's book Onkel Toms Hütte , which was published in 1852 and which had made a significant contribution to the end of slavery in the USA. Even Silent Spring was classified as a book that will influence policy in a similar manner. The former Vice President of the USA and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore also took up this comparison in a foreword to Silent Spring in 1994 , but pointed out one essential difference: when Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote her influential book, the debate on the abolition of slavery was already underway . Rachel Carson, on the other hand, first made the pesticide problem a topic of general interest.

death

Although Rachel Carson received hundreds of invitations to speak in 1963, she was only able to accept a few as her health deteriorated from breast cancer. One of the few exceptions was participation on the Today Show , a US-wide talk show with a large audience. In late 1963 she received a variety of awards including the Paul Bartsch Award from the Audubon Naturalist Society and the Audubon Medal from the American Geographical Society .

Weakened by cancer and therapy, Rachel Carson contracted a respiratory virus in January 1964. In February, doctors found severe anemia as a result of radiation treatment, and metastases in the liver in March . Rachel Carson died on April 14, 1964 at the age of 56 from complications from a heart attack.

legacy

Rachel Carson's manuscripts and records

Rachel Carson left her manuscripts and papers at Yale University . Her longtime literary agent Marie Rodell spent nearly two years cataloging and organizing them. Marie Rodell also asked that Rachel Carson's essay took care of A Sense of Wonder ( A sense of wonder ), which in 1956 Woman's Home Companion was released and wanted to expand the Rachel Carson to a book was reissued with photographs by Charles Pratt. In this essay, Rachel Carson examined how parents could teach their children a love of nature. In addition to the correspondence between Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, which appeared in 1995 under the title Always, Rachel: The Letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, 1952–1964: An Intimate Portrait of a Remarkable Friendship , in 1998 came a volume with previously unpublished information Works out by Rachel Carson. Editor of Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson was Rachel Carson biographer Linda Lear. All Rachel Carson books are still in press in the US.

Celebrating the 100th birthday of Rachel Carson in Springdale, Pennsylvania

The impact on the environmental movement

Rachel Carson's work had a significant influence on the US environmental movement: By the end of the 1950s, the major nature conservation organizations were still largely apolitical associations. The Audubon Society was active in bird protection, but fought primarily against the use of bird feathers for decorative purposes. The Sierra Club , which was committed to protecting the landscape, was mostly limited to California, and the National Wildlife Federation was mainly concerned with creating and maintaining nature reserves. The extensive debate initiated by Rachel Carson led to the politicization of these existing nature conservation associations and gave rise to numerous environmental protection groups at the local level.

Their essential contribution is to have drawn public attention to environmental protection. All the topics and contexts that she addressed in The Silent Spring are now part of the general knowledge in the western countries of the world. Rachel Carson's direct legacy was the campaign against the use of DDT. In 1972 the use of DDT was largely banned in the USA; numerous other countries followed. Rachel Carson had also repeatedly pointed out the inevitable conflicts of interest because the US Department of Agriculture, which is primarily committed to the interests of farmers, is responsible for regulating the use of pesticides. The Environmental Protection Agency was founded in the USA in 1970 and has carried out this task ever since. Many see Rachel Carson's work as the main impetus for founding this US agency.

Persistent criticism of Rachel Carson's work

Rachel Carson and the environmental movement she influences continue to be criticized by individual groups for her fight against the use of pesticides. It is argued that the restriction on the use of pesticides resulted in countless deaths and that environmental legislation is a major obstacle to agriculture, whose economic freedom is being curtailed. Critics claim that Rachel Carson is responsible for millions of malaria deaths because her book resulted in an extensive ban on DDT. But the Global Eradication of Malaria Program , in which DDT had played a key role, was discontinued as a failure in 1972, partly because the mosquitoes had become increasingly resistant to DDT. In the states affected by malaria, DDT was still used against the carriers. It was not until the early 1990s that the WHO began to develop and promote alternatives to the use of DDT in the fight against malaria. However, the WHO occasionally had difficulties convincing individual donors in industrialized countries to finance the use of DDT. In a statement on September 15, 2006, the director of the WHO Global Malaria Program announced that the use of DDT would be increased again in the future.

Posthumous honors

Several government and private organizations have honored Rachel Carson in various ways after her death. Probably her most important award is the Presidential Medal of Freedom , the highest civilian honor in the United States, which she was awarded posthumously on June 9, 1980. The award was made in recognition of her influence on the US environmental movement and John F. Kennedy's environmental policy. The following year a stamp was issued in the United States in her memory. Several other countries have followed suit.

Rachel Carson's birthplace in Springdale, Pennsylvania, is on the US National Register of Historic Places , a directory of historically significant places. A hiking trail near Pittsburgh commemorates Rachel Carson. In addition to a bridge in Pittsburgh, several nature reserves such as the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge are named after her.

Rachel Carson is also the namesake of a number of awards, grants, and awards presented by various organizations. The Norwegian Rachel Carson Prize has been awarded since 1991 to women who have made a significant contribution to the field of environmental protection. The American Society for Environmental History has awarded a Rachel Carson Prize for the best dissertation since 1993. The Society for Social Studies of Science has awarded the "Rachel Carson Book Price" annually since 1998 for a book that deals with technical or scientific topics with political or social significance.

In 1996 an asteroid was named after her: (6572) Carson .

The Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society was founded in 2009 at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich.

In 2007, pianist Marian McPartland wrote her composition A Portrait of Rachel Carson , which she performed with the University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra under Donald Portnoy .

Fonts

  • Under the Sea-Wind, a Naturalist's Picture of Ocean Life. Oxford University Press, New York NY 1941 (numerous editions and translations; in German: Unter dem Meerwind. Translated from English by Waltrud and Ernst Kappeler. Gutenberg Book Guild, Zurich 1947).
  • The Sea around us. Oxford University Press, New York NY 1950 (numerous editions and translations; in German: Secrets of the Sea. From the American by Luise Laporte. List, Munich 1952).
  • The Edge of the Sea. Houghton Mifflin, Boston MA 1955 (numerous editions and translations; in German: Am Saum der Gezeiten. A coastal walk. Translated from the American by Margaret Auer. Biederstein, Munich 1957).
  • 1962: Silent Spring. First edition: Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1962. Numerous editions and translations.
  • Foreword. In: Ruth Harrison: Animal Machines. The New Factory Farming Industry. Ballantine, New York NY 1964 (in German: animal machines. The new agricultural factories. Translated from English by Margaret Auer. Biederstein, Munich 1965).
  • The Sense of Wonder. Harper & Row, New York NY 1965 (numerous editions and translations).
  • Martha Freeman (Ed.): Always, Rachel. The Letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman. 1952-1964. An Intimate Portrait of a Remarkable Friendship. Beacon Press, Boston MA 1995, ISBN 0-8070-7010-6 .
  • Linda Lear (Ed.): Lost Woods. The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson. Edited and with an introduction. Beacon Press, Boston MA 1998, ISBN 0-8070-8547-2 .

literature

  • Mary Gow: Rachel Carson. Ecologist and Activist. Enslow Publishers, Berkeley Heights NJ 2005, ISBN 0-7660-2503-9 .
  • H. Patricia Hynes: The Recurring Silent Spring. Pergamon Press, New York NY 1989, ISBN 0-08-037117-5 .
  • Swantje Koch-Kanz, Luise F. Pusch : Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman. In: Joey Horsley, Luise F. Pusch (eds.): Famous women couples (= Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch. 3404). Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-518-39904-7 , pp. 259-315.
  • Linda Lear: Rachel Carson. Witness for Nature. Holt, New York NY 1997, ISBN 0-8050-3427-7 .
  • Mark Hamilton Lytle: The Gentle Subversive. Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the Environmental Movement. Oxford University Press, New York NY et al. 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-517246-1 .
  • Priscilla Coit Murphy: What a Book Can Do. The Publication and Reception of "Silent Spring". University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst MA et al. 2005, ISBN 1-55849-476-6 .
  • Arlene R. Quaratiello: Rachel Carson. A biography. Greenwood Press, Westport CT et al. 2004, ISBN 0-313-32388-7 .
  • Christian Simon : DDT. Cultural history of a chemical compound. Christoph-Merian-Verlag, Basel 1999, ISBN 3-85616-114-7 .
  • Dieter Steiner : Rachel Carson. Pioneer of the ecological movement. A biography. Oekom Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-86581-467-8 .
  • Jamie L. Whitten : So that we can live. Facts about the effects of pesticides on public health - about their use, dangers, their contribution to the common good. Compiled from a scientific report submitted to the US Congress. Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York NY et al. 1969.
  • Rachel Carson, "The World Took a New Direction". In: Kendall Haven, Donna Clark: 100 Most Popular Scientists for Young Adults: Biographical Sketches and Professional Paths , Libraries Unlimited, Englewood 1999, ISBN 978-1-56308-674-8 , pp. 76-80

See also

Web links

Commons : Rachel Carson  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Rachel Carson  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Simon, p. 156.
  2. ^ Robert Friedman (Ed.): The Life Millennium: The 100 Most Important Events and People of the Past 1,000 Years . Life Books, New York 1998, p. 55.
  3. ↑ Gow, p. 15
  4. ↑ Gow, p. 16
  5. ↑ Gow, p. 18
  6. ↑ Quaratiello, p. 2
  7. ↑ Gow, p. 24
  8. ↑ Quaratiello, p. 5
  9. ↑ Gow, p. 26 f.
  10. ↑ Lear, 27-62
  11. ↑ Gow, p. 34
  12. ↑ Quaratiello, p. XV and p. 17
  13. ↑ Gow, p. 36 f.
  14. ↑ Lear, 63-79
  15. ↑ Gow, p. 38 and Quaratiello, p. XVI
  16. ↑ Quaratiello, p. 20
  17. ↑ Lear, 79-82
  18. ↑ Lear, 82-85
  19. ↑ Quaratiello, p. 24 f.
  20. ↑ Quaratiello, p. 31
  21. ↑ Lear, 85-113
  22. ↑ Quaratiello, p. 36
  23. ↑ Lear, 114–120 and Quaratiello, pp. 35 f.
  24. ↑ Quaratiello, p. 38
  25. ↑ Quaratiello, p. 39
  26. ↑ Lear, 121-160
  27. ↑ Lear, 163-164
  28. ↑ Quaratiello, p. 55
  29. ↑ Lear, 164-241
  30. ↑ Lear, 215-216; 238-239 and Quaratiello, p. 60
  31. ↑ Lear, 239-240
  32. ^ Members: Rachel Carson. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed February 20, 2019 .
  33. ↑ Lear, 243-288
  34. ^ Carson, Rachel (1907–1964) ( Memento March 17, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) GLBTQ encyclopedia, accessed July 31, 2007
  35. ↑ Janet Montefiore: The fact that possesses my imagination: Rachel Carson, Science and Writing . In: Women: A Cultural Review , Volume 12, No. 1 (2001), p. 48.
  36. ^ Lear, 255-256
  37. ↑ Sarah F. Tjossem, Review of Always Rachel: The Letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, 1952-1964 , Isis , Vol 86, No.. 4 (1995), pp. 687-688.
  38. ↑ Lear, 223-244
  39. ↑ Lear, 261-276 and Quartiello, pp. 73 f.
  40. ↑ Lear, 276-300 and Quaratiello, pp. 77 f.
  41. ↑ Lear, 300–309 and Quaratiello, pp. 79 f.
  42. ↑ Simon, p. 159
  43. ↑ Simon, p. 128
  44. ↑ Gow, p. 69
  45. ↑ Quaratiello, p. 86
  46. ↑ Quaratiello, pp. 84-87
  47. ↑ Quaratiello, p. 87. The original quote is: This was something I had not expected to do, but facts that came to my attention last winter disturbed me so deeply that I made the decision to postpone all other commitments and devote myself to what I consider a tremendously important problem.
  48. ↑ Lear, 355-358
  49. ↑ Lear, 375, 377, 400-407.
  50. ↑ Quaratiello, pp. 85 and pp. 87-89
  51. ↑ Quaratiello, p. 91
  52. ^ Thomas R. Dunlap: DDT: Scientists, Citizens and Public Policy . Princeton University Press, 1981, ISBN 0-691-04680-8 , pp. 107-108.
  53. ↑ Lear, 358-361
  54. ↑ Quaratiello, p. 88
  55. ↑ Lear, 375, 377-378, 386-387, 389
  56. ↑ Lear, 397-400
  57. ↑ a b Quaratiello, p. 105
  58. ^ Lear, 416, 419
  59. ↑ Lear, 407-408
  60. ↑ Lear, 409-413; Quaratiello, p. 91 and Lytle, p. 169 and 173
  61. ↑ Time: Silent Spring . 23 August 1963, no.34.
  62. ↑ Time: Progress is poisonous . August 30, 1963, No. 35.
  63. ↑ Die Zeit: “Where's the Storm?”, October 4, 1963, No. 40.
  64. ↑ Simon, p. 162 f.
  65. ↑ Gow, p. 90
  66. ↑ Lear, 412-420
  67. ↑ Gow, p. 90
  68. ↑ Gow, p. 91. The poem reads: “ Hunger, hunger, are you listening to the words from Rachel's pen? Words which taken at face value, Place live of birds' bove those of men ”.
  69. ↑ Lear, 433-434
  70. ↑ Lear, 429-430
  71. ↑ Quaratiello, p. 107
  72. ↑ Gow, p. 91
  73. ↑ Quatariello, p. 113
  74. ↑ Gow, p. 92; Quaratiello, p. 112 f. and Lear, pp. 437-449.
  75. ↑ Quaratiello, p. 113
  76. ↑ Lear, pp. 449-450
  77. ↑ 2003 National Women's History Month Honorees: Rachel Carlson ( December 8, 2005 memento on the Internet Archive ), accessed September 23, 2007
  78. ↑ Quatariello, p. 110
  79. ↑ Lear, 451-461, 469-473
  80. ↑ Lear, 476-480
  81. ↑ Lear, pp. 467-468, 477 and pp. 482-483.
  82. ↑ Simon, p. 136 f.
  83. ↑ Hynes, pp. 3 and pp. 8-9
  84. ↑ Hynes, 46-47
  85. ↑ Hynes, 47-48, 148-163
  86. ↑ Lytle, 217
  87. ↑ Examples of current criticism can be found among others:
    (a) Rich Karlgaard: But Her Heart Was Good ( Memento of March 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) , Forbes.com, May 18, 2007. Accessed September 23, 2007.
    (b ) Keith Lockitch: Rachel Carson's Genocide ( Memento of the original from June 22, 2011 in the Internet Archive )     Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / capmag.com archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Capitalism Magazine . May 23, 2007. Accessed on May 14, 2007
    (c) David Roberts , My one and only post on the Rachel Carson nonsense ( memento of the original from December 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )     Info: The     @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / gristmill.grist.org archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Grist.com, May 24, 2007. Accessed September 23, 2007.
    (d) Paul Driessen, Forty Years of Perverse 'Responsibility,' . In: The Washington Times . April 29, 2007. Accessed May 30, 2007.
    (e) Iain Murray,Silent Alarmism: A Centennial We Could Do Without . In: National Review . May 31, 2007. Accessed May 31, 2007.
  88. ↑ Simon, p. 202
  89. ^ Allan Schapira: DDT still has a role in the fight against malaria . Nature 432, November 25, 2004, p. 439
  90. ^ Arata Kochi: "Help save African babies as you are helping to save the environment." September 15, 2006
  91. ↑ Presidential Medal of Freedom award winner Rachel Carson , accessed August 24, 2007
  92. ↑ Rachel Carson Stamps ( August 18, 2007 memento in the Internet Archive ), accessed September 26, 2007.
  93. ↑ Rachel Carson's birthplace , accessed September 7, 2007
  94. ^ Rachel Carson Trail , accessed September 26, 2007.
  95. ↑ Rachel Carson Prisen ( Memento June 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), accessed September 11, 2007
  96. ^ Award Recipients - American Society for Environmental History ( Memento March 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), accessed September 11, 2007
  97. ^ Rachel Carson Book Prize, 4S , accessed September 11, 2007
  98. ^ NPR: Portrait of Rachel Carson , accessed June 21, 2008
  99. ↑ oekom.de ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.oekom.de


This article was added to the list of excellent articles on January 27, 2008 in this version .
personal data
SURNAME Carson, Rachel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Carson, Rachel Louise (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American zoologist, biologist, and author
DATE OF BIRTH May 27, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Springdale , Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH April 14, 1964
Place of death Silver Spring , Maryland