Rachel Carson

Its WiSE Wednesday and this week we will feature Rachel Carson. Rachel was born in 1907 in PA and remained there to do her studies at the Pennsylvania College for Women. During her first year of graduate school at John’s Hopkins, she interned with Raymond Pearl in his laboratory where she worked with rats and drosophila to earn money for tuition. She earned her master’s in zoology in 1932 and intended to continue to receive her doctorate, however, she was forced to leave John’s Hopkins to support her family. 


She began her career in the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries and became a full time nature writer in the 1950’s. Her book, Silent Spring, which was published in 1962, was credited with advancing the global environment movement. Silent Spring stimulated a reversal in national pesticide policy and led to a ban on DDT and other harmful pesticides. This book inspired a grassroots environmental movement that lead to the formation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Posthumously she was awarded the Presidential Metal of Freedom by Jimmy Carter.

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