Rachel Carson was born in Pennsylvania in 1907. She is credited with being one of the first politically active female environmentalists as well as one of the first proponents of an environmental movement. Her importance as an environmentalist figure comes from the fact that she worked on multiple levels to promote the interests of the environment, as a writer, marine biologist, educator, and ecologist. She worked for 15 years as a scientist and editor for the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, where she wrote pamphlets and edited articles on conservation as well as doing a series of seven minutes radio pieces on marine life. During this time she And writing writing letter letter and and articles in newspapers and urging people to focus on the environmental repercussions of development and to think of animal and environmental welfare.
She was not only a scientific presence, but also capable of writing her findings in poetic lyric and prose. Her first book was published in 1941, and was titled Under the sea wind. Writing in a style that was readable and enjoyable for the average person made her work accessible to everyone, not just the scientific community-- an important part of getting laypeople involved in the environmental movement. She published to more books on Marine ecology that were successful enough to allow her to quit her job at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Her fourth book, Silent Spring, is perhaps her best remembered contribution. It drew attention to the possible dangers of pesticides such as DDT, and as such created a huge amount of controversy and invoked the anger of the pesticide companies. as a result of her book, Carson was asked to testify before a congressional committee for a federal government examination of pesticides and DDT was banned.
She died in 1964 of cancer, and is still remembered as one of the first scientists to engage public attention and interest in the environment.
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