Arts and Letters

Rachel Carson was endowed with a constellation of virtues of head and heart very rarely found all together. She was a dedicated and impeccable scientist but one who was also acutely aware of the human and the humanistic meanings of her science. She wrote like the woman of letters she also was; she had a sense of social responsibility more acute than is commonly found even among those whose specialty would seem to require it.

Miss Carson was born May 27, 1907 in Springdale, Pennsylvania. She attended the Pennsylvania College for Women where her first interest was in writing. Soon however she switched to biology; did graduate work at Johns Hopkins; and after filling various positions concerned with both teaching and field work in biology she joined the Bureau of Fisheries in Washington where she remained until 1952. Her first book was Under the Sea Wind (1941), which was followed by The Sea Around Us (1951), The Edge of The Sea (1956), and Silent Spring (1962). Her honors included the Burroughs Medal, the National Book Award, and the Cullum Medal of the American Geographical Society.

Miss Carson says that her mother taught her the love of nature, and that she retained this love to the end of her life is suggested by the fact that she willed one half of her estate to two conservation organizations, thus demonstrating that she was one of those who, unlike many scientists, believe that nature is to be learned from as well as about. In Silent Spring she challenged all alone both vested interests and the whole tendency of our age to use technology to conquer rather than to cooperate with nature. It is quite possible that her battle, of which the outcome is still uncertain, will influence the whole future of mankind.