When Rachel Carson’s Silent SpringShe was already a well-known American biologist and author, best known for her trilogy on the ocean. But rather than introducing readers to more of the natural world, the mild-mannered 55-year-old’s latest book warned they could be destroying it.
In what she referred to as her “poison book,” Carson revealed the damaging effects of the indiscriminate use of chemical pesticides on the environment. She focused mainly on the insecticide DDT, which had been dubbed “one of the greatest discoveries of World War II” by Timemagazine was chosen for its ability kill malaria and typhus-carrying insects and was regularly sprayed on crops and in homes.
Carson called for much greater caution against these “elixirs of death” and wrote, “If we are living so intimately with chemicals—eating and drinking them, taking them into the very marrow of our bones—we had better know something about their power.”
Although the scientific community knew about the dangers, Carson was the one to make it accessible and palatable for a broad audience in her groundbreaking book. “She wrote for the general public, not the scientific community,” says Linda Lear, author of Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature “Readers, including housewives who used a lot of these chemicals, were shocked with what they learned.”
She argued “that people have a right to know what they’re being exposed to and what risks are posed,” says William Souder, author of On a Farther Coast: The Life, Legacy and Death of Rachel Carson. This was especially pertinent given the fact that the book was published in the midst of the Cold War. Carson created a parallel between pesticide contamination, and the fallout from regular nuclear weapon testing to help readers understand the dangers. “In framing these issues as siblings,” says Souder, “Carson helped the public to understand that pesticides could be harmful, even though you weren’t aware of their presence, something that people already knew about radiation.”
Rachel Carson, photographed at her typewriter back in 1963.
Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
The public’s first glimpse at Silent SpringIn fact, it was June 1962 that the event took place. The New YorkerThree excerpts were published. It was so popular that it became a bestseller the moment it was published in that fall. It sold more than 100,000 hardcover books within three months. In two years, it had sold more than one million.
The book was quickly celebrated. Senator Ernest Gruening, a Democrat from Alaska, said, “Every once in a while in the history of mankind, a book has appeared which has substantially altered the course of history.” Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas and E.B White of the New YorkerBoth authors compared the impact of a book to Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
As one would expect, chemical companies responded swiftly and severely. One industry spokesperson dismissed Carson’s claims as “absurd.” Others accused her of being a hysterical woman, a communist and a radical. The president of the company that made DDT said Carson wrote “not as a scientist, but as a fanatic defender of the cult of the balance of nature.”
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The New York Times covered the industry’s reaction in a front-page article: “The $300,000,000 pesticides industry has been highly irritated by a quiet woman author whose previous works on science have been praised for the beauty and precision of the writing.”
Carson had resisted writing this book for years due to these anticipated attacks from chemical companies and public officials who accepted their false claims. “It was a David versus Goliath sort of saga,” says Lear. “She was uncovering industrial misdeeds and, in the course of that, bringing down powerful men who had been entrusted by the public and shown to be unworthy of that trust.”
Carson decided that the personal risks were worth them. However, it was a huge personal loss as she was fighting breast Cancer for most of the four years she wrote. Silent Spring. “In the end, she gave in to a sense of obligation,” says Souder. “She felt that she had no other choice but to tackle the subject herself.”
JFK Spotlights Carson’s Book
Rachel Carson as she is interviewed by Eric Sevareid during an episode of CBS Reports. Interview took place in Rachel Carson’s Maryland home on November 29, 1962.
CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
Shortly after her book was published, President Kennedy was asked at a press conference if the government would look into the long-term effects of synthetic pesticides. He responded, “Yes, and I know they already are. I think, particularly, of course, since Miss Carson’s book.”
The following April, 15 million viewers tuned in to watch a CBS TV special, called “The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson.” Carson’s thoughtful responses and calm demeanor despite her failing health bolstered her arguments. She said, “It is the public that is being asked to assume the risks that the insect controllers calculate. The public must decide whether it wishes to continue on the present road, and it can do so only when in full possession of the facts.”
In May 1963, President Kennedy’s Science Advisory Committee issued its long-awaited pesticide report, which validated Carson’s work. The committee’s scientists called for more research into potential health hazards related to pesticides and urged more restraint in their widespread use in homes and fields.
Pesticides were made a major public problem by the CBS program and the findings of the presidential commission. Silent SpringThis awakening of an environmental consciousness set the stage for the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. It regulated pesticide use and banned DDT in 1972.
Carson died from breast cancer in April 1964, less than two decades after her seminal book was published. However, she did not die before changing the way Americans saw their world. Says Souder, “Carson changed the conversation about the environment, recasting humankind as part of nature, not above it.”