Rachel Carson’s Timely and Timeless Message

Rachel Carson was a very brave woman at a time when being a woman and standing up to a major American industry was, well, something maybe only a handful of women did.

Selected by the National Women's History Project to serve as the iconic model for this year's theme, "Women Taking the Lead to Save Our Planet," Rachel Carson is often credited with inspiring the modern environmental movement.

Cover via Amazon

She had been a naturalist and environmentalist all her life, getting a MA in Zoology from Johns Hopkins University in 1932. But it was her challenge to the manufacturers of pesticides like DDT that put her in the national spotlight. I am not only struck by her courage to challenge male-dominated agribusiness in 1962 but her forethought in so meticulously documenting her findings so that it would be virtually impossible to silence her. What she wrote became a substantial mainstay to the environmental movement. Just eight years after Silent Spring was published, the first Clean Air Act was passed.

Being the parents of a 15 year old naturalist, we often have conversations in our house about the environment, and we never miss a nature documentary if we can help it.

I was asked to write this post at the same time that Rachel Carson’s work came up in a vocabulary lesson my son was studying. I confess I did not know much about her from my school years but having a son so interested in nature, I have been exposed to a great deal of scientific information that I don’t believe I would have sought out on my own.

This pioneer named Rachel Carson has inspired us to visit the library this week to find her books and read them. She is a great American, a great woman and a pioneering environmentalist to whom many of us owe gratitude for her courage and tenacity. I wonder how she would feel if she were alive today – discouraged that some big industries are still plundering our natural resources, polluting our air, pouring filth into our water, or would she be encouraged by so many citizens advocating for the health of our environment, buying local and organic food, educating ourselves about what needs to be done to protect our planet, and voting for leaders who support science and environmental protection. And would she wonder who will win.

For more information on Rachel Carson, visit these websites:

http://www.rachelcarson.org

http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/carson.html

Posted by Kate Tinnan, WRC volunteer