Coleman Rohde

9/3/21

Rachel Carson Doc Notes

Caron’s Silent Spring was “the most controversial book of the year”

Some called it “a breach of scientific objectivity”

DDT was used extensively during MacArthur’s career in order to reduce cases of malaria.

Carson mimicked her mother’s love for education. Her mother made her learn to love the natural

world through spending afternoons with Rachel in the forest where they learned to identify plants

and animals, etc.

Although a talented writer by the time she entered college, she changed her major from english

to biology.

She coveted a marine research position which would

Caron later got a job in the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries

She first omitted her name from her writings in her adult life thinking that they would gain more

credibility if the audience thought it had been written by a man.

Under the Sea Wind was unsuccessful because not too long after, Pearl Harbor happened.

98% of homes that were treated with DDT were mosquito free.

Carson, when writing the Sea Around Us, was very critical of her own work, constantly revising

it. It was a slow and grueling process. After she was turned down by many publishers the New

Yorker agreed to publish 10 chapters of the book.

Although the Korean war happened at the same time the Sea Around Us was published, the

serialization in the New Yorker made it a popular escape from the war.
The Sea Around Us remained on the bestseller list for 32 weeks. Eventually Under the Sea Wind

also made its way to the bestseller list.

Rachel Carson had a romantic relationship with Dorothy Friedman. Although they were rarely

physically together (some 60 days out of their relationship of 12 years), they declared their love

for each other.

Rachel Carson became an adoptive mother at around the age of 50. She believed that this would

eventually stop her from writing.

Carson identified pesticide resistance developed by insects exposed to pesticides. Through

natural selection, the individuals resistant to it reproduce and spread their genes. This causes an

“arms race” of pesticides which will only become more destructive to the environment.

Carson’s first draft titles like “Man the Destroyer” displayed her anger and frustration with the

pesticide industry.

In the thanksgiving cranberry scare of 1959 pesticides were sprayed on the wrong growth cycle.

This posed a danger to human health. In order to alleviate the scare, president John F. Kennedy

and Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Benson ate cranberry products in order to alleviate the scare.

Carson’s doctor chose not to treat her for 6 months and her cancer had metastasized to her lymph

nodes. She hid the fact that she had cancer because she didn’t want the information to strengthen

her opponents' claims of her book being “unfounded”.