Rachel Carson Popular Books

Rachel Carson Biography & Facts

Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist, writer, and conservationist whose sea trilogy (1941–1955) and book Silent Spring (1962) are credited with advancing marine conservation and the global environmental movement. Carson began her career as an aquatic biologist in the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, and became a full-time nature writer in the 1950s. Her widely praised 1951 bestseller The Sea Around Us won her a U.S. National Book Award, recognition as a gifted writer and financial security. Her next book, The Edge of the Sea , and the post-war reissued version of her first book, Under the Sea Wind, were also bestsellers. This sea trilogy explores the whole of ocean life from the shores to the depths. Late in the 1950s, Carson turned her attention to conservation, especially some problems she believed were caused by synthetic pesticides. The result was the book Silent Spring (1962), which brought environmental concerns to an unprecedented share of the American people. Although Silent Spring was met with fierce opposition by chemical companies, it spurred a reversal in national pesticide policy, which led to a nationwide ban on DDT and other pesticides. It also inspired a grassroots environmental movement that led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Carson was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter. Early life and education Carson was born on May 27, 1907, on a family farm near Springdale, Pennsylvania, located by the Allegheny River near Pittsburgh. She was the daughter of Maria Frazier (McLean) and Robert Warden Carson, an insurance salesman. She spent a lot of time exploring around her family's 65-acre (26 ha) farm. An avid reader, she began writing stories, often involving animals, at age eight. At age ten, she had her first story published. She enjoyed reading St. Nicholas Magazine, which carried her first published stories, the works of Beatrix Potter, the novels of Gene Stratton-Porter, and in her teen years, Herman Melville, Joseph Conrad, and Robert Louis Stevenson. The natural world, particularly the ocean, was the common thread of her favorite literature. Carson attended Springdale's small school through tenth grade, and then completed high school in nearby Parnassus, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1925 at the top of her class of 44 students. In high school, Carson was somewhat of a loner. Carson gained admission to Pennsylvania College for Women, now Chatham University, in Pittsburgh, where she originally studied English but switched her major to biology in January 1928. She continued contributing to the school's student newspaper and literary supplement.She was admitted to graduate school at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 1928, but was forced to remain at the Pennsylvania College for Women for her senior year due to financial difficulties; she graduated magna cum laude in 1929. After a summer course at the Marine Biological Laboratory, she continued her studies in zoology and genetics at Johns Hopkins in the fall of 1929. After her first year of graduate school, Carson became a part-time student, taking an assistantship in Raymond Pearl's laboratory, where she worked with rats and Drosophila, to earn money for tuition. After false starts with pit vipers and squirrels, she completed a dissertation on the embryonic development of the pronephros in fish. In June 1932, she earned a master's degree in zoology. She had intended to continue for a doctorate, however in 1934 Carson was forced to leave Johns Hopkins to search for a full-time teaching position to help support her family during the Great Depression. In 1935, Carson's father died suddenly, worsening their already critical financial situation and leaving Carson to care for her aging mother. Career At the urging of her undergraduate biology mentor Mary Scott Skinker, Carson secured a temporary position with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, where she wrote radio copy for a series of weekly educational broadcasts called Romance Under the Waters. The series of 52 seven-minute programs focused on aquatic life and was intended to generate public interest in fish biology and the bureau's work, a task the several writers before Carson had not managed. Carson also began submitting articles on marine life in the Chesapeake Bay, based on her research for the series, to local newspapers and magazines.Carson's supervisor, pleased with the success of the radio series, asked her to write the introduction to a public brochure about the fisheries bureau; he also worked to secure her the first full-time position that became available. Sitting for the civil service exam, she outscored all other applicants and, in 1936, became the second woman hired by the Bureau of Fisheries for a full-time professional position, as a junior aquatic biologist.Using her research and consultations with marine biologists as starting points, she wrote a steady stream of articles for The Baltimore Sun and other newspapers. However, her family responsibilities further increased in January 1937 when her older sister died, leaving Carson as the sole breadwinner for her mother and two nieces.In July 1937, the Atlantic Monthly accepted a revised version of an essay, The World of Waters, that she originally wrote for her first fisheries bureau brochure. Her supervisor had deemed it too good for that purpose. The essay, published as Undersea, was a vivid narrative of a journey along the ocean floor. It marked a major turning point in Carson's writing career. Publishing house Simon & Schuster, impressed by Undersea, contacted Carson and suggested that she expand it into a book. Several years of writing resulted in Under the Sea Wind (1941), which received excellent reviews but sold poorly. In the meantime, Carson's article-writing success continued with her features appearing in Sun Magazine, Nature, and Collier's. Carson attempted to leave the Bureau (by then transformed into the United States Fish and Wildlife Service) in 1945. However, few jobs for naturalists were available, since most money for science was focused on technical fields in the wake of the Manhattan Project. In mid-1945, Carson first encountered the subject of DDT, a revolutionary new pesticide—lauded as the "insect bomb" after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—that was only beginning to undergo tests for safety and ecological effects. DDT was one of Carson's many writing interests at the time, but editors found the subject unappealing; she published nothing on DDT until 1962.Carson rose within the Fish and Wildlife Service, and in 1945 was supervising a small writing staff. In 1949, she was appointed chief editor of publications, which allowed her increased opportunities for fieldwork and freedom in choosing her writing projects; however, it also entailed increasingly tedious administrative responsibilities. By 1948, Carson was working on material fo.... Discover the Rachel Carson popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Rachel Carson books.

Best Seller Rachel Carson Books of 2024

  • Rachel Carson and Her Sisters synopsis, comments

    Rachel Carson and Her Sisters

    Robert K Musil

    An inspiring portrait of the lives and achievements of American women environmental writers and advocates from 1850 to the present.In Rachel Carson and Her Sisters, Robert K. ...

  • Storm the Earth synopsis, comments

    Storm the Earth

    Rebecca Kim Wells

    Maren and her girlfriend Kaia set out to rescue Sev and free the dragons from the corrupt emperor in the explosive finale to the journey that began with Shatter the Sky.Let them bu...

  • Rachel Carson synopsis, comments

    Rachel Carson

    Isabelle Collombat

    Années 1920. Rachel, qui grandit dans une fermette de Pennsylvanie, sait déjà que plus tard, elle écrira pour raconter la beauté de la nature qui l'entoure. Inscrite à l'université...

  • Silent Spring Revolution synopsis, comments

    Silent Spring Revolution

    Douglas Brinkley

    New York Times bestselling author and acclaimed presidential historian Douglas Brinkley chronicles the rise of environmental activism during the Long Sixties (19601973), telling th...

  • Herstory synopsis, comments

    Herstory

    Katherine Halligan

    Move aside historyit’s time for herstory.Celebrate fifty inspiring and powerful women who changed the world and left their mark in this lavishly illustrated biography compilation t...

  • Always, Rachel synopsis, comments

    Always, Rachel

    Rachel Carson & Dorothy E. Freeman

    These letters between the pioneering environmentalist and her beloved friend reveal “a vibrant, caring woman behind the scientist” (Los Angeles Times).   “Rachel Carson, autho...

  • The Quiet World synopsis, comments

    The Quiet World

    Douglas Brinkley

    “Douglas Brinkley has written a sweeping, blowbyblow account of the struggle to preserve the last great remnants of American wilderness. An engaging appraisal of the crucial skirmi...

  • The Book of Eels synopsis, comments

    The Book of Eels

    Patrik Svensson

    Part H Is for Hawk, part The Soul of an Octopus, The Book of Eels is both a meditation on the world’s most elusive fishthe eeland a reflection on the human cond...

  • Fathoms synopsis, comments

    Fathoms

    Rebecca Giggs

    Winner of the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist for the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction Finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing ...

  • Witness to Freedom synopsis, comments

    Witness to Freedom

    Thomas Merton

    Witness to Freedom is the fifth and final volume in the extraordinary correspondence of "one of the most original and challenging minds of the midtwentieth century" (John Tracy El...

  • The Light In High Places synopsis, comments

    The Light In High Places

    Joe Hutto

    Hutto is living in a tent at twelve thousand feet, where blizzards occur in July and where human wants become irrelevant and human needs can become a matter of life and deathto stu...

  • Rachel Carson synopsis, comments

    Rachel Carson

    Emily James

    Explore the life and achievements of Rachel Carson. Photographs, a timeline, and easytoread text tell the story of this groundbreaking scientist.

  • Rachel Carson synopsis, comments

    Rachel Carson

    Ellen S. Levine

    Rachel Carson combined her love of science and writing in her awardwinning and controversial book Silent Spring. Revealing the dangers of pesticide use, it brought readers a new aw...

  • Forged in Crisis synopsis, comments

    Forged in Crisis

    Nancy Koehn

    A WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER“Five gritty leaders whose extraordinary passion and perseverance changed history…a gripping read on a timeless and timely topic” Angela Duckworth, ...

  • Environmentalist Rachel Carson synopsis, comments

    Environmentalist Rachel Carson

    Douglas Hustad

    Do you enjoy spotting wild animals in the forest? As a little girl, Rachel Carson loved to explore the woods near her house. As an adult, she became an ecologist who helped change ...

  • Becoming a Yoga Instructor synopsis, comments

    Becoming a Yoga Instructor

    Elizabeth Greenwood

    The musthave book for any yogi or yogini who’s curious about taking the next step and becoming a yoga instructor.Choosing a profession begins with imagining yourself in a career. W...

  • The Story of Stuff synopsis, comments

    The Story of Stuff

    Annie Leonard

    A classic exposé in company with An Inconvenient Truth and Silent Spring, The Story of Stuff expands on the celebrated documentary exploring the threat of overconsumption on the en...

  • Before the Flood synopsis, comments

    Before the Flood

    Elisabeth C. Rosenberg

    In the tradition of Silent Spring, a modern parable of the American experience and our paradoxical relationship with the natural world. Though it seems a p...

  • The Gentle Subversive synopsis, comments

    The Gentle Subversive

    Mark Hamilton Lytle

    Rachel Carson's Silent Spring antagonized some of the most powerful interests in the nationincluding the farm block and the agricultural chemical industryand helped launch the mode...

  • On a Farther Shore synopsis, comments

    On a Farther Shore

    William Souder

    Published on the fiftieth anniversary of her seminal book, Silent Spring, here is an indelible new portrait of Rachel Carson, founder of the environmental movementShe loved the oce...

  • Summertime synopsis, comments

    Summertime

    Danielle Celermajer

    I went and sat alone where Jimmy has been lying. It is way down in the bush. The light is soft, the air and the earth are cool, and the smell is of leaves and the river. I cannot p...

  • Lost Woods synopsis, comments

    Lost Woods

    Rachel Carson

    When Rachel Carson died of cancer in 1964, her four books, including the environmental classic Silent Spring, had made her one of the most famous people in America. This ...

  • Silent Earth synopsis, comments

    Silent Earth

    Dave Goulson

    “A terrific book…A thoughtful explanation of how the dramatic decline of insect species and numbers poses a dire threat to all life on earth.” (Booklist, Starred Review)In the tra...

  • Visionary Women synopsis, comments

    Visionary Women

    Andrea Barnet

    Winner of The Green Prize for Sustainable LiteratureA Finalist for the PEN/Bograd Weld Prize for BiographyFour influential women we thought we knew wellJane Jacobs, Rachel Car...

  • The Fifties synopsis, comments

    The Fifties

    James R. Gaines

    An “exciting and enlightening revisionist history” (Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author) that upends the myth of the 1950s as a decade of conformity and celebrate...

  • Spring After Spring synopsis, comments

    Spring After Spring

    Stephanie Roth Sisson

    From Stephanie Roth Sisson, the creator of Star Stuff, comes a picture book biography of Rachel Carson, the iconic environmentalist who fought to keep the sounds of nature from goi...

  • Rachel Carson synopsis, comments

    Rachel Carson

    Linda Lear

    The authoritative biography of the marine biologist and nature writer whose book Silent Spring inspired the global environmentalist movement. In a career that spanned from civil se...

  • The Sense of Wonder synopsis, comments

    The Sense of Wonder

    Rachel Carson

    First published a halfcentury ago, Rachel Carson's awardwinning The Sense of Wonder remains the classic guide to introducing children to the marvels of natureIn 1955, acclaimed con...

  • This Land synopsis, comments

    This Land

    Christopher Ketcham

    “A big, bold book about public lands . . . The Desert Solitaire of our time.” Outside A hardhitting look at the battle now raging over the fate of the public lands i...

  • Silent Spring synopsis, comments

    Silent Spring

    Rachel Carson

    Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was first published in three serialized excerpts in the New Yorker in June of 1962. The book appeared in September of that year and the outcry that fo...

  • 1967 synopsis, comments

    1967

    Victor Brooks

    Blazing hot meets icy cool in a momentous year in US historyOn New Year’s Day in 1967, the 200 million Americans who lived in the United States were about to experience a fascinati...

  • Rachel Carson synopsis, comments

    Rachel Carson

    Kathleen V. Kudlinski

    Rachel Carsonscientist, author, and environmentalistRachel Carson was always fascinated by the ocean. As a child, she dreamed of it and longed to see it. As a young woman, she felt...