Rachel Carson: Witness for NatureBy drawing on previously unavailable sources and on interviews with those who knew her, Linda Lear gives a compelling portrait of this heroic woman, illuminating the origin of her connection with nature and of her determination to save what she loved. Lear reveals the unexpected influence of Carson's early experience with industrial pollution and examines her life-changing encounter with the possibility of global extinction in the frightening days of the early Cold War. The book follows Carson's efforts to become a marine biologist at a time when women were unwelcome in the academic community. It shows how her connections with nature were confirmed and strengthened through her work as a government scientist and editor, where her views about the potential dangers of synthetic chemical pesticides evolved. By the late 1950s, Carson had transformed colorless government research into three brilliant, popular books about the sea, including The Sea Around Us, and had become the most respected science writer in America. Rachel Carson challenged the culture of her time and, in the process, shaped a powerful social movement that altered the course of American history |
Contents
Prologue | 3 |
Wild Creatures Are Me Friends | 7 |
The Vision Splendid | 27 |
The Decision for Science | 54 |
Something to Write About | 81 |
Just to Live by Writing | 110 |
Return to the Sea | 131 |
Such a Comfort to Me | 152 |
Between the Tide Lines | 267 |
One Must Dream Greatly | 289 |
I Shall Rant a Little Too | 312 |
The Red Queen | 339 |
If I Live to Be 90 | 363 |
A Solemn Obligation | 396 |
Rumblings of an Avalanche | 428 |
I Shall Remember the Monarchs | 457 |
A Subject Very Close to My Heart | 178 |
Kin This Be Me? | 198 |
An Alice in Wonderland Character | 223 |
Nothing Lives to Itself | 244 |
Afterword | 485 |
Abbreviations Used in the Notes | 486 |
Bibliography | 585 |
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Common terms and phrases
Algire American April Audubon Society August biologist biology birds Bob Hines Boston chapter Chatham College chemical College conservation cottage Crile December Dorothy Thompson E. B. White editor Edwin Way Teale February feel Fish and Wildlife Fisheries Freeman friends Houghton Mifflin Ibid interest Interview Island January Jeanne Davis July June laboratory later LCC/CC Letters literary magazine March Maria Carson Marie Rodell Marjorie Spock Mary Scott Skinker mother National naturalist nature November ocean October Paul Brooks pesticides photographs published R/CA Rachel Carson Rachel told Rachel wrote RC to DF RC to PB RCP/BLYU Robert Robert Cushman Murphy Roger Ruth Scott SAB/D scientific scientists Sea-Wind September Shawn Shirley Briggs Silent Spring Silver Spring Skinker Southport Spock spraying Springdale summer tion trip University Press UP/FFC wanted Washington week William William Shawn women Woods Hole writing York Yorker