Silent Spring By Rachel Carson

rad video

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnRGFEanuyQ

background

• Born in Springdale, PA in 1907
• Grew up on a farm
• Learned about nature and animals
• Mother taught her to appreciate art, literature, nature, and music
• Majored in English but switched to zoology 

Pesticide use at the time

• Dichlorediphenyltrichloroethane… DDT 
• First synthesized by Othmar Zeilder in 1874
• Paul Hermann Müller used it for insecticidal properties
• Used by American troops in Asia and Europe during WWII 
• After WWII, used in agriculture

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inspiration for silent spring

• Receives letter from Olga Owns Huckins 
• Described how spraying of pesticides destroyed her bird sanctuary
• Started gathering information

scientific silent spring

• DDT harms good things just as easily as bad things
• Poisoning of water
• All living things help each other out
• There is an interconnectedness of life
• Disease in humans

"The earth's vegetation is part of a web of life in which there are intimate and essential relations between plant and earth, between plants and other plants, between plants and animals" (Carson 64).

Literary silent spring

• Knowledge in English 
• Accessible prose
• "A Fable for Tomorrow"
• Exploited scientific political statement, but told a story
• Not tapered to specialists or scientists

“Hers was a remarkable, pre-feminist success in lowering the barriers, not just between women and science, but likewise between science and literature” (Newell 59)

response

• Angry response 
• “unfair, one-sided and hysterically over-empathetic” - Time Magazine
• Chemical companies tried to stop production
• Blamed for 30 million deaths 
• Conservationists happy

“Spinster. Communist. A member of a nature cult. An amateur naturalist who should stick to poetry not politics. There were just some of the labels used to discredit her. Rachel Carson had in fact, lit a fire on America’s chemical landscape” (Williams 35)

legacy

• Feminism
• Literature and science
• Brought tons of attention to how people were treating the environment
• Consequences to our health

legislature passed

• Amend Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act
• Tighten guidelines, require safety information
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Regulate introduction of chemicals, establish testing rules

“Rachel Carson told the truth as she understood it. The natural world was dying, poisoned by the hands of power tied to corporate greed. Her words became a catalyst for change. A debate had begun: a reverence for life versus a reverence for industry. Through the strength and vitality of her voice, Carson altered the political landscapes of America” (Williams n.pag.)

Course themes

• Natural and Social Environment
• Change and Innovation
• Rebel in Society