Note: Maryland Declares May 27 "Rachel Carson Day"

On May 27, 2007, citizens from around the world will mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Rachel Carson -- a leading American conservationist, writer, and environmental educator.

Rachel Carson was an employee of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for fifteen years, and during that time she helped to promote the National Wildlife Refuge System and conservation of wildlife. In recognition of Carson's achievements, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will honor Rachel Carson this year with a Centennial Celebration of her birth.

Rachel Carson was born on May 27, 1907 in a small rural Pennsylvania town where she spent many hours observing and studying nature on her family's farm. After high school, Carson went on to graduate from Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham College) in 1929, and then in 1932, went on to earn her master's degree in zoology at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Eventually Carson built a home in Silver Spring, Maryland (now a National Historic Landmark), and spent the rest of her life splitting her time between her Silver Spring home and her summer home in Southport, Maine. These two residences are where she did most of her influential writing, and the Maryland home was where she died in 1964, at the age of 56, after a long and difficult battle with cancer.

Carson's career with the U.S. government began when she was hired by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries (now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) to write radio scripts for a marine-life program called "Romance Under the Waters." She also supplemented her income by writing feature articles on natural history for the Baltimore Sun. Carson continued to move up in the federal government and eventually became Editor-in-Chief of all publications for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a remarkable achievement for a woman in that age. During this time, Carson wrote many pamphlets and bulletins about conservation including the popular "Conservation in Action" series, which explored the wildlife and habitat on America's national wildlife refuges.

Carson's introduction for this conservation series includes one of the most popular quotes about the National Wildlife Refuge System. Here Carson skillfully sums up the purpose of the Refuge System and the power behind the flying blue goose, which is the official symbol of America's national wildlife refuges:

"If you travel much in the wilder sections of our country, sooner or later you are likely to meet the sign of the flying goose — the emblem of the national wildlife refuges. You may meet it by the side of a road crossing miles of flat prairie in the Middle West, or in the hot deserts of the Southwest. You may meet it by some mountain lake, or as you push your boat through the winding salty creeks of a coastal march. Wherever you meet this sign, respect it. It means that the land behind the sign has been dedicated by the American people to preserving, for themselves and their children, as much of our native wildlife as can be retained along with our modern civilization. Wild creatures, like men, must have a place to live. As civilization creates cities, builds highways, and drains marshes, it takes away, little by little, the land that is suitable for wildlife. And as their space for living dwindles, the wildlife populations themselves decline. Refuges resist this trend by saving some areas from encroachment, and by preserving in them, or restoring where necessary, the conditions that wild things need in order to live."

In 1941, while still working for the government, Carson published her first of three books about the sea called Under the Sea Wind, which was followed up with The Sea Around Us in 1951 -- a highly acclaimed book that was on the New York Times best-seller list for 81 weeks and went on to win the National Book Award, thus allowing Carson to leave the government to write full time.

In 1955, Carson published her third book about the sea, The Edge of the Sea, which offered a guide to sea life along the shore. But it was in 1962 that Carson published her most famous book -- the environmental classic Silent Spring, which went on to be translated into more than a dozen foreign languages and was named by The Modern Library as among the 100 best non-fiction books of the century.

Silent Spring opened the world's eyes to the dangers of excessive pesticide use, and especially to the impact of the pesticide DDT on humans and wildlife. But the book did even more in that it offered a new way of looking at the environment and the arrogance that humans often displayed in their belief that they could -- and should -- control nature.

Even before publication, powerful chemical and agricultural interests attempted to prevent publication of Silent Spring by attacking Carson both professionally and personally. But Carson and her publisher -- Houghton Mifflin -- stood up to the pressure and continued with publication. Eventually Carson's findings were vindicated by President John F. Kennedy's Science Advisory Committee.

The impact of Silent Spring is hard to overestimate, but it helped spark the modern environmental movement, which went on to celebrate the first Earth Day in 1970, as well as to push for passage of major environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act and also the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. Carson's book also helped fuel the efforts to eventually ban the pesticide DDT in 1972 -- an act which saved many bird species from extinction, including the bald eagle and the osprey.

It should also be noted that the courage Carson showed in finishing Silent Spring is as remarkable as the impact of her book. Throughout much of the book's creation, Carson battled breast cancer that had metastasized, and that led to a host of related ailments that could have easily discouraged her from finishing the book. But Carson persevered and was able to see some of the book's impact before succumbing to illness less than two years after its publication.

Much recognition has been given to Carson since her death, such as in 1980, when President Jimmy Carter posthumously awarded Carson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In addition, a national wildlife refuge in Maine was renamed as the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, and a group of Carson's friends and supporters created the Rachel Carson Council, which continues to help people with pesticide issues. And finally, Silent Spring is still in print, with famous environmentalists like Al Gore writing the introductions to the new editions.

At Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, we are grateful for the role Rachel Carson played in promoting the Refuge System and in saving bird species from pesticides such as DDT. Blackwater's eagle and osprey populations would not exist today without the moral courage, talent, and determination of Rachel Carson.

Download the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Rachel Carson Fact Sheet (PDF 330KB) or the U.S. Department of State's Pen Against Poison Rachel Carson publication (PDF 1.9MB).

Also, learn more about Rachel Carson at these sites:

• USFWS - Rachel Carson: A Conservation Legacy



• The Legacy of Rachel Carson - Events for the Centennial



• Rachel Carson Centennial Toolkit for Educators



• U.S. Dept. of State - Rachel Carson: Pen Against Poison



• RachelCarson.org



• Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge