Rachel
Carson
Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 - April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist and nature writer whose writings are often credited with launching the global environmental movement. Carson started her career as a biologist in the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, and transitioned to a full-time nature writer in the 1950s. Her widely praised 1951 bestseller The Sea Around Us won her financial security and recognition as a gifted writer. Her next book, The Edge of the Sea, and the republished version of her first book, Under the Sea-Wind, were also bestsellers. Together, her sea trilogy explores the gamut of
ocean life, from the shores to the surface to the deep sea. In the late 1950s,
Carson turned her attention to conservation and the environmental problems caused by
synthetic pesticides. The result was Silent Spring (1962), which brought environmental concerns to an unprecedented
portion of the American public. Silent Spring spurred a reversal in national
pesticide policy, leading to a nationwide ban on DDT and other
pesticides and the grassroots environmental movement it inspired led to the creation of the
Carson was posthumously awarded