Rachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist, author, and conservationist. Her book Silent Spring and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement. Carson was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter. She was the daughter of Maria Frazier and Robert Warden Carson, an insurance salesman.
About Rachel Carson in brief
Rachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist, author, and conservationist. Her book Silent Spring and other writings are credited with advancing 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 reissued version of her first book, Under the Sea Wind, were also bestsellers. Carson was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter. She was the daughter of Maria Frazier and Robert Warden Carson, an insurance salesman. She spent a lot of time exploring around her family’s 65-acre farm near Springdale, Pennsylvania, just up the Allegheny River from Pittsburgh. Carson attended Springdale’s small school through tenth grade, then completed high school in nearby Parnassus, Pennsylvania. She graduated in 1925 at the top of her class of forty-four students. She originally studied English, but switched her major to biology in January 1928, though she continued contributing to the school’s student newspaper and literary supplement. Though admitted to graduate standing at Johns Hopkins University in 1928, she 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. She earned a master’s degree in zoology in June 1932.
She had intended to continue for a doctorate, but in 1934 Carson left Johns Hopkins to search for a full time teaching position to help support her family during the Great Depression. She also wrote a steady stream of articles for The Baltimore Sun and other newspapers. In January 1937, Carson’s main responsibilities were to analyze and report field data on fish populations and to write brochures and other literature for the public. Using her research and consultations with marine biologists, she also wrote brochures about the Chesapeake Bay. Carson also began submitting articles on marine life in the Chesapper Bay, based on her research for the series, to local newspapers and magazines. In November 1937, she became the second woman hired by the Bureau of fisheries for aFull-time professional position. She wrote a series of 52 seven-minute programs focused on aquatic life and in the work of the bureau, a task the several writers before Carson had not managed. Carson’s supervisor asked her to write the introduction to the public fisheries bureau; he also worked to secure her the first-time position that became available. In April 1938, Carson became the first woman to sit the civil service exam, in all other applicants and became outscored by the other applicants. In May 1939, Carson was hired as a junior aquatic biologist, as a senior aquatic biologist. In October 1939, she began writing a brochure about fish populations, and in January 1940, she started writing a book about fish biology.
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This page is based on the article Rachel Carson published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 04, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
