Essay: Rachel Carson (marine biologist, author, and conservationist)

Rachel Carson was born on May 27,1907 and lived until April 11, 1964. Throughout her 58 years of life, Rachel Carson did many things, some dating back as far as her being a young child. However, some of her greater achievements did not come into play until later in her life. For example, one of Rachel’s first notable achievements was when she won first prize for a story published in St. Nicholas Magazine when she was eleven.
When Rachel graduated high school, she graduated with honor and won a scholarship to Pennsylvania College for Women, which is now Chatham University. She had every intention to major in English and become a teacher. However, while attending the college, the biology professor, Mary Scott Skinker, influenced her to change her major to biology. This was a very risky move as she was only one of three women. It was with this new major that she graduated the Pennsylvania College for Women magna cum laude, and won a summer scholarship to the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. She also obtained a scholarship from Johns Hopkins University so she could get a Masters of Arts in Zoology.
While attending Johns Hopkins she studied in the Department of Zoology, and in 1931 she interned with Raymond Pearl’s Institute for Biological Research, School of Hygiene and Public Health. While interning there she worked on genetic research.
During the Summer of 1930, Rachel teaches Zoology at Johns Hopkins Summer School with Grace Lippy. She continued to teach there for the next four years. However, during those four years she taught at the Dental and Pharmacy School University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland. In 1932, she was awarded with a Masters of Arts Degree with her thesis, “The Development of the Pronephros During the Embryonic and Early Larval Life of the Catfish.”
During the summer of 1932, she goes to the US Fisheries Laboratory, Woods Hole with Grace Lippy. She intended to pursue a PhD. At Hopkins in Marine Biology. However, this was during the Great Depression and she was unfortunately forced to drop out of graduate school in the spring of 1934.
In 1935, Mary Skinker coached Rachel to take the Federal Civil Service Exams for junior wildlife biologist and junior aquatic biologist. Rachel was then hired by Elmer Higgins at the US Bureau of Fisheries in Washington, DC to write 52 short radio programs on marine life, “Romance Under the Waters.” She was employed as part-time features writer.
In 1935 Rachel became the breadwinner of her family due to the death of her father, Robert Carson. Then, in1936, she was employed by the Bureau of Fisheries in the Department of Commerce as a junior aquatic biologist, and began freelance writing on the Chesapeake Bay topics that had various publications which included The Baltimore Sun. Rachel’s writing had begun to bring in a small income.
In January, 1937, when Marian Carson Williams dies and leaves behind her two daughters, Virginia and Majorie, Mrs.Carson and Rachel take care of them. The family then moved to a house in Siler Spring, Maryland. It was also in the September of this year that Rachel’s article “Undersea” was published in the Atlantic Monthly.
In 1938 through 1939, Rachel works on her book, soon to be known as, “Under the Sea-Wind.” In 1939, Rachel is promoted to Assistant Aquatic Biologist. Carson is transferred to Chicago office of Bureau of Fisheries while the departmental reorganization continued. In 1940, Rachel spent her leave time at the Fisheries Station at Woods Hole, she also sails on the SS Phalanthrop, the Bureau of Fisheries research ship. By 1941, after many changes were made to the program in the previous two years, Rachel officially becomes staff Aquatic Biologist at Interior under the leadership of Secretary Harold. L. Ickes. She also had her first book “Under the Sea-Wind,” published in 1941. It is a book about three different creatures’ lives, what they were like, and how each creature contributes to the ecosystem and environment. This book was unfortunately over shadowed by WWII however, and went out of print.
In 1943, Rachel was promoted to Associate Aquatic Biologist. She and Maria Carson moved back to Washington. Rachel was promoted to Aquatic Biologist, then to Information Specialist in the Information division of FWS. She was involved in policy planning for the Office of the Coordinator of Fisheries. During the wartime, her research involved radar and sea studies.
In 1950, she sold her manuscripts for The Sea Around Us to Oxford University Press. The New Yorker published nine chapters in three parts in 1951 as “Profiles.” This was the first time a non-human subject was chosen for the column. Additionally, in 1951 she reassigned from the US Fish and Wildlife Service so she could become a full-time writer.
In 1953, Rachel delivered the only academic paper she ever made to the American Association for the Advancement of Science at symposium on the sea frontier. This work was called “The Edge of the Sea.”
In 1956, Rachel’s work, “Help Your Child to Wonder,” is published in Woman’s Home Companion. A few years later, in 1962, Rachel’s book, “Silent Spring” was published. And finally, Rachel dies on April 11, 1964, at the age of 58.