Carson pursued postgraduate studies in Zoology at John Hopkins University, taking up part-time jobs like research assistantships to finance her education. She earned her master’s degree in 1932. She had originally intended to pursue her doctorate but she left to search for a full-time teaching position to financially support her family. In 1935, her father passed suddenly, leaving her to care for her aging mother amid their already critical financial situation.

Eventually Carson got a job at the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries, at the urging of her school teacher Mary Scott Skinker. She took over the job of writing radio copies of 7-minute programs intended to generate public interest in marine life, garnering a success never before seen by her predecessors. During this time she also wrote articles in local newspapers and magazines based on her research for those programs. Impressed by her success, her supervisor worked to secure her first full-time position available. She topped the civil service exam and became the 2nd woman to join the Bureau as a full-time professional junior aquatic biologist in 1936. She went on to conduct research on marine life at Chesapeake Bay to write for the Bureau and eventually, it caught the attention of a publishing house. It was a turning point in Carson’s career and she would publish her first book in 1941 and eventually become a full-time writer in 1948.

For more information on Carson’s writing career, please refer to the page “Sea Trilogy“.

Financial Challenges

The Carsons’ socioeconomic status continued to decline but Carson displayed her determination with support from her university mentor. Eventually, it led her into a career where she is able to pursue a unique combination of both of her passions at once: literature and marine biology.