Silent Spring (1962)

Carson had already for a long time known about the side to DDT that not many people saw. Initially thought to only affect insects, the truth was that DDT could accumulate in the bodies of fish and wildlife and could kill when administered in larger concentrations. A lot of research was being done at the Patuxent Research Refuge, however nothing was being done to warn the public and to stop the rapidly increasing spread of DDT.

In 1958, Carson learned that Reader’s Digest was planning to publish an article favoring the use of DDT, she promptly wrote to them to caution them of the negative effects the pesticide actually had on the environment. Eventually, she decided to write a book to spread word of the dangers of DDT and how it not only contaminated soil, plants and water-bodies, but was also unintentionally poisoning wildlife and ecosystems world-wide.

Initially the title of a chapter that paints a future without birds and birdsong during springtime, “Silent Spring” was later chosen as the title of the book – a metaphor for a time where much less biodiversity exists in the world. Carson argues that human beings are not biologically evolved to live and survive in a chemically-altered world.

Carson’s no-nonsense arguments about the hazards of pesticide overuse (and radioactive fallout) on whole natural ecosystems was a cause of great alarm for the public when Silent Spring was finally published in 1962. 65,000 copies of the Silent Spring were sold in the first two weeks of being published and the book was named the main selection for the Book-of-the-Month Club in October 1962. The book even reached as far as the President (then John F. Kennedy), who mentioned the book in response to a question about pesticide overuse at a press conference.

However, with the book’s success came the anger of the chemicals industry, who were the ones making the harmful pesticides that Carson was talking about. They attempted to sue Carson’s publisher and accused Carson’s book of being full of oversimplifications and unscientific.

"Rachel Carson watching migrating hawks at Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania, 1945 (profile)" By Shirley A. Briggs, Courtesy of the Rachel Carson Council.

“Rachel Carson watching migrating hawks at Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania, 1945 (profile)”. By Shirley A. Briggs, Courtesy of the Rachel Carson Council.