NEW CANAAN ADVERTISER, NEW CANAAN, CONN., THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2007 PAGE 7A

Eco Man

A holiday for Rachel Carson

By Richard M. Stowe

Born on May 27, 1907 to a nature-loving mom, the youngest of three children, in a simple, quaint farmhouse near Springdale, Pennsylvania, 15 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, an area now covered by modern artifacts such as the Galleria at Pittsburgh Mills and Pennsylvania Turnpike, Rachel Carson, in her 56 years, grew to be one of the America’s most influential citizens.

Ms. Carson attended what is today known as Chatham University, just twelve miles from her birthplace.  She studied English, Creative Writing, majored in marine biology and graduated magna cum laude in 1929.  On scholarship at John Hopkins University, she received a masters of arts degree in zoology in 1932.

Hired by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries to write radio script, Ms. Carson became the first woman to take and pass the civil service test and second hired by the Bureau of Fisheries for a full time professional position.  In 1936, Rachel Carson was a junior aquatic biologist; in 1949 she rose to editor-in-chief for all U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service publications.

In 1951, Oxford University Press published Ms. Carson’s first commercially successful book.  “The Sea Around Us” remained on The New York Times bestseller list for 86 weeks, won the 1952 National Book Award and was subsequently adapted as an hour-long Oscar-winning documentary film.

With newfound financial security, Rachel Carson became a full-time writer.  She summered north of Portland, Maine in a seaside cottage she purchased on Southport Island, the beach and tide pools of which became the subject of her 1955 book, “The Edge of the Sea.”

But it was “Silent Spring,” published in 1962, in which Rachel Louise Carson summoned the public’s conscience in a manner that no American female author has done since Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was published 110 years earlier.

In January 1958, the Boston Herald published a letter by Olga Owens Huckins in which she expressed outrage at aerial spraying of pesticides over her family’s private two-acre bird sanctuary in Duxbury, Mass., in 1957.  The goal of spraying was to kill mosquitoes; the lethal result – many dead birds.  Ms. Carson attributes that letter, forwarded to her by Ms. Huckins, as her deciding factor to write “Silent Spring.”

It was while writing Silent Spring, a book that criticizes the reckless application of pesticides, that Ms. Carson was diagnosed with breast cancer.

In a speech to the National Women’s Press Club on December 4, 1962, Ms. Rachel Carson said, “Early in the summer as soon as the first installment of the book appeared in The New Yorker, public reaction to Silent Spring was reflected first in a tidal wave of letters – letters to Congressman, letters to government agencies, to newspapers …”

But Ms. Carson also acknowledged pesticide industry and trade association-sponsored “masters of invective” who personally attacked her and her work in an “unquiet autumn” public relations strategy “designed to protect and repair the somewhat battered image of pesticides.”

The language in Silent Spring was prophetic; read the opening paragraph of the closing chapter.

Whether you reflect on the emerging pollinator crisis or challenge of climate change, her words are timeless.

In December 2006, a list of the 100 most influential Americans of all time appeared in The Atlantic Magazine story entitled “They Made America.”  A panel of ten eminent historians ranked Rachel Carson number 39.  Among women, only Elizabeth Cady Stanton (30) and Susan B. Anthony (38) placed higher.

The premiere Environmental Protection Agency conference room is the Rachel Carson Room, but she deserves greater recognition.

As the centennial of her birth passes on Sunday, it’s time for Congress to dedicate her birthday as a Federal holiday, a first for a woman or an environmentalist. Her birthday would be celebrated on either Friday or Tuesday of Memorial Day weekend creating the nation’s first four-day holiday weekend.

Richard M. Stowe is president of the New Canaan Environmental Group. Prior to that he served six years as a board member for the Environmental Council of Stamford, and advocates for improving conditions for commuter rail and bicycling via Rail Transportation Excellence Coalition. He received a bachelor of science degree in environmental science from Marlboro College in 1980.