Rachel Carson is the author of Silent Spring, a book that revealed how humans are inadvertently destroying nature. It actually led to a bunch of regulations to help conserve nature, including the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
She went to college for English then received a Ph.D in zoology from Johns Hopkins. Throughout grad school, she published pieces in various magazines. Apparently, her initial pitch to investigate the dangers of pesticides was turned down, so she published several books about marine life instead… and she was really good at it! I haven’t read her earlier works, but her writing was known to be poetic and lyrical. Then, following WWII (after learning more about the impact humankind has on the environment), she turned her attention back to writing about pesticides and published Silent Spring in 1962.
Side note, she might have been a closeted lesbian; she would share intimate notes with a friend and keep the letters under her pillow. Carson lived when homosexuality was a crime, so the secrecy makes sense, but I wish that this side of her could be celebrated more openly now.
*I’m trying to paint 100 portraits between larger projects. This one was my first attempt at digital painting… Obviously, it was a bit of a struggle and who knows what happened here, but I’m learning!
Originally posted on Instagram March 6, 2020
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