Rachel Carson
Rachel Carson was born May 27th, 1907 in Pennsylvania, USA. Her love of marine biology drove her to attend Pennsylvania College for Women and then John Hopkins University for graduate school. She went on to work at the US Bureau of Fisheries, where she helped to produce several essays and brochures. Carson’s writing was enjoyed by many, with her work being published in several magazines. She decided to pursue writing further, producing several books with critics’ acclaim.
Around 1945, Carson uncovered the issue of DDT, a widely used pesticide destroying ecosystems across the country; yet, the government was funding the programs actively spraying the chemicals all over. To save the wildlife she held dear, Carson wrote Silent Spring, a detailed and gripping book about the destruction DDT caused to the environment. Due to her previous successes as an author, Carson’s newest release sold like wildfire. The country began calling for a DDT ban, and further research on the pesticide’s effects. President John F. Kennedy created a special task force to ‘fact-check’ Carson’s claims, which concluded that Carson had told the truth. The government started to push out pesticide regulations, and with it came the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970. Carson unfortunately died in 1964 due to cancer, before seeing the fruits of her labor.
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