MOST OF US WALK UNSEEING THROUGH THE WORLD, UNAWARE ALIKE OF ITS BEAUTIES, ITS WONDERS, AND THE STRANGE AND SOMETIMES TERRIBLE INTENSITY OF THE LIVES THAT ARE BEING LIVED ABOUT US.
A sense of wonder held the young child entranced as she explored the woods near her family's Pennsylvania home. She never tired of spending time in the out of doors, studying backyard biology, learning the words that described the relationships between herself and the plants and the animals around her. Rachel Carson never outgrew that sense of wonder. Rather, she cultivated it, learned to reveal it through the written word, and shared it with the world.
She was born on May 27, 1907 to Robert Warden and Maria (McLean) Carson in the rural community of Springdale, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. Though young Rachel had two siblings, Marian and Robert, she was comfortable in solitude, quietly learning her mother's love for nature, books, music, and a reverence for life.
When she was ten years old, Rachel published a story in St. Nicholas magazine, a popular periodical for children. This first entry in her bibliography placed her in a literary circle that includes E. E. Cummings, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and E. B. White, who also had articles published in St. Nicholas when they were young.
She went on to enroll in the Pennsylvania College for Women, now known as Chatham College, where she majored in English, intent on a writing career. She took a biology class that fascinated her and immediately switched majors saying, "Biology has given me something to write about." She graduated magna cum laude in 1929 and received a scholarship to Johns Hopkins University, where she took a Master of Science degree in zoology, completing her graduate work in 1932.
Life became very tough for Carson at that point. She was a young woman who had chosen to work in a field dominated by men, and the nation was deep in the throes of the Great Depression. To make matters worse, she had to support her parents on what she could earn teaching and working as a lab assistant at Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland. Her father died in 1935. Her sister died a year later, leaving Carson's two young nieces to the care of Carson and her mother.
Her situation improved when she was hired by the Bureau of Fisheries, now known as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Bureau hired her on a temporary basis in 1935 to write a series of radio spots on sea life, called "Romance Under the Waters." She soon won a post as junior aquatic biologist, becoming one of the Bureau's first women ever hired for a non-clerical position. Over her 16 years with the government, Carson was promoted to biologist, then editor-in-chief of Fish and Wildlife Service publications.
In 1937 she wrote a piece called "Undersea," intending it as an introduction to the Bureau's published version of the radio series for which she had been originally hired. Her boss, Elmer Higgins, felt the piece was too literary for his purposes and suggested she submit it to a literary magazine. She did, and the Atlantic Monthly published her submarine voyage into the deep waters of the sea in September 1937. It caught the attention of naturalists and writers alike, who encouraged her to develop the article into a book-length piece. Carson would later say that from "Undersea" "everything else followed."
What followed next was Under the Sea Wind, first published in 1941. Where "Undersea" took the reader on a poetic journey through the portals of a submarine, Under the Sea Wind inserts the reader into the environment — becoming one with the marine birds, fishes, and other animal life followed over the course of a year on the Atlantic Ocean. Unfortunately Under the Sea Wind was published just one month before Pearl Harbor. It did not sell well as America entered World War II, and had to wait another ten years before it would gain popularity on the heels of its author's runaway bestseller, The Sea Around Us.
Carson continued honing her skills, writing and editing government publications on biological topics. She decided to write her magnum opus, again taking the reader on a journey into the sea, but this time from the perspective of the scientist. The result was The Sea Around Us, published in 1950. Where previously the author had kept her own personality out of her writing, she now unabashedly proclaimed her enthusiasm for science and the sea as a tour guide through the then-current state of knowledge on all things oceanic. Her reverence for science and scientists is readily apparent and inspires the reader to learn more about both. The book sold very well, and enabled her to leave her position with Fish and Wildlife Service to pursue writing full-time.
Carson's logical sequel to The Sea Around Us was The Edge of the Sea, published in 1955. This book, too, earned her critical acclaim, and was on the New York Times best-sellers list for 23 weeks. The woman for whom, "biology gave me something to write about" had settled her reputation.
She intended to continue writing in this vein, but became increasingly aware of damage to the environment through the indiscriminate and unregulated use of chemical pesticides. In her status as one of America's prominent writers of scientific literature, Carson was kept in the loop on all things biological. Additionally, readers and fans would write to her telling of biological die-offs in their communities that seemed to be related to the spraying of insecticides. Carson became convinced that the war on bugs was killing birds as well. She began to research the literature and concluded that not only wildlife was endangered by pesticides but also the health and well-being of mankind. She learned of the carcinogenic effects of powerful organic chemicals, and felt someone needed to say something to draw attention to the dangers in which innocent and unknowing lives had been placed. She published Silent Spring in 1962, guaranteeing her a place among the most influential environmental writers of the 20th Century.
Silent Spring created such an uproar that Carson was now much in demand as a public speaker and an expert witness before Congress, testifying to the detrimental effects of indiscriminate use of pesticides. Her own health was failing — she had been diagnosed with cancer several years earlier — yet she continued to bear the torch, marching against the tide of opposition lobbied against her by the well financed chemical industry who saw her book as a direct threat to their economic well-being. She would not live to see the full fruits of her labors.
She published an article in the July 1956 issue of Woman's Home Companion called "Help Your Child to Wonder." She had hoped to expand the article into a book that parents could use to help them instill scientific curiosity in their children. She was unable to complete the project, but others completed it for her, publishing picture-book treatments of the article in 1965 and again in 1998. The most recent version of The Sense of Wonder is a beautifully photographed interpretation of Carson's essay, shot along the north Atlantic coast of which she writes. In addition, numerous books have been written about Rachel Carson, including Paul Brooks', The House of Life: Rachel Carson at Work, published in 1972, and Carol Gartner's biography, Rachel Carson, published in 1983.
Rachel Carson died of breast cancer and heart failure on April 14, 1964. She was 56 years old. Her funeral, held at National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., was attended by such environmental notables as Stewart Udall, then Secretary of the Interior. But her work did not end with her life. As we shall see in her legacy, she continued the fight against pesticides long after her death. Over the next two decades the newly created Environmental Protection Agency would fund the Rachel Carson Award for scientific merit, and President Jimmy Carter would posthumously bestow upon her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Her avowed mission was to "shock the complacency" out of the public. She did. But she did something more: Rachel Carson taught us to explore our own place within the environment. She encouraged every one of us to understand the science that affects our daily lives. She instilled a sense of wonder in an entire generation. Rachel Carson asked, "Who has known the ocean?"
As we explore Under the Sea Wind, we know it was she.
Fly, swim, and stroll through the food web along the shores of the eastern seaboard as Carson takes us on a guided tour of the wildlife resident there—including Homo sapiens.
Read "Flood Tide" in Under the Sea-Wind
Carson takes us to the top of the food chain as we participate in the efforts of a fishing crew intent on netting a school of feeding mackerel. We go below to swim with the prey, only to discover a greater threat lurking in the depths.
Read "Seine Haul" in Under the Sea-Wind
We travel full circle — a year, a generation of eels — to feel the rhythms of life syncopated by the rhythms of other species, then step back to observe the larger rhythms of the Earth itself.
Read "Return" in Under the Sea-Wind
Rachel Carson introduced herself as an ecologist and a writer through publication of "Undersea." The article met with considerable success and she was encouraged to develop her ideas into a book-length work. The result was Under the Sea Wind, a series of interconnected "short stories" told from the perspective of marine wildlife. Her status as both an ecologist and a writer was firmly established. Unfortunately a decade would pass before more than a few readers knew it.
Under the Sea Wind goes further than establishing Carson's credentials, however. She used the book as a vehicle for pointing out errors committed by humans in their interactions with marine life, in addition to simply describing life from the vantage point of inhabitants of the sea. Humans are the only species in Carson's work that fight among themselves for economic gain, and their methods of capturing prey are cruel and inhumane. One easily detects a note of misanthropy whenever humans are on the water. Or is there something darker at work here?
All of the humans encountered are male. Of course — they are fishermen, ruthless exterminators of marine wildlife upsetting the natural order of things and all the while bickering over the best fishing spots. But when we look at all of the species' habits a pattern emerges: males prey; females spawn. If Abbey can be accused of misogyny, I think it is only fair to raise the question in Carson's work. The only problem is, the English language does not have a male equivalent for misogyny, the mistrust or hatred of women. Misanthropy does not work because it refers to all of mankind — Homo sapiens — including the female of the species. No, I believe we need a new word, one that describes the mistrust or hatred of men. I would like to submit misandry. I admit it does not roll off the tongue as easily as the four-syllable words applied to men who mistrust or hate women, or people who mistrust or hate all mankind. But now that women are speaking their mind, it is clear we need a word to describe the feelings of mistrust or hatred women may feel toward men.
Labeling Carson as a misandrist does not in the least, however, detract from her ability to describe the world of ecology. On the contrary, a writer unwilling to overlook the undesirable characteristics of the male of the species will be more effective in speaking out against the atrocities committed by mankind. Human atrocities are usually committed by men. More importantly, Carson uses a voice at once confident and inoffensive. In Under the Sea Wind, male cruelties are simply a part of life.
The book begins by setting the reader in a monochrome world dominated by the presence of ocean water. The tone of "Flood Tide" is detached, descriptive. There is no nostalgia for this world, only water, a bit of land surrounded by water, and a solitary flyer called Rynchops, the scientific name for the black skimmer. We watch without affection as Rynchops plies his trade as a flying fisher of shallow waters. Gray turns nearly black as the cloudy twilight becomes night, the moon mostly obscured. We observe others. Diamondback terrapins finish laying their eggs and head back to the relative safety of the sea. A male rat, "crafty with the cunning of years and filled with the lust for blood," detects the scent of terrapin eggs, finds their nest, and feasts on them, including a young hatchling from another nest. Justice is immediately served by a male blue heron who surprises the rat, spears him and eats him.
We enter the water to follow roe shad returning to spawn, become caught up in a fight between gill-netting fishermen and those who utilize pound nets as we watch innumerable fish die unseemly deaths by suffocation in the inhumane devices of the gill-netters. Justice is served this time by the eels of the estuary, all male, who attack the netted shad, gorge themselves on shad caviar, and leave the fishermen with nets full of bones and fish heads. Males prey — females spawn.
Still there is no denying the truth in Carson's arguments. Gill nets are cruel. Fishermen are infamous for bickering among themselves. I have no doubt eels will take advantage of fish caught in gill nets, given half a chance. Carson could have written the predaceous rat as a female character, or the blue heron that spears the rat — in real life, females eat too — but she chose not to. In one simple, seemingly innocuous opening chapter, Carson reveals herself as a knowledgeable ecologist, a confident writer, and a woman on a mission. We immediately accept her version of marine ecology, including its misandrist implications.
In "Seine Haul" we board a fishing vessel as its crew works the offshore waters for mackerel. The vessel and crew coalesce into one predatory organism: "a giant fish swimming at the surface." The reader is tempted to accuse Carson of anthropomorphism, but she is well ahead of us and not about to fall into that trap. Instead she employs the perspective of the prey mackerel, in particular an individual named Scomber — the scientific name for mackerel — to describe the activities of the fishermen. This reverse anthropomorphism might be better called piscimorphism, as the protaganist ascribes fishlike qualities to the preying humans and their machinery. This clever device enables Carson to portray the world of the mackerel, including the mackerel's most dangerous predator, in a way that strikes the reader as completely trustworthy. Our confidence in Carson's ecology deepens.
She completes the cycle of food web death and rebirth with the final chapter, called "Return," in which we follow migrating eels from birth in the twilight zone depths above the abyssal floor of the Atlantic, up to the feeding grounds of the surface sargassum, and along the coast of North America as they drift with warmwater currents toward their instinctual destinations, the estuaries (males) and streams (females) of the eastern seaboard.
Carson makes this impossible journey believable by freely admitting unknown facts where they are unknowable. "No one knows how the eels traveled to their common destination," she says, then offers plausible explanations using current knowledge along with intelligent use of evolutionary theory to move the eels from their North American habitats to their mid-Atlantic spawning grounds. In her "Preface to the 1961 Edition" of her bestseller, The Sea Around Us, Carson corrects her previous descriptions of the abyss. She undoubtedly would have done the same for Under the Sea Wind if she had lived to see a second edition.
She guides us along the route of heroic elvers following the trail of their mothers, against the currents of rushing streams swollen with newly melted snows, forcing rapid physiological changes to tolerate and thrive in fresh waters where they had previously known only salt. The males do not take this plunge, so remain in the brackish waters of coastal estuaries, yet the females swim onward — "No hardship and no obstacle would deter them." If Carson were not a preeminent ecologist, she would surely have been a prominent feminist. She ends the book on an evolutionary note, rapidly taking the reader through geological epochs of sea waters rising and falling, mountains eroding and forming, the cities of men long since forgotten while the eels swim on, ever navigating old waters anew.
Under the Sea Wind is significant for the radiant scientific confidence that it establishes for the author in the mind of her reader. We are convinced Carson understands the food web, the foundation of that branch of biology known as ecology. It firmly establishes the voice of a writer with a message, a qualified critic of the society in which she lives. The book failed to immediately gain the audience it deserved due to the economic facts of World War II (an atrocity foisted upon the world largely by the male of the species). Regardless, it sets the stage for Carson's later writings, including Silent Spring, to which we now turn.
Carson paints a picture of a silent spring sometime, somewhere in America.
Read "A Fable for Tomorrow" in Silent Spring
