Fast facts about Rachel Carson

During the month of March, we’re highlighting the great contributions made by women throughout history.

But we can't celebrate the Women's History Month and the beginning of the spring without mentioning in here Rachel Carson and her contribution.

Rachel Carson was an American marine biologist and author of the book “Silent Spring”, which describes the harmful effects of pesticides on the environment and had a great impact on launching the global environmental movements.

Here are some facts about Rachel Carson you probably didn’t know about:

1.Rachel Carson began writing stories (often involving animals) at age eight and had her first story published at age ten.

2. She earned a master's degree in zoology in June 1932.

3. During the Great Depression in 1934 and after her father's sudden death in 1935, she was forced to interrupt the studies for a doctorate to support her family that was already in critical financial situation.

4. In 1936, became the second woman hired by the Bureau of Fisheries for a full-time professional position, as a junior aquatic biologist.

5. “Silent Spring”, Carson's best-known book, was published by Houghton Mifflin on 27 September 1962.

6. “The Sea Around Us”, also the bestseller book that was written before the “Silent Spring”, has resulted in Carson's being awarded two honorary doctorates. She also licensed a documentary film based on it.

7. Carson's work had a powerful impact on the environmental movement. According to environmental engineer and Carson scholar H. Patricia Hynes, "Silent Spring” altered the balance of power in the world. No one since would be able to sell pollution as the necessary underside of progress so easily or uncritically.

8. Carson's work not only inspired the deep ecology movement and the strength of the grassroots environmental movement, but it was also influential on the rising of ecofeminism and on many feminist scientists.

9. The conflict of interest in the Department of Agriculture(USDA) she saw at the time, both for regulating pesticides and promoting the concerns of the agriculture industry, was another concern that Carson had brought to light and results on the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) by the Nixon Administration.

10. Carson was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Jimmy Carter.