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Sep 13, 2014 - Download full-text PDF. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Science, Technology, and Society, MIT. [This essay appeared in the Fall.

Silent Spring is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson.^[1] The book was published on September 27, 1962, documenting the adverse environmental effects caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting the industry's marketing claims unquestioningly.

Starting in the late 1950s, prior to the book's publication, Carson had focused her attention on environmental conservation, especially environmental problems that she believed were caused by synthetic pesticides. The result of her research was Silent Spring, which brought environmental concerns to the American public. The book was met with fierce opposition by chemical companies, but, owing to public opinion, it brought about numerous changes. It spurred a reversal in the United States' national pesticide policy, led to a nationwide ban on DDT for agricultural uses,^[2] and helped to inspire an environmental movement that led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.^[3][4]

Over three decades later, in 1996, a follow-up book, Beyond Silent Spring, co-written by H.F. van Emden and David Peakall, was published.^[5][6] In 2006, Silent Spring was named one of the 25 greatest science books of all time by the editors of Discovermagazine.^[7]

• 5Impact

Research and writing[edit]

In the mid-1940s, Carson became concerned about the use of synthetic pesticides, many of which had been developed through the military funding of science after World War II. The United States Department of Agriculture's 1957 fire ant eradication program, which involved aerial spraying of DDT and other pesticides mixed with fuel oil and included the spraying of private land, prompted Carson to devote her research, and her next book, to pesticides and environmental poisons.^[8][9] Landowners in Long Island filed a suit to have the spraying stopped, and many in affected regions followed the case closely.^[3] Though the suit was lost, the Supreme Court granted petitioners the right to gain injunctions against potential environmental damage in the future, laying the basis for later environmental actions.^[3][10][11]

The impetus for Silent Spring was a letter written in January 1958 by Carson's friend, Olga Owens Huckins, to The Boston Herald, describing the death of birds around her property resulting from the aerial spraying of DDT to kill mosquitoes, a copy of which Huckins sent to Carson.^[12][13][13] Carson later wrote that this letter prompted her to study the environmental problems caused by chemical pesticides.^[14][15]

The Audubon Naturalist Society actively opposed chemical spraying programs and recruited Carson to help publicize the U.S. government's spraying practices and related research.^[16] Carson began the four-year project of Silent Spring by gathering examples of environmental damage attributed to DDT. She tried to enlist essayist E. B. White and a number of journalists and scientists to her cause. By 1958, Carson had arranged a book deal, with plans to co-write with Newsweek science journalist Edwin Diamond. However, when The New Yorker commissioned a long and well-paid article on the topic from Carson, she began considering writing more than the introduction and conclusion as planned; soon it became a solo project. Diamond would later write one of the harshest critiques of Silent Spring.^[17]

As her research progressed, Carson found a sizable community of scientists who were documenting the physiological and environmental effects of pesticides.^[3] She took advantage of her personal connections with many government scientists, who supplied her with confidential information on the subject. From reading the scientific literature and interviewing scientists, Carson found two scientific camps: those who dismissed the possible danger of pesticide spraying barring conclusive proof, and those who were open to the possibility of harm and, willing to consider alternative methods, such as biological pest control.^[18]

By 1959, the USDA's Agricultural Research Service responded to the criticism by Carson and others with a public service film, Fire Ants on Trial; Carson called it 'flagrant propaganda' that ignored the dangers that spraying pesticides posed to humans and wildlife. That spring, Carson wrote a letter, published in The Washington Post, that attributed the recent decline in bird populations—in her words, the 'silencing of birds'—to pesticide overuse.^[19] The same year, the 1957, 1958, and 1959 crops of U.S. cranberries were found to contain high levels of the herbicide aminotriazole and the sale of all cranberry products was halted. Carson attended the ensuing FDA hearings on revising pesticide regulations; she was discouraged by the aggressive tactics of the chemical industry representatives, which included expert testimony that was firmly contradicted by the bulk of the scientific literature she had been studying. She also wondered about the possible 'financial inducements behind certain pesticide programs'.^[20]

Research at the Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health brought Carson into contact with medical researchers investigating the gamut of cancer-causing chemicals. Of particular significance was the work of National Cancer Institute researcher and founding director of the environmental cancer section Wilhelm Hueper, who classified many pesticides as carcinogens. Carson and her research assistant Jeanne Davis, with the help of NIH librarian Dorothy Algire, found evidence to support the pesticide-cancer connection; to Carson the evidence for the toxicity of a wide array of synthetic pesticides was clear-cut, though such conclusions were very controversial beyond the small community of scientists studying pesticide carcinogenesis.^[21]

Rachel Carson Silent Spring Summary

By 1960, Carson had sufficient research material and the writing was progressing rapidly. She had investigated hundreds of individual incidents of pesticide exposure and the resulting human sickness and ecological damage. In January 1960, she suffered an illness which kept her bedridden for weeks, delaying the book. As she was nearing full recovery in March, she discovered cysts in her left breast, requiring a mastectomy. By December that year, Carson discovered that she had breast cancer, which had metastasized.^[22] Her research was also delayed by revision work for a new edition of The Sea Around Us, and by a collaborative photo essay with Erich Hartmann.^[23] Most of the research and writing was done by the fall of 1960, except for a discussion of recent research on biological controls and investigations of some new pesticides. However, further health troubles delayed the final revisions in 1961 and early 1962.^[24]

Its title was inspired by a poem by John Keats, 'La Belle Dame sans Merci', which contained the lines 'The sedge is wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing.'^[25] 'Silent Spring' was initially suggested as a title for the chapter on birds. By August 1961, Carson agreed to the suggestion of her literary agent Marie Rodell: Silent Spring would be a metaphorical title for the entire book—suggesting a bleak future for the whole natural world—rather than a literal chapter title about the absence of birdsong.^[26] With Carson's approval, editor Paul Brooks at Houghton Mifflin arranged for illustrations by Louis and Lois Darling, who also designed the cover. The final writing was the first chapter, 'A Fable for Tomorrow', which was intended to provide a gentle introduction to a serious topic. By mid-1962, Brooks and Carson had largely finished the editing and were planning to promote the book by sending the manuscript to select individuals for final suggestions.^[27] In Silent Spring, Carson relied on evidence from two New York state organic farmers, Marjorie Spock and Mary Richards, and that of biodynamic farming advocate Ehrenfried Pfeiffer in developing her case against DDT.^[3]

Content[edit]

The overarching theme of Silent Spring is the powerful—and often negative—effect humans have on the natural world.^[28] Carson's main argument is that pesticides have detrimental effects on the environment; she says these are more properly termed 'biocides' because their effects are rarely limited to the target pests. DDT is a prime example, but other synthetic pesticides—many of which are subject to bioaccumulation—are scrutinized. Carson accuses the chemical industry of intentionally spreading disinformation and public officials of accepting industry claims uncritically. Most of the book is devoted to pesticides' effects on natural ecosystems, but four chapters detail cases of human pesticide poisoning, cancer, and other illnesses attributed to pesticides.^[29] About DDT and cancer, Carson says only:

In laboratory tests on animal subjects, DDT has produced suspicious liver tumors. Scientists of the Food and Drug Administration who reported the discovery of these tumors were uncertain how to classify them, but felt there was some 'justification for considering them low grade hepatic cell carcinomas.' Dr. Hueper [author of Occupational Tumors and Allied Diseases] now gives DDT the definite rating of a 'chemical carcinogen.'^[30]

Carson predicts increased consequences in the future, especially since targeted pests may develop resistance to pesticides and weakened ecosystems fall prey to unanticipated invasive species. The book closes with a call for a biotic approach to pest control as an alternative to chemical pesticides.^[31]

Carson never called for an outright ban on DDT. She said in Silent Spring that even if DDT and other insecticides had no environmental side effects, their indiscriminate overuse was counterproductive because it would create insect resistance to pesticides, making them useless in eliminating the target insect populations:

No responsible person contends that insect-borne disease should be ignored. The question that has now urgently presented itself is whether it is either wise or responsible to attack the problem by methods that are rapidly making it worse. The world has heard much of the triumphant war against disease through the control of insect vectors of infection, but it has heard little of the other side of the story—the defeats, the short-lived triumphs that now strongly support the alarming view that the insect enemy has been made actually stronger by our efforts. Even worse, we may have destroyed our very means of fighting.^[32]

Carson also said that 'Malaria programmes are threatened by resistance among mosquitoes',^[33] and quoted the advice given by the director of Holland's Plant Protection Service: 'Practical advice should be 'Spray as little as you possibly can' rather than 'Spray to the limit of your capacity'. Pressure on the pest population should always be as slight as possible.'^[34]

Promotion and reception[edit]

Carson and the others involved with publication of Silent Spring expected fierce criticism and were concerned about the possibility of being sued for libel. Carson was undergoing radiation therapy for her cancer and expected to have little energy to defend her work and respond to critics. In preparation for the anticipated attacks, Carson and her agent attempted to amass prominent supporters before the book's release.^[35]

Most of the book's scientific chapters were reviewed by scientists with relevant expertise, among whom Carson found strong support. Carson attended the White House Conference on Conservation in May 1962; Houghton Mifflin distributed proof copies of Silent Spring to many of the delegates and promoted the upcoming serialization in The New Yorker. Carson also sent a proof copy to Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas, a long-time environmental advocate who had argued against the court's rejection of the Long Island pesticide spraying case and had provided Carson with some of the material included in her chapter on herbicides.^[36]

Though Silent Spring had generated a fairly high level of interest based on pre-publication promotion, this became more intense with its serialization, which began in the June 16, 1962, issue.^[37] This brought the book to the attention of the chemical industry and its lobbyists, as well as the American public. Around that time, Carson learned that Silent Spring had been selected as the Book-of-the-Month for October; she said this would 'carry it to farms and hamlets all over that country that don't know what a bookstore looks like—much less The New Yorker.'^[38] Other publicity included a positive editorial in The New York Times and excerpts of the serialized version were published in Audubon Magazine. There was another round of publicity in July and August as chemical companies responded. The story of the birth defect-causing drug thalidomide had broken just before the book's publication, inviting comparisons between Carson and Frances Oldham Kelsey, the Food and Drug Administration reviewer who had blocked the drug's sale in the United States.^[39]

In the weeks before the September 27, 1962, publication, there was strong opposition to Silent Spring from the chemical industry. DuPont, a major manufacturer of DDT and 2,4-D, and Velsicol Chemical Company, the only manufacturer of chlordane and heptachlor, were among the first to respond. DuPont compiled an extensive report on the book's press coverage and estimated impact on public opinion. Velsicol threatened legal action against Houghton Mifflin, and The New Yorker and Audubon Magazine unless their planned Silent Spring features were canceled. Chemical industry representatives and lobbyists lodged a range of non-specific complaints, some anonymously. Chemical companies and associated organizations produced brochures and articles promoting and defending pesticide use. However, Carson's and the publishers' lawyers were confident in the vetting process Silent Spring had undergone. The magazine and book publications proceeded as planned, as did the large Book-of-the-Month printing, which included a pamphlet by William O. Douglas endorsing the book.^[41]

American Cyanamid biochemist Robert White-Stevens and former Cyanamid chemist Thomas Jukes were among the most aggressive critics, especially of Carson's analysis of DDT.^[42] According to White-Stevens, 'If man were to follow the teachings of Miss Carson, we would return to the Dark Ages, and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the earth'.^[1] Others attacked Carson's personal character and scientific credentials, her training being in marine biology rather than biochemistry. White-Stevens called her 'a fanatic defender of the cult of the balance of nature',^[43] while former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson in a letter to former President Dwight D. Eisenhower reportedly said that because she was unmarried despite being physically attractive, she was 'probably a Communist'.^[44]

Monsanto published 5000 copies of a parody called 'The Desolate Year' (1962) which projected a world of famine and disease caused by banning pesticides.^[45]

Many critics repeatedly said Carson was calling for the elimination of all pesticides, but she had made it clear she was not advocating this but was instead encouraging responsible and carefully managed use with an awareness of the chemicals' impact on ecosystems.^[46] She concludes her section on DDT in Silent Spring with advice for spraying as little as possible to limit the development of resistance.^[47]Mark Hamilton Lytle writes, Carson 'quite self-consciously decided to write a book calling into question the paradigm of scientific progress that defined postwar American culture'.^[28]

The academic community—including prominent defenders such as H. J. Muller, Loren Eiseley, Clarence Cottam and Frank Egler—mostly backed the book's scientific claims and public opinion backed Carson's text. The chemical industry campaign was counterproductive because the controversy increased public awareness of the potential dangers of pesticides. Pesticide use became a major public issue after a CBS Reports television special, The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson, which was broadcast on April 3, 1963. The program included segments of Carson reading from Silent Spring and interviews with other experts, mostly critics including White-Stevens. According to biographer Linda Lear, 'in juxtaposition to the wild-eyed, loud-voiced Dr. Robert White-Stevens in white lab coat, Carson appeared anything but the hysterical alarmist that her critics contended'.^[48] Reactions from the estimated audience of ten to fifteen million were overwhelmingly positive and the program spurred a congressional review of pesticide hazards and the public release of a pesticide report by the President's Science Advisory Committee.^[49] Within a year of publication, attacks on the book and on Carson had lost momentum.^[50][51]

In one of her last public appearances, Carson testified before President John F. Kennedy's Science Advisory Committee, which issued its report on May 15, 1963, largely backing Carson's scientific claims.^[52] Following the report's release, Carson also testified before a U.S. Senate subcommittee to make policy recommendations. Though Carson received hundreds of other speaking invitations, she was unable to accept most of them because her health was steadily declining, with only brief periods of remission. She spoke as much as she could, and appeared on The Today Show and gave speeches at several dinners held in her honor. In late 1963, she received a flurry of awards and honors: the Audubon Medal from the National Audubon Society, the Cullum Geographical Medal from the American Geographical Society, and induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.^[53]

Other countries and languages[edit]

The book was translated into German (under the title: Der stumme Frühling), with the first German edition appearing in 1963, followed by a number of later editions.^[54]

It was translated into French (as Le printemps silencieux), with the first French edition also appearing in 1963.^[55]

In 1965 Silent Spring was published in USSR in Russian (under the title Безмолвная весна).^[56]

The book's Italian title is Primavera silenziosa.;^[57] and the Spanish title is Primavera silenciosa.^[58]

It was translated to Swedish and published in 1963, titled Tyst vår.

Impact[edit]

Grassroots environmentalism and the EPA[edit]

Carson's work had a powerful impact on the environmental movement. Silent Spring became a rallying point for the new social movement in the 1960s. 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.'^[59] Carson's work and the activism it inspired are partly responsible for the deep ecology movement and the strength of the grassroots environmental movement since the 1960s. It was also influential on the rise of ecofeminism and on many feminist scientists.^[60] Carson's most direct legacy in the environmental movement was the campaign to ban the use of DDT in the United States, and related efforts to ban or limit its use throughout the world. The 1967 formation of the Environmental Defense Fund was the first major milestone in the campaign against DDT. The organization brought lawsuits against the government to 'establish a citizen's right to a clean environment', and the arguments against DDT largely mirrored Carson's. By 1972, the Environmental Defense Fund and other activist groups had succeeded in securing a phase-out of DDT use in the United States, except in emergency cases.^[61]

The creation of the Environmental Protection Agency by the Nixon Administration in 1970 addressed another concern that Carson had written about. Until then, the USDA was responsible both for regulating pesticides and promoting the concerns of the agriculture industry; Carson saw this as a conflict of interest, since the agency was not responsible for effects on wildlife or other environmental concerns beyond farm policy. Fifteen years after its creation, one journalist described the EPA as 'the extended shadow of Silent Spring'. Much of the agency's early work, such as enforcement of the 1972 Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, was directly related to Carson's work.^[62] Contrary to the position of the pesticide industry, the DDT phase-out action taken by the EPA (led by William Ruckelshaus) implied that there was no way to adequately regulate DDT use. Ruckelshaus' conclusion was that DDT could not be used safely.^[63] History professor Gary Kroll wrote, 'Rachel Carson's Silent Spring played a large role in articulating ecology as a 'subversive subject'—as a perspective that cuts against the grain of materialism, scientism, and the technologically engineered control of nature.'^[64]

In a 2013 interview, Ruckelshaus briefly recounted his decision to ban DDT except for emergency uses, noting that Carson's book featured DDT and for that reason the issue drew considerable public attention.^[65]

Former Vice President of the United States and environmentalist Al Gore wrote an introduction to the 1992 edition of Silent Spring. He wrote: 'Silent Spring had a profound impact ... Indeed, Rachel Carson was one of the reasons that I became so conscious of the environment and so involved with environmental issues ... [she] has had as much or more effect on me than any, and perhaps than all of them together.'^[1]

Criticisms of environmentalism and DDT restrictions[edit]

Carson and the environmental movement were—and continue to be—criticized by some who argue that restrictions on the use of pesticides—specifically DDT—have caused tens of millions of needless deaths and hampered agriculture, and implicitly that Carson was responsible for inciting such restrictions.^[66][67][68] These arguments have been dismissed as 'outrageous' by former WHO scientist Socrates Litsios. May Berenbaum, University of Illinois entomologist, says, 'to blame environmentalists who oppose DDT for more deaths than Hitler is worse than irresponsible.'^[69] Investigative journalist Adam Sarvana and others characterize this notion as a 'myth' promoted principally by Roger Bate of the pro-DDT advocacy group Africa Fighting Malaria (AFM).^[70][71]

In the 2000s, criticism of the bans of DDT that her work prompted intensified.^[72][73] In 2009, the libertarian think tankCompetitive Enterprise Institute set up a website saying, 'Millions of people around the world suffer the painful and often deadly effects of malaria because one person sounded a false alarm. That person is Rachel Carson.'^[73][74] A 2012 review article in Nature by Rob Dunn^[75] commemorating the 50th anniversary of Silent Spring prompted a response in a letter written by Anthony Trewavas and co-signed by 10 others, including Christopher Leaver, Bruce Ames, Richard Tren and Peter Lachmann, who quote estimates of 60 to 80 million deaths 'as a result of misguided fears based on poorly understood evidence'.^[76]

Biographer Hamilton Lytle believes these estimates are unrealistic, even if Carson can be 'blamed' for worldwide DDT policies.^[77]John Quiggin and Tim Lambert wrote, 'the most striking feature of the claim against Carson is the ease with which it can be refuted'. DDT was never banned for anti-malarial use, and its ban for agricultural use in the United States in 1972 did not apply outside the U.S. nor to anti-malaria spraying.^[78][79] The international treaty that banned most uses of DDT and other organochlorine pesticides—the 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (which became effective in 2004)—included an exemption for the use of DDT for malaria control until affordable substitutes could be found.^[72] Mass outdoor spraying of DDT was abandoned in poor countries subject to malaria, such as Sri Lanka, in the 1970s and 1980s; this was not because of government prohibitions but because the DDT had lost its ability to kill the mosquitoes.^[72] Because of insects' very short breeding cycle and large number of offspring, the most resistant insects survive and pass on their genetic traits to their offspring, which replace the pesticide-slain insects relatively rapidly. Agricultural spraying of pesticides produces pesticide resistance in seven to ten years.^[80]

Some experts have said that restrictions placed on the agricultural use of DDT have increased its effectiveness for malaria control. According to pro-DDT advocate Amir Attaran, the result of the (activated in 2004) Stockholm Convention banning DDT's use in agriculture 'is arguably better than the status quo ... For the first time, there is now an insecticide which is restricted to vector control only, meaning that the selection of resistant mosquitoes will be slower than before.'^[81]

While Carson gave accurate accounts of the scientific consensus at the time she wrote the book, much has changed in a half century. For example, the linkage between agricultural chemicals and disease, especially cancer, remains 'frustratingly murky.' Charles C. Mann argued in 2018:^[82]

Carson compounded the problem by combining her overconfidence with another then-prevalent ecological error, the belief that natural systems tend to evolve into a balanced state, a community of interconnected species that persists in perpetual equilibrium unless disturbed by humans....In this view, ecosystems have a place and function for every creature and every species in them, and all work together as a kind of 'superorganism.' When people wipe out species, they are, in effect, destroying the vital organs of this superorganism. They are heedlessly upsetting the balance of nature, which could bring down the whole ecosystem—a spiritual as well as ecological catastrophe. Unfortunately, nature is not, in fact, in balance. Instead ecosystems are temporary, chaotic assemblages of species, with relations between them and their environment in constant flux.

Legacy[edit]

Silent Spring has been featured in many lists of the best nonfiction books of the twentieth century. It was fifth in the Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Nonfiction and number 78 in the National Review's 100 best non-fiction books of the 20th century.^[83] In 2006, Silent Spring was named one of the 25 greatest science books of all time by the editors of Discover Magazine.^[7] In 2012, the American Chemical Society designated the legacy of Silent Spring a National Historic Chemical Landmark at Chatham University in Pittsburgh.^[84]

In 1996, a follow-up book, Beyond Silent Spring, co-written by H.F. van Emden and David Peakall, was published.^[5][6]

In 2011, the American composer Steven Stucky wrote the eponymously titled symphonic poemSilent Spring to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the book's publication. The piece was given its world premiere in Pittsburgh on February 17, 2012, with the conductorManfred Honeck leading the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.^[85][86][87]

Naturalist Sir David Attenborough has stated that Silent Spring was probably the book that had changed the scientific world the most, after the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.^[88]

See also[edit]

• Blessed Unrest (2007), by Paul Hawken
• Our Stolen Future (1996), by Theo Colburn, et al.
• Our Synthetic Environment (1962), by Murray Bookchin
• Pandora's Box (1992), by Adam Curtis
• The Closing Circle (1971), by Barry Commoner
• The Everglades: River of Grass (1947), by Marjory Stoneman Douglas

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abcMcLaughlin, Dorothy. 'Fooling with Nature: Silent Spring Revisited'. Frontline. PBS. Archived from the original on March 10, 2010. Retrieved August 24, 2010.
2. ^'DDT'. United States Environmental Protection Agency. Archived from the original on October 22, 2007. Retrieved November 4, 2007.
3. ^ ^abcdePaull, John (2013) 'The Rachel Carson Letters and the Making of Silent Spring'Archived 2013-11-03 at the Wayback Machine, Sage Open, 3 (July):1–12.
4. ^Josie Glausiusz. (2007), 'Better Planet: Can A Maligned Pesticide Save Lives?' Discover Magazine. p. 34.
5. ^ ^abPeakall, David B.; Van Emden, Helmut Fritz, eds. (1996). Beyond silent spring: integrated pest management and chemical safety. London: Chapman & Hall. ISBN978-0-412-72810-5.
6. ^ ^abRichards H (September 1999). 'Beyond Silent Spring: Integrated Pest Management and Chemical Safety. Edited by H.F. van Emden and D.B. Peakall'. Integrated Pest Management Reviews. 4 (3): 269–270. doi:10.1023/A:1009686508200.
7. ^ ^ab'25 Greatest Science Books of All Time'. Discover Magazine. December 2006. Archived from the original on 2009-01-29. Retrieved 2008-10-08.
8. ^Lear 1997, Ch. 14
9. ^Murphy 2005, Ch. 1
10. ^'Obituary of Marjorie Spock'. Ellsworthmaine.com. January 30, 2008. Retrieved March 16, 2009.^{[dead link]}
11. ^Greene, Jennifer (February 2008). 'Obituary for Marjorie Spock'(PDF). Newsletter of the Portland Branch of Anthroposophical Society in Portland, Oregon. 4 (2): 7. Archived from the original(PDF) on 29 August 2015. Retrieved 29 August 2015.
12. ^Matthiessen, Peter (2007). Courage for the Earth: Writers, Scientists, and Activists Celebrate the Life and Writing of Rachel Carson. Mariner Books. p. 135. ISBN978-0-618-87276-3.
13. ^ ^abHimaras, Eleni (May 26, 2007). 'Rachel's Legacy – Rachel Carson's groundbreaking 'Silent Spring''. The Patriot Ledger. Quincy, MA.
14. ^Wishart, Adam (2007). One in Three: A Son's Journey Into the History and Science of Cancer. New York, NY: Grove Press. p. 82. ISBN978-0-8021-1840-0.
15. ^Hynes, H. Patricia (September 10, 1992). 'PERSPECTIVE ON THE ENVIRONMENT Unfinished Business: 'Silent Spring' On the 30th anniversary of Rachel Carson's indictment of DDT, pesticides still threaten human life'. Los Angeles Times. p. 7 (Metro Section).
16. ^Lear 1997, pp. 312–17
17. ^Lear 1997, pp. 317–27
18. ^Lear 1997, pp. 327–36
19. ^Lear 1997, pp. 342–46
20. ^Lear 1997, pp. 358–61
21. ^Lear 1997, pp. 355–58
22. ^Lear 1997, pp. 360–68
23. ^Lear 1997, pp. 372–73
24. ^Lear 1997, pp. 376–77
25. ^Coates, Peter A. (October 2005). 'The Strange Stillness of the Past: Toward an Environmental History of Sound and Noise'. Environmental History. 10 (4): 636–665. doi:10.1093/envhis/10.4.636. Archived from the original on 29 September 2017. Retrieved 12 June 2017.
26. ^Lear 1997, pp. 375, 377–78, 386–87, 389
27. ^Lear 1997, pp. 390–97
28. ^ ^abLytle 2007, pp. 166–67
29. ^Lytle 2007, pp. 166–72
30. ^Carson 1962, p. 225
31. ^Lytle 2007, pp. 169, 173
32. ^Carson 1962, p. 266
33. ^Carson 1962, p. 267
34. ^Carson 1962, p. 275
35. ^Lear 1997, pp. 397–400
36. ^Lear 1997, pp. 375, 377, 400–7. Douglas's dissenting opinion on the rejection of the case, Robert Cushman Murphy et al., v. Butler et al., from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, is from March 28, 1960.
37. ^The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson (CBS Reports, with Erik Sevareid, aired on Apr 3, 1963, published to YouTube on Jan 28, 2017)
38. ^Lear 1997, pp. 407–08. Quotation (p. 408) from a June 13, 1962 letter from Carson to Dorothy Freeman.
39. ^Lear 1997, pp. 409–13
40. ^Lear 1997, pp. 416, 419
41. ^Lear 1997, pp. 412–20
42. ^Lear 1997, pp. 433–34
43. ^Quoted in Lear 1997, p. 434
44. ^Lear 1997, pp. 429–30 Benson's supposed comments were widely repeated at the time, but have not been directly confirmed.
45. ^Krupke, C.H.; Prasad, R.P.; Anelli, C.M. (2007). 'Professional entomology and the 44 noisy years since Silent Spring. Part 2: Response to Silent Spring'(PDF). American Entomologist. 53 (1): 16–25.
46. ^Murphy 2005, p. 9
47. ^Carson, Silent Spring, p. 275
48. ^Lear 1997, pp. 437–49; quotation from 449.
49. ^Lear 1997, pp. 449–50
50. ^The Time 100: Scientists and ThinkersArchived 2009-06-13 at the Wayback Machine, accessed September 23, 2007
51. ^Lear 1997, p. 461
52. ^'2003 National Women's History Month Honorees: Rachel Carson'. Archived from the original on 2005-12-08. Retrieved 2014-03-13.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link). Retrieved September 23, 2007.
53. ^Lear 1997, pp. 451–61, 469–73
54. ^1963: Bertelsmann Verlagsgruppe, with an afterword written by Theo Löbsack. 2nd ed. in 1964: Biederstein Verlag ; 3rd ed. 1965: Büchergilde Gutenberg. 1968: first paperback edition (dtv).
55. ^Plon ed.
56. ^Карсон, Рахиль (1965). Безмолвная весна : пер. с англ [Silent Spring] (in Russian). Москва: Прогресс.
57. ^Feltrinelli, 2 edizione, YYYY
58. ^Editorial Crítica, 2010, ISBN978-8498920918
59. ^Hynes 1989, p. 3
60. ^Hynes 1989, pp. 8–9
61. ^Hynes 1989, pp. 46–47
62. ^Hynes 1989, pp. 47–48, 148–63
63. ^George M. Woodwell, Broken Eggshells, Science 84, November.
64. ^Gary Kroll, 'Rachel Carson-Silent SpringArchived 2007-07-15 at the Wayback Machine: A Brief History of Ecology as a Subversive Subject'. Onlineethics.org: National Academy of Engineering. Retrieved November 4, 2007.
65. ^EPA Alumni Association: EPA Administrator William Ruckelshaus and some of his closest aides recall the DDT ban decision, VideoArchived 2016-10-11 at the Wayback Machine, TranscriptArchived 2016-10-11 at the Wayback Machine (see pages 13, 14).
66. ^Lytle 2007, p. 217
67. ^Baum, Rudy M. (June 4, 2007). 'Rachel Carson'. Chemical and Engineering News. 85 (23): 5.
68. ^Examples of recent criticism include:
    (a) Rich Karlgaard, 'But Her Heart Was GoodArchived 2017-09-29 at the Wayback Machine', Forbes.com, May 18, 2007. Accessed September 23, 2007.
    (b) Keith Lockitch, 'Rachel Carson's GenocideArchived 2011-06-22 at the Wayback Machine', Capitalism Magazine, May 23, 2007. Accessed May 24, 2007
    (c) Paul Driessen, 'Forty Years of Perverse 'Responsibility,', The Washington Times, April 29, 2007. Accessed May 30, 2007.
    (d) Iain Murray, 'Silent Alarmism: A Centennial We Could Do WithoutArchived 2007-11-21 at the Wayback Machine', National Review, May 31, 2007. Accessed May 31, 2007.
69. ^Weir, Kirsten (June 29, 2007). 'Rachel Carson's birthday bashing'. Salon.com. Archived from the original on April 15, 2008. Retrieved July 1, 2007.
70. ^Sarvana, Adam (May 28, 2009). 'Bate and Switch: How a free-market magician manipulated two decades of environmental science'. Natural Resources New Service. Archived from the original on May 24, 2010. Retrieved June 2, 2009.
71. ^Gutstein, Donald (November 24, 2009). Not a Conspiracy Theory: How Business Propaganda Hijacks Democracy. Key Porter Books. ISBN978-1-55470-191-9.. Relevant excerpt at Gutstein, Donald (January 22, 2010). 'Inside the DDT Propaganda Machine'. The Tyee. Archived from the original on January 25, 2010. Retrieved January 22, 2010.
72. ^ ^abcJohn Quiggin; Tim Lambert (24 May 2008). 'Rehabilitating Carson'. Prospect (146). Archived from the original on 12 May 2012. Retrieved 17 March 2014.
73. ^ ^abErik M. Conway, Naomi Oreskes, Merchants of Doubt, 2010, p. 217
74. ^Souder, William (September 4, 2012). 'Rachel Carson Didn't Kill Millions of Africans'. Slate. Archived from the original on April 22, 2014. Retrieved March 30, 2014.
75. ^Dunn R (2012). 'In retrospect: Silent Spring'. Nature. 485 (7400): 578–79. Bibcode:2012Natur.485..578D. doi:10.1038/485578a. Archived from the original on 2017-04-26. Retrieved 2014-03-17.
76. ^Trewavas, T., Leaver, C., Ames, B., Lachmann, P., Tren, R., Meiners, R., Miller, H.I.; et al. (2012). 'Environment: Carson no 'beacon of reason' on DDT'. Nature. 486 (7404): 473. Bibcode:2012Natur.486..473T. doi:10.1038/486473a. Archived from the original on 2016-04-30. Retrieved 2014-03-17.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
77. ^Lytle 2007, pp. 220–28
78. ^'Malaria Prevention and Control'. East African Community Health. Archived from the original on 2015-01-08.
79. ^Erik M. Conway, Naomi Oreskes, Merchants of Doubt, 2010, p. 226
80. ^Erik M. Conway, Naomi Oreskes, Merchants of Doubt, 2010, pp. 223–24
81. ^Malaria Foundation InternationalArchived 2010-11-18 at WebCite. Retrieved March 15, 2006.
82. ^Charles C. Mann, 'Silent Spring & Other Writings' Review: The Right and Wrong of Rachel Carson' Wall Street Journal April 26, 2018Archived May 3, 2018, at the Wayback Machine
83. ^'The 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the Century'Archived 2016-01-27 at the Wayback Machine. National Review. Retrieved January 19, 2016.
84. ^'National Historic Chemical Landmarks - American Chemical Society'. American Chemical Society. Archived from the original on 2008-09-07. Retrieved 2016-08-24.
85. ^Druckenbrod, Andrew (February 18, 2012). 'PSO takes hard look at turmoil, both environmental and human'. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Archived from the original on May 18, 2015. Retrieved May 11, 2015.
86. ^Kanny, Mark (February 18, 2012). 'Offerings of 'Silent Spring,' venerated material excel'. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Archived from the original on May 18, 2015. Retrieved May 11, 2015.
87. ^Kozinn, Allan (February 27, 2012). 'Capping Off Prokofiev With 'New York, New York''. The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 19, 2015. Retrieved May 11, 2015.
88. ^Thomsen, Simon (2014-01-09). 'Sir David Attenborough Did A Reddit Q&A: Worst Thing He's Seen? Chimps Killing Monkeys'. Business Insider Australia. Archived from the original on 2016-03-06. Retrieved 2016-03-01.

Sources[edit]

• Carson, Rachel (1962). Silent Spring. Houghton Mifflin Company.
  • Silent Spring & Other Writings (Library of America, 2018)
  • Carson, Rachel (2002) [1st. Pub. Houghton Mifflin, 1962]. Silent Spring. Mariner Books. ISBN978-0-618-24906-0.Silent Spring initially appeared serialized in three parts in the June 16, June 23, and June 30, 1962 issues of The New Yorker magazine
• Graham, Frank (1970) [1st. Pub. Houghton Mifflin, 1970]. Since Silent Spring. Fawcett. ISBN978-0-449-23141-8.
• Hynes, H. Patricia (1989). The Recurring Silent Spring. Athene series. New York: Pergamon Press. ISBN978-0-08-037117-7.
• Lytle, Mark Hamilton (2007). The Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the Environmental Movement. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-517246-1.
• Lear, Linda (1997). Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature. New York: Henry Holt and Company. ISBN978-0-8050-3428-8.
• Murphy, Priscilla Coit (2005). What A Book Can Do: The Publication and Reception of Silent Spring. University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN978-1-55849-476-3.
• Litmans, Brian; Miller, Jeff (2004). Silent Spring Revisited: Pesticide Use And Endangered Species. Diane Publishing Co. ISBN978-0-7567-4439-7.
• United States Environmental Protection Agency'What is DDT?'. Retrieved April 26, 2006
• 'DDT Chemical Backgrounder', National Safety Council at the Wayback Machine (archived December 26, 2005). Retrieved May 30, 2005
• Report on Carcinogens, 12th Edition; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Toxicology Program (June 10, 2011)
• Oreskes, Naomi; Conway, Erik M. (2010). Merchants of Doubt. New York: Bloomsbury. ISBN978-1-59691-610-4.
• American Chemical Society, Silent Spring Revisited, 1986: ISBN0-317-59798-1, 1987: ISBN0-8412-0981-2

External links[edit]

• Silent Spring at Faded Page (Canada)
• The New York TimesJuly 22, 1962 report of chemical industry's campaign against the 16, 23, 30 June 1962 serial in The New Yorker
• New York Times book review September 23, 1962
• Graham, Frank Jr.;Since Silent Spring:rebuttal to the attack by chemical-agribusiness companies;Audubon Magazine
• Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC): The Story of Silent Spring – NRDC
• Silent Spring, A Visual History curated by the Michigan State University Museum
• Griswold, Eliza; How Silent Spring Ignited the Environmental MovementThe New York Times September 21, 2012

Environment, conservation, green, and kindred movements look back to Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring as a milestone. The impact of the book, including on government, industry, and civil society, was immediate and substantial, and has been extensively described; however, the provenance of the book has been less thoroughly examined. Using Carson’s personal correspondence, this paper reveals that the primary source for Carson’s book was the extensive evidence and contacts compiled by two biodynamic farmers, Marjorie Spock and Mary T. Richards, of Long Island, New York. Their evidence was compiled for a suite of legal actions (1957-1960) against the U.S. Government and that contested the aerial spraying of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT). During Rudolf Steiner’s lifetime, Spock and Richards both studied at Steiner’s Goetheanum, the headquarters of Anthroposophy, located in Dornach, Switzerland. Spock and Richards were prominent U.S. anthroposophists, and established a biodynamic farm under the tutelage of the leading biodynamics exponent of the time, Dr. Ehrenfried Pfeiffer. When their property was under threat from a government program of DDT spraying, they brought their case, eventually lost it, in the process spent US$100,000, and compiled the evidence that they then shared with Carson, who used it, and their extensive contacts and the trial transcripts, as the primary input for Silent Spring. Carson attributed to Spock, Richards, and Pfeiffer, no credit whatsoever in her book. As a consequence, the organics movement has not received the recognition, that is its due, as the primary impulse for Silent Spring, and it is, itself, unaware of this provenance.

Most books are first editions because most books never develop the traction to warrant a reprint (Gekoski, 2011). This was not, however, the fate of Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring. Published in the United States in 1962, Carson’s book ignited a national, and eventually, an international furore and debate. Silent Spring attracted fans and infuriated foes. It was a critique, especially of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), and, more generally, of our relationship with the natural world. Writing in Science, one author lamented that “the plague of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring continues to infest the minds of scientists” (Marvin, 1967, p. 14). Now, half a century after it first appeared, Silent Spring is still in print and continues to engage and recruit fresh advocates and detractors.

There are numerous biographies of Rachel Carson (1907-1964; for example, Brooks, 1972; Lear, 1997; Levine, 2008; Lytle, 2007), and the story of how Silent Spring has changed the world is well documented (e.g., Graham, 1970; MacGillivray, 2004). By the time she wrote Silent Spring, Carson was already the ‘best-selling’ author of several ‘feel good’ nature books, including The Sea Around Us (1950) and The Edge of The Sea (1955). Publicly, Carson was a vibrant professional writer, while privately her health was deteriorating into a precarious state and she was terminally ill with cancer. Silent Spring was to be her testament and her legacy and she cared about it passionately. The book received immediate acclaim and approbation.

Download Pdf Silent Spring Rachel Carson 1962

U.S. Congressman and lawyer, Jamie Whitten, took a reactive stance. He was the Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Appropriations Subcommittee for Agriculture, and for him Silent Spring was highlighting the dangers of a public backlash against pesticides. As an antidote to Carson, he pursued an increased advocacy for pesticides:

As a result of such involvement in pesticide questions I became aware that there was a sizeable movement at work aimed at severely curtailing or even eliminating the use of pesticides . . . This made me afraid that an aroused public opinion might stop the use of materials that I had become convinced are absolutely essential to our health and prosperity. And so I began to speak out in defense of the role of pesticides. (Whitten, 1966, p. vi)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was founded in December 1970, largely in response to Silent Spring. On June 14, 1972, the EPA cancelled all Federal registrations of DDT products, and from December 31, 1972, the usage of DDT was banned in the United States (EPA, 1972). Other jurisdictions followed suit. After three decades of public endorsement of DDT, in August 1972, the “Australian Agricultural Council recommended that all existing registrations for DDT should be reviewed as a matter of urgency, with the view to withdrawing all uses for which acceptable substitutes exist” (Harrison, 1997). It had taken a decade, and Rachel Carson did not live to see it, but her message was bearing fruit on an international scale.

Antagonists quickly linked Silent Spring with the organics cause, and organics advocates welcomed the book; however, Carson made no mention of the organics movement in her text, in its extensive reference list nor publicly elsewhere. The book was a milestone for the diffusion of the organics meme and the advancement of the organics movement. It was published at a time when the organics movement was at a low ebb, and Silent Spring gave the movement fresh momentum (Clunies-Ross, 1990; Gross, 2008; Peters, 1979; Reed, 2003). The injection of Silent Spring into the organics narrative has been treated as an external input, as though it was a kind of ‘manna from heaven’ for the organics movement. Despite a mountain of subsequent scholarship, much of which has focused on the impact of the book rather than on its provenance, the organics movement has not received the recognition that is its due as the primary input to Silent Spring.

Carson’s biographer Linda Lear (1997, p. 332) acknowledged Marjorie Spock as Carson’s “chief clipping service,” but as the present account will show, there is more to the story than Lear’s cryptic statement that Spock “had studied organic agriculture in Switzerland” and “was committed to it” (p. 319).

The present account reveals, from an analysis of Carson’s private correspondence, the untold story of the organics provenance of Silent Spring, and the role of two remarkable New York women, Marjorie (Hiddy) Spock (1904-2008) and Mary T. (Polly) Richards (1908-1990). As young women they had trained with Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), the founder of biodynamic agriculture, at the Goetheanum in Switzerland (Barnes, 2005). After their return to the United States, the pair were under the personal tutelage of Dr. Ehrenfried Pfeiffer (1899-1961), the then chief advocate of biodynamics, in their biodynamic farming and gardening enterprises, and they collaborated as the leading U.S. authors and translators of anthroposophic and biodynamics literature. For Silent Spring, they were Carson’s key informants as they shared the fruits of an antipesticide action against the U.S. government in which they had expended US$100,000 and assembled expert witnesses and thousands of pages of testimony and scientific research material, all of which was readily shared with Carson as the foundation of her book.

Marjorie Spock and Mary T. Richards, two biodynamic farmers of Long Island, New York, sought an injunction to stop the U.S. Federal Government from aerial spraying their property with DDT, and, having failed to stop the spraying, sued for damages. For The New York Times, the story was front page news from the outset (Schmeck, 1957). The 1958 trial ran over 22 days, arrayed 50 expert witnesses, and generated more than 2,000 pages of testimony (Boston Herald, 1964). There were, in total, four legal actions initiated by Spock and Richards, running from 1957 to 1960, which I refer to collectively as the ‘Long Island Spray Trial’ (Table 1). According to Bonine (2007), “This may well be the first modern environmental case brought by citizens” (p. 467).

Table 1. Timeline of the Long Island Spray Trial and Associated Events.

Reflecting on the impediments to mounting such a case, Spock (1960a) wrote, “Unfortunately these suits are prohibitively expensive in both time and money (ours cost close to $100,000), and lawyers usually refuse them as prejudicial to their future and because ‘you can’t win against the government’” (p. 252).

Three million hectares of northeast United States had been aerially sprayed with DDT in a campaign to eradicate an insect, the gypsy moth. “Aircraft pilots were paid according to the number of gallons sprayed,” so there was little or no incentive for restraint, and nor “from spraying the same areas more than once” (Spear, 2005, p. 257). Spock and Richards were about to be impacted by

one case that borders on the surreal, the New York state and federal departments, citing an implausible threat from the gypsy moth to New York City and environs, announced plans to spray densely populated Nassau County, Long Island, with DDT in fuel oil. (Spear, 2005, p. 257)

A group of Long Island residents, 6 initially, and swelling to 13, took action against the state (Murphy v. Benson, 1957, 1959a). The “prime movers” of the group were the biodynamic farmers and gardeners, Marjorie Spock and Mary T. Richards (Brooks, 1972, p. viii). The group included organic gardener and past president of the National Audubon Society, Richard Murphy, who is listed as the lead appellant, together with “other organic gardeners and a chiropractor” (Sellers, 1999, p. 43). From the United Kingdom, the Soil Association sent a US$100 check to Spock in support of the campaign (Spock, 1960b, p. 249).

The initial application for an injunction to halt the spray program failed. In retrospect we can see that what then happened to the land of Spock and Richards was a precursor of what happened soon after in Vietnam with a massive aerial chemical warfare operation authorized by President Kennedy starting in 1961 (Neilands, 1971). The U.S. government’s chemical wars against the gypsy moth in the United States, and the Viet Cong in Vietnam, were contemporaneous wars. They ultimately both failed in their primary objectives, but at the time of the Long Island Spray Trial, both defeats were in the future, and neither was foreseen by the advocates of those wars.

Marjorie Spock kept supporters informed of legal developments: “From the summer of 1957 to 1960 when the case reached the Supreme Court, Marjorie wrote a report to interested and influential friends of each day’s progress in and out of court” (Fay, 2008, p. 7). Carson was one recipient of these intelligence reports (Fay, 2008; Lear, 1997).

A voluminous amount of material was generated for, and by, the court actions as the case was escalated from an application for an injunction in 1957 (injunction denied), a District Court trial in 1958 (complaint dismissed), an action brought to the Court of Appeals in 1959 (dismissal decision upheld; no success to the plaintiffs), and eventually an uplift to the Supreme Court in 1960 (appeal denied; no joy for the appellants; Murphy v. Benson, 1957, 1958, 1959b; Murphy v. Butler, 1960).

In the process of these 4 years of legal challenge to the U.S. Federal Government’s authority to spray private property, Spock and Richards built up an arsenal of research material, as well as contacts and expert witnesses.

The petition to the U.S. Court of Appeals stated that

Misses Richards and Spock . . . moved to Long Island for the sole purpose of being able there to produce food free of chemicals . . . it is a legitimate use to make of one’s own property and it is “frustrated” by the spraying of DDT . . . The Misses Spock and Richards went to very substantial expense solely for the purpose of their “organic” cultivation. (Murphy v. Benson, 1959a, p. 7)

Spock and Richards had both studied at the Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland, the headquarters of the Anthroposophic Movement. According to Henry Barnes (2005), the chronicler of Rudolf Steiner’s work in North America, Spock’s life “encompasses the history of Anthroposophy” in America (p. 112). Spock had traveled to Dornach as an 18-year-old, in October 1922. She returned to the United States in December 1924 (Barnes, 2005). This adventure proved to be the beginning of a lifetime passion and dedication to anthroposophy, and particularly to eurythmy, Waldorf education, and biodynamics.

Spock’s first visit to Dornach was a time of momentous and far reaching events for anthroposophy. On New Year’s Eve 1922/1923, she witnessed the first Goetheanum burn to the ground, with Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), Ehrenfried Pfeiffer (1899-1961), and George Adams (1894-1963; translator into English of Steiner’s Agriculture Course; Barnes, 2005; Steffen, 1923; Whicher, 1977). It was the destruction of 10 years of work. The following Christmas, Spock was at the founding of the Anthroposophical Society at Dornach Switzerland, at the “Christmas Gathering” 1923 (Barnes, 2005; Spock, 1978; Steiner, 1924a).

Rudolf Steiner set an intensive work schedule of traveling and lecturing. Marjorie Spock often traveled from Dornach, with the Steiner entourage, on those lecture tours. She learnt German. She attended Steiner’s courses in speech, tone eurythmy, and dramatic art (Barnes, 2005). She attended the Torquay Summer School in August 1924. This event was to be Steiner’s 10th and final lecture tour to England (Barnes, 2005; Steiner, 1924b; Villeneuve, 2004). It appears that colleague Mary Richards presented a reading from Steiner’s Mystery Plays in London immediately after Steiner’s Oxford Conference of 1922 (Paull, 2011c; Villeneuve, 2004).

During Spock’s first visit to the Goetheanum, Steiner presented his Agriculture Course at Koberwitz in June 1924 (Steiner, 1924c). Steiner ran this program in parallel with a program on spiritual science at nearby Breslau (Steiner, 1924c). Steiner states that during these events there were performances by “Eurythmy artists from the Goetheanum” (Steiner, 1924c, p. 10). The Koberwitz Agriculture Course was the birthing event for (the yet to be named) biodynamic agriculture (Paull, 2011a).

In December 1924, just 6 months after the Koberwitz course, Spock departed Dornach (Barnes, 2005). Rudolf Steiner had by this time fallen ill and was confined to his studio, and from September 28, 1924, Steiner gave no further lectures; he died on March 30, 1925 (Collison, 1925; Koepf, 1991).

Spock subsequently returned to Europe and studied at the Eurythmy School in Stuttgart, Germany, from 1927 to 1930. On returning to the United States, she taught at the Rudolf Steiner School in New York. From June 1937 to the end of 1938, she again spent time at Dornach (Barnes, 2005). Spock had departed Europe before the outbreak of World War II (WWII), and on her return to the United States, she enrolled at Colombia University. She graduated with a BA, and proceeded to an MA, writing a thesis on Waldorf education. Spock taught at the Waldorf Demonstration School of Adelphi College and was a lecturer at the Teacher Training School of Adelphi College (now the Waldorf School of Garden City and Adelphi University, respectively; Sunday Herald, 1957; Waldorf School, 2007).

Spock spent her summers at the biodynamic Threefold Farm, Spring Valley, New York, “teaching eurythmy and learning biodynamic gardening” (Barnes, 2005, p. 120). The Threefold Farm was the first biodynamic farm in the United States, and the venue for the early anthroposophy conferences (Gregg, 1976a). The Biodynamic Association’s annual conferences were held there from 1948 to 1980, and it is still home to a vibrant biodynamic community, to the Pfeiffer Centre, and to the Threefold Educational Centre (Day, 2008).

Marjorie Spock and Mary Richards cultivated two acres of land on Long Island, New York, which they managed on biodynamic principles. Describing themselves as “two eurythmists” (Spock & Richards, 1956), and having spent time in Dornach, they were deeply committed to anthroposophy and its practical manifestations, including eurythmy (dancing), Waldorf education, and biodynamic farming. On their “farm,” they planted “over thirty different vegetables” and they had “fourteen kinds of fruit and berries” (Spock & Richards, 1956, p. 14).

In this enterprise, these two biodynamic farmers and gardeners had been guided by the world’s leading exponent of biodynamic agriculture, Dr. Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, author of Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening (1938) that was simultaneously published in at least five languages (Paull, 2011b). Of Pfeiffer, they reported, “He would insist at every visit on the minutest inspection of the various beds of vegetables, of the soil in depth, of the compost piles and of the fruit trees” (Spock & Richards, 1962a, p. 23).

As biodynamic farmers and as anthroposophists, they had sought out the world’s two greatest experts in these domains, Steiner and Pfeiffer. Spock and Richards had a deep philosophical grounding to oppose mass dousing of their own land, in particular, and Long Island in general, from aerial spraying with DDT. In addition to these embedded macro reasons, the pair also had a very specific micro reason for pursuing their own biodynamic farming and for producing chemical-free food, which included vegetables, fruit, eggs, and dairy (Spock & Richards, 1956), and for resisting the proposed U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prophylactic DDT spraying program.

Mary Richards had a sensitivity to food impurities that was, on occasion, incapacitating (Barnes, 2005). It has been suggested that Richards was an early case of the debilitating condition, now described as Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS; Sellers, 1999). As a consequence of this condition, from the mid-1950s, Spock and Richards had been sending samples of their foods for analysis to the New York–based Laboratory of Industrial Hygiene for testing for DDT and other pesticide residues (Sellers, 1999). They now sought to avoid the repercussions of having their land, trees, and crops doused with DDT.

When the DDT spraying over their property occurred in 1957, Spock and Richards regarded their food supply as “ruined,” their animals as “contaminated,” and their soil as “totally compromised” (Barnes, 2005, p. 123). They had covered some of their crop with plastic sheeting, but they found that the DDT and fuel oil mixture that was sprayed dissolved the plastic and thereby contaminated their crops, despite their precautions (Barnes, 2005).

Spock authored or translated more than 20 books, some jointly with Mary Richards, all of them on anthroposophy and/or biodynamics. Spock authored at least 7 books in her own right, including Eurythmy (1980), Teaching as a Lively Art (1985), and In Celebration of the Human Heart (1982). She translated at least 5 books of Rudolf Steiner, including Awakening to Community (Steiner, 1974); Chance, Providence and Necessity (Steiner, 1988); and A Psychology of Body, Soul & Spirit (Steiner, 1999). She translated at least a further 7 books by other biodynamic or anthroposophic authors, including Rudolf Steiner on his Book the Philosophy of Freedom (Palmer, 1975), What is Bio-Dynamic Agriculture (Koepf, 1976), and Water: The Element of Life (Schwenk & Schwenk, 1989). Together with Mary Richards, she jointly translated at least two books: The Nature of Substance (Hauschka, 1966) and Nutrition: A Holistic Approach (Hauschka, 1967).

Silent Spring Rachel Carson Article

Spock’s father, Benjamin Spock, was a lawyer, so perhaps seeing a legal remedy for a perceived government wrong was neither as foreign nor as daunting to Spock as it may have been to many, and Richards was in a position to personally put up the not inconsiderable funds.

Rachel Carson wrote to Spock and Richards early in February 1958 at the time when they were preparing evidence for the trial. This initial request resulted in the flow of a wealth of material and contacts to Carson for the next 4 years during which time Silent Spring was written. The salutation in the letters was initially “Dear Mrs Spock”; it quickly shifted to “Dear Miss Spock,” and then to the familiar “Dear Marjorie,” by October 1958, and occasionally to “Dear Marjorie and Polly” (e.g., December 1958, April 1960, and February 1961).

At least 57 letters have survived from Carson to Spock and Richards (Figure 1). In this total I include 3 letters from intermediaries: 1 letter from Maria Carson, Rachel’s mother (November 1958); 1 letter from Roger Christie, Rachel’s nephew (November 1958); and the final letter dated March 24, 1964 from “JVD” stating that Carson was ill (she died on April 14, 1964). Marjorie Spock sent the collection of letters to Marie Rodell (1912-1975), Carson’s literary agent, and then literary executor, expressing the view that “all pertinent material should be available, not kept in private hands” (Spock, 1966, p. 1). The letters were subsequently deposited in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale Collection of American Literature, of Yale University. There is a continuity of narrative and events that suggests that the sequence of correspondence from February 1958 to October 1961 is complete, or nearly so. Spock and Richards were highly organized with their extensive documentation management and they were aware of the historical significance of the letters, commenting that “interest in Rachel Carson seems certain to increase” (Spock, 1966, p. 2), and this adds a further reason to accept that the sequence of correspondence is complete, or nearly so.

Figure 1. Annual tallies of letters from Carson to Spock and Richards.

An early letter, dated March 14, 1958, sees Carson expressing her thanks: “I am most grateful for all the material you have sent me,” and her delight at the quality and quantity: “I am delighted there is so much sound material” (Carson, 1958e). Later that month she writes, “Many thanks for . . . the very excellent Pfeiffer paper . . . With its many references it is a gold mine of information” (Carson, 1958f). In the same letter, Carson states that “you have been so enormously helpful to me, and apparently are so familiar with a vast amount of material” (Carson, 1958f).

The author of the “gold mine” paper was Dr. Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, who was, at the time, the chief proponent and exponent of biodynamic agriculture. He subsequently appeared as an expert witness in the Long Island Spray Trial (Spock & Richards, 1962b). When he was challenged by a defense attorney as to what fee he was receiving, he responded that no fee was involved; and when further challenged as to why he was there, his response was “because I am interested in the future of the human race” (p. 25).

An entire edition of the U.S. periodical Bio-Dynamics was devoted to Pfeiffer’s (1958) account, “Do we really know what we are doing? DDT spray programs—Their value and dangers,” which raised a multitude of health, food, and ecological issues concerning DDT aerial spraying. It is a 40-page account that cites 105 scientific references. It was a pioneering meta-analysis of the DDT issue and it is easy to see why this publication of the Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening Association was described by Carson (1958f) as a “gold mine.”

Many of the references and authors cited by Pfeiffer later reappeared in Carson’s reference list. Of one of his references (viz., Rudd & Genelly, 1956), Pfeiffer (1958) commented, “This is one of the most comprehensive reports, with almost 1000 references” (p. 39). It reappeared in Carson’s references. In her exchanges with Spock, Carson makes multiple references to Pfeiffer and to his correspondence (e.g., Carson, 1958f, 1959a, 1959b, 1960e, 1960f, 1960h, 1961f). With Spock and Richards as intermediaries, Pfeiffer was queried by Carson about sources, references, and his own tests and experiments, although he received no acknowledgment in Silent Spring.

Carson wrote regularly plying Spock with a variety of queries, questions, requests for addresses of contacts and for copies of articles. Carson frequently expresses her thanks for new material, for example, in August writing: “Your good letter and enclosures have just arrived—all excellent, helpful, and stimulating. I feel guilty about the mass of your material I have here” (Carson, 1958c, p. 1). During that 1st year of collaboration, in a September letter to Spock, Carson declared, “you are my chief clipping service, and I do appreciate all you do” (Carson, 1958d).

The letters to Spock and Richards also track Carson’s deteriorating health during the researching and writing of Silent Spring. The descriptions of Carson’s ill health are generally vague, especially at the beginning of the correspondence. Spock, her mother, and Richards met with Carson, her mother, and her nephew, in Maine early in September 1958. After that meeting Carson wrote, “I left Maine with a sore throat and when we reached home at the end of the second day of driving I promptly collapsed into bed with flu or something” and she described herself as “still not very energetic” (Carson, 1958b, p. 2).

Rachel’s mother, Maria, wrote to Spock that “Rachel has had several sick spells of different kinds” (M. Carson, 1958, p. 1). Maria herself died 5 weeks after writing this letter. Carson informed Spock and Richards, in a four-page handwritten letter, of her mother’s death. She described her mother and perhaps herself:

Her love of life and all living things was her outstanding quality, of which everyone speaks. More than anyone else I know, she embodied Albert Schweitzer’s “reverence for life.” And while gentle and compassionate, she could fight fiercely against anything she believed wrong, as in our present Crusade! Knowing how she felt about that will help me to return to it soon, and to carry it through to completion. (Carson, 1958a, pp. 3-4)

Spock states, of Carson, that “she found she was mortally ill a year or so after she began work on ‘Silent Spring’” (Spock, 1966, p. 1). In January 1960, Carson thanked Spock for “the wealth of material” that had just arrived from her (Carson, 1960b, p. 1); however, she added that “healthwise, our report is not too good. I’ve had flu (or something) for 10 days, and yesterday had to return to my bed . . . Just before the virus attacked me, I’d learned I have a duodenal ulcer!” (Carson, 1960b, p. 1) Later she writes that “I’m still laid low with flu but recovering” (Carson, 1960c). Three months later, in April 1960, she confided in a letter, “Dear Marjorie and Polly . . . My hospital adventure turned into another set-back of some magnitude, wrecking my tight work schedule for the spring . . . Viruses . . . delayed my operation . . . There were two tumors in the left breast . . . suspicious enough to require a radical mastectomy” (Carson, 1960a, pp. 2-3). Carson however remained upbeat, as well as private: “I think there need be no apprehension for the future. I am giving details to special friends like you—not to others” (Carson, 1960a, p. 4).

Carson and Spock corresponded on testing food for residues (Carson, 1960d). Carson wrote to Spock that “all you tell me of the food situation is most interesting” (Carson, 1961d, p. 1). Carson thanked Spock for sending her butter and meat, and related that her young nephew, Roger (who was in the care of Carson) had remarked that “this hamburger is very good because it hasn’t been sprayed” (Carson, 1961e, pp. 2-3). Carson wrote to Spock and Richards of the advice to “make an effort to eliminate chemical residues from my food intake insofar as possible. I know of no local suppliers of such food. Can you suggest how I can find out?” (Carson, 1961b, pp. 2-3).

Letters from Carson generally thanked Spock and Richards for their research materials and/or raised queries, but she continued to relate her personal circumstances. Early in February 1961 she wrote that

I seem always to write of illness and disaster but unfortunately my luck has not changed. Rather severe flu after Thanksgiving and then a persistent intestinal virus early in January apparently lowered my resistance and prepared for the real trouble—a staphylococcus infection that settled in my knees and ankles so that my legs are, and have been for 3 weeks, quite useless. (Carson, 1961b, p. 1)

She laments, “if only I could walk!” (Carson, 1961b, p. 2). Ten days later she reported that “I can still manage only one or two steps” (Carson, 1961d). A month later she could report, “Improvement continues, so I can now get about part of the time without my walker” (Carson, 1961c). By April 1961 she told of “my still limited energy” and reported that

I feel cheated out of full enjoyment of this slowly unfolding Spring, I am so much better that I have much to be thankful for. Wheel chair and walker are behind me and although at times I do walk stiffly, I do walk limited distances and can even manage short distances by car . . . I’m still having cortisone injections . . . I can’t adequately thank you for all your generosity. (Carson, 1961a, pp. 3-4)

By October 1961, Carson could finally report, of the upcoming book, that “the end is somewhere in sight.” She acknowledged the latest installment of material, “the excellent clippings” and “the photocopy of the Lancet article . . . I had seen references to it but had not seen the complete article” (Carson, 1961g).

In the years 1958 to 1961, Carson’s correspondence reveals that she was in continuing receipt of information from Spock and Richards, beginning from the initial request for information in February 1958, through the multiple volumes of trial transcripts that were loaned, and contacts and research articles and reports that included some translated from the German by Spock and Richards. The correspondence is a parallel record of Carson’s precarious state of health during the research and writing of Silent Spring, and of her reliance on Spock and Richards as research collaborators throughout.

Despite the regular correspondence between Carson and Spock and Richards, and queries and multiple clarifications sought from Pfeiffer, none of the three received any credit or acknowledgment in Silent Spring. If oversight, ignorance, and/or ungratefulness are dismissed as reasons for this absence, and it does seem reasonable to dismiss them, then how can the omission be accounted for? Carson was writing an evidence-based account of an issue that she was passionate about. Given the deteriorating state of her health, she could have foreseen that Silent Spring would have to stand on its own merits, without any further defense from her, that this was her single chance, and that time was not on her side for her personally responding to negative critiques or producing some future follow-up book. Silent Spring was to be her testament, her legacy, and her farewell statement. She was bedridden and wheel chair bound during some of the writing of Silent Spring. Her health continued to deteriorate after the launch of Silent Spring with its serialization in The New Yorker beginning in the June 16, 1962, issue, and then the book publication on September 27, 1962, until her death on April 14, 1964.

From her correspondence with Spock and Richards, it is clear that Carson was concerned strategically with how to craft her message to achieve a breakthrough into public consciousness. She wrote,

It is a great problem to know how to penetrate the barrier of public indifference and unwillingness to look at unpleasant facts that might have to be dealt with if one recognized their existence. I have no idea whether I shall be able to do so or not, but knowing what I do, I have no choice but to set it down . . . I guess my own principal reliance is in marshalling all the facts and letting them largely speak for themselves. (Carson, 1960i, p. 1)

There were at least two strategic and evidence-based reasons for Carson to expunge her benefactors Spock, Richards, and Pfeiffer, together with their philosophies of biodynamic and organic agriculture, from her book. First, there was the experience of previous authors who had tackled the same or related issues and who had tried and failed to gain traction. Second, there was the trial transcripts that clearly revealed that an organics association could be used as a reason for discounting the witness.

In the decade before Silent Spring, at least four professionally written ‘poison books’ appeared, tackling the issue of pesticides and food. None of them had an impact approaching that of Carson’s book, and all of them had an identifiable organics provenance.

U.S. chemist, Leonard Wickenden (1955), published Our Daily Poison. He had previously published books on organic gardening (Wickenden, 1949, 1954) and was identified as an organic gardener on the dust jacket of Our Daily Poison. Award winning New York journalist, William Longgood (1960), published The Poisons in Your Food. He had previously written of the USDA’s DDT spraying program in an organics journal (Longgood, 1957). Carson commented in a letter to Spock, “It is too bad that Mr. Longgood is having such rough going with his book, although I suppose not surprising. His reporting of the trial would automatically make him a target of the New York State Department of Agriculture” (Carson, 1960g, p. 1).

London-based doctor, Franklin Bicknell (1960) published Chemicals in Food and in Farm Produce: Their Harmful Effects. The rear of the dust jacket carried an advertisement for other Faber organics titles. The U.S. anarchist, Murray Bookchin (1962), only months before Silent Spring appeared, published Our Synthetic Environment under the pseudonym ‘Lewis Herber.’ He had previously declared that the difference between organic farming and chemical farming was “a basic antagonism in outlooks toward natural phenomena” (Herber, 1952, p. 215).

The experiences of Wickenden, Longgood, Bicknell, and Bookchin/Heber were not definitive, but Carson was a savvy author, and writing was her sole source of income, so she was aware, perhaps more than most, that she did not want their experience to be her experience. She was also thoroughly aware of Pfeiffer’s (1958) well-argued and extensively referenced account of DDT and the environment, which occupied a complete issue of the journal Bio-Dynamics but which appears to have ‘preached to the converted’ rather than igniting any controversy or generating any national debate.

Having been provided with the trial transcripts by Spock, Carson would have been well aware that the presiding judge, in the Long Island Spray Trial, Judge Bruchhausen, was discounting evidence based on the “leanings” of the witnesses. In his opinion he argued,

the fact that some are so strongly in favor of organic farming, without the use of chemicals, or emphasize their preference for biological control that their judgements may be influenced by their leanings. Under these circumstances, it is appropriate that the experts’ testimony be scrutinized. (Murphy v. Benson, 1958, p. 3)

A medical specialist’s testimony was disregarded by Judge Bruchhausen on the basis that “Dr. Knight . . . his testimony consists largely of generalities and is not helpful. In fact he states that the subject is rather new and that absolute proof is lacking. He conducts an organic farm” (Murphy v. Benson, 1958, p. 3).

However, the testimony of a pro-DDT witness was highly regarded by the Judge:

Doctor Hayes is Chief of Toxology [sic] of the United States Public Health Service . . . and is a member of the expert panel on Insecticides of the World Health Organization . . . He and his associates have experimented with DDT on human beings and animals, feeding them DDT with daily doses for periods of a year or more . . . I am strongly impressed with this witness. (Murphy v. Benson, 1958, p. 4)

Of two witnesses who had conducted research sponsored by chemical companies, the Judge declared, “Both witnesses impressed the Court as credible witnesses” (Murphy v. Benson, 1958, p. 4).

The clear message from the trial was that being in the employ of a chemical company was not an impediment to credibility but that being associated with the organics cause was. The judge in arguing ad hominem rather that ad rem was inadvertently alerting Carson to be wary of admitted associations. In deciding against the appellants, Bruchhausen was implicitly making the case to Carson to suppress its biodynamic provenance. And suppress it she did.

There was, nevertheless, a feeling that Carson’s book carried a smuggled message. A chemical industry editorial identified “an undercurrent of antipathy running throughout her work” (Chemical Week, 1962, p. 5). One critic speculated that Carson’s writing “probably reflects her Communist sympathies” and pointed out that “we can live without birds and animals, but, as the current market slump shows, we cannot live without business” (H. Davidson, 1962, quoted in Lear, 1997, p. 409). The first respondent in the Long Island spray case, Ezra Taft Benson, the then Secretary of Agriculture, is quoted as wondering “Why a spinster with no children was so concerned about genetics?” and affirming that she was “probably a Communist” (Lear, 1997, p. 429).

While these critics were surely quite off the mark, they did intuit that Silent Spring, although couched in scientific terms, and laden with scientific references, was a vehicle for carrying something that Harrison and Benson, for example, were identifying as subversive—though without them quite fingering it.

An editorial in Chemical Week sensed the legal provenance of Carson’s book as they railed

Her technique in developing this theme is more reminiscent of a lawyer preparing a brief, however, than a scientist conducting an investigation . . . the industry is facing a hostile and to some extent uninformed prosecuting attorney. Her facts are correct, her conclusions less certain, and her innuendoes misleading. (Chemical Week, 1962, p. 5)

Chemical & Engineering News published the view that “it is certainly hoped that they [FDA and USDA] will not decide that they must defend their position” (Gordon, 1962, p. 4).

Carson had witnessed in the transcripts of the Long Island Spray Trial how the evidence of witnesses associated with organics was discounted or disregarded because of their association. She was familiar with Pfeiffer’s (1958) well-documented paper in Bio-Dynamics, and other pre-Carson warnings and questionings about DDT in particular, and pesticides in general. She knew that they had largely failed to hit their mark, on either the public consciousness or public policy. The conclusion is that Carson silenced the witnesses to let the message be heard.

As far as any evidence of association with the organics sector was concerned, Carson was a ‘cleanskin’—There was no such link in the public domain. The close friendship of Spock and Richards with Carson had been forged in private and in pursuit of what Carson (1958a) described as “our present Crusade” (p. 23). Silent Spring was a joint effort and their common cause, and Carson wrote their evidence into, but their names out of, the script entirely. Their “common cause” was the construction of Silent Spring and this was the consuming passion of Carson in the final years of her life. There is no evidence revealed in the correspondence to indicate that Carson shared or explored the interest of Spock and Richards in either anthroposophy or the writings of Rudolf Steiner.

Just why Carson’s book gained so much traction is a matter of speculation. There is a constellation of potential reasons. Carson was already a best-selling author (e.g., The Sea Around Us, 1950) with a proven talent for writing. Her new book addressed (mostly) a single pesticide (DDT) and (mostly) a single biological class (birds); Silent Spring began with a simple, but powerful, parable—a journalist in a hurry could read the parable and skip the rest; the book had a lyrical title, in contrast to, for example, Bicknell’s, Wickenden’s, Longgood’s, and Pfeiffer’s declarative titles. Carson’s book was serialized (and abridged) in The New Yorker before appearing as a book, giving it high visibility and taking it to a broad and influential audience. The selection by book clubs (e.g., Readers Union) guaranteed a broad and diverse distribution and readership. And the book piggy-backed on a ground-breaking court case that had aroused and alerted powerful U.S. government agencies and chemical corporations who were primed to rebuff any assault on their domain.

Carson had carefully crafted her message to exclude any reference or citation to organics or biodynamics, yet it had been fuelled, shaped, and informed by biodynamic and organic farmers and gardeners, and it carried their agenda just as had Pfeiffer’s (1958) account before it. While excluding any reference or acknowledgment to Spock, Richards, or Pfeiffer, commenting, of the Spray Trial, merely that it had been initiated by “Long Island citizens” (Carson, 1962, p. 159).

For whatever reason or confluence of reasons, Carson’s book succeeded, where others had failed, as a driver of major awareness and change. And, in succeeding, her book succeeded spectacularly, gaining the serious recognition that had eluded authors who had earlier ventured into the dark side of pesticides, food, and the environment.

Writing in the periodical Organic Gardening and Farming, Robert Rodale (1962) described Silent Spring as a “masterpiece” (p. 17) while he reminded readers that “much of the evidence presented . . . we have reported to readers of Organic Gardening and Farming in the past” (p. 18). Carson’s facts were not new; it was the traction of those facts that was new. The executive editor of Organic Gardening and Farming, Jerome Olds (1962), wrote of Silent Spring that “it’s as if a lid that kept down criticism and resentment against poison sprays had been suddenly blown off” (p. 14).

Globally, the organics sector was given a timely and welcome boost by Silent Spring. In the decade following its publication, for example, the circulation of Jerome Rodale’s Organic Gardening and Farming rose from 300,000 subscribers in 1962 to 750,000 in 1972 (Gross, 2008; J. I. Rodale, 1962).

Ehrenfried Pfeiffer did not live to see the Silent Spring phenomenon that sprang from his “gold mine” of references and the trial in which he had been an expert witness. He was treated for TB, and complications therefrom, and he died on November 30, 1961. Pfeiffer had worked with Rudolf Steiner at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, from 1920 until Steiner’s death in 1925. From Steiner’s Agriculture Course of 1924, Pfeiffer (1938) had developed the theory and practice of biodynamic agriculture into a publishable form as Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening (Paull, 2011b), he had brought biodynamics to the United States, and he had witnessed biodynamics become a worldwide enterprise.

Spock and Richards, after all legal recourses had been exhausted in 1960, purchased a 142-acre farm near Chester, New York, and made the move, 80 km from New York City and adjacent to Ehrenfried Pfeiffer’s own farm (Gregg, 1976b; Spock & Richards, 1962b). They subsequently purchased a farm at Maine (Spock, 1972). Biodynamic farming practices continued at the new farms (Spock, 1968, 1972). Mary Richards died in 1990; Marjorie Spock died in 2008 at the age of 104.

Rachel Carson Silent Spring Pdf

Rachel Carson had “a radical mastectomy” on April 4, 1960, and opted to keep her precarious state of health secret from most (Carson, 1960a, p. 3). She had further surgery and radiation treatment in the few subsequent years remaining to her. During some of that period, she was bedridden and unable to walk. She entered the Cleveland Clinic on March 13, 1964, for an operation relating to her cancer. She died there on April 14, 1964. She was aged 56 years. Her book was listed as one of the “25 greatest science books of all time” (Discover, 2006) and for five decades, it has remained continuously in print.

The success of Silent Spring is a testament to, firstly, the thoroughness of Spock and Richards in garnering the evidence and, secondly, to Carson crafting that evidence into a parable and a powerful text. While the thrust of the book was attacked, the facts were not disputed. Carson dissociated, from her public persona and the book itself, the close working and personal relationship that she had developed with the biodynamic farmers Spock and Richards, and the influence of Pfeiffer on them all, and she thereby successfully sidestepped a potential mode of attack from the powerful lobby groups that did indeed attack, albeit counterproductively.

The author thanks the library and librarians of the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, for access including Rachel Carson’s letters to Marjorie Spock and Mary T. Richards.

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Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.

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