When pioneering environmentalist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962, the backlash from her critics thrust her into the center of a political maelstrom. Despite her love of privacy, Carson’s convictions and her foresight regarding the risks posed by chemical pesticides forced her into a very public and controversial role.
Using many of Miss Carson's own words, Kaiulani Lee embodies this extraordinary woman in a documentary style film, which depicts Carson in the final year of her life. Struggling with cancer, Carson recounts with both humor and anger the attacks by the chemical industry, the government, and the press as she focuses her limited energy to get her message to Congress and the American people.
The film is an intimate and poignant reflection of Carson's life as she emerges as America's most successful advocate for the natural world.
Bring the family and out-of-town guests to this special event. This film is a treat for the soul!
MORE About Rachel Carson ...
Rachel Carson has been called the "patron saint" of the modern environmental movement. The Atlantic has listed her as one of the 40 most influential figures in American history. Praising Carson and her work, Al Gore wrote that, “without [Silent Spring], the environmental movement might have been long delayed or never developed at all.”
As a scientist, a writer, and a woman, Rachel Carson has inspired generations. As an activist she fought governmental negligence and unbridled corporate interest. Through her scientific integrity and elegant prose she became one of the 20th centuries most prescient scientific authors. And as an individual she battled economic adversity, family tragedy, and gender stereotyping. Carson reminds us that we each have not only the ability to make a creative difference in this world—we have the responsibility to do so.
Carson was born in Springdale, PA on May 27, 1907. She graduated from Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham College), worked several summers at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, and then earned her masters in zoology from John Hopkins University. Carson worked for what was to become the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a writer and biologist for nearly 16 years. While she was there, she published her first two books, Under the Sea Wind, and The Sea Around Us. The latter became a best-seller, winning her numerous literary awards and her financial independence. Her next book, The Edge of The Sea, completed her sea trilogy. These three books brought alive the beauty and mystery of the sea and its creatures to millions of readers.
In 1962, Carson delivered her seminal work, Silent Spring, which alerted the world to the dangers of chemical pesticides and launched our modern environmental movement. Controversy swirled around the book as the chemical industry tried to suppress publication with a lawsuit. The controversy grew as the book became a bestseller, and Carson, “that hysterical woman,” had her science belittled and her politics questioned by those who felt their interests threatened. Carson, terminally ill with breast cancer, refused to be cowed.
Silent Spring stayed on the bestsellers list for 86 weeks and was translated into over 30 languages. In 1963, Miss Carson testified before Congress, speaking out in an effort to protect human health and the environment from the cascade of poisons unleashed by the chemical industry. Less then a year later, on April 14th, 1964, Carson died.
But the legacy of Rachel Carson lives on. She was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor the U.S. government can award a civilian. Her determined labors led directly to the passage of such important laws as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. These laws remain the pillars of U.S. environmental law.
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