April 20

Rachel Carson was an author who's childhood interest in nature led to a career as a marine biologist with the U.S. While penning three books on the ecology of the sea, she was also finding her voice as a writer. Her confidence in the fact that nature was immune to human action has been shook by the dramatic bombings in 1945 of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The assumption that for human welfare, science always held positive outcomes began to be questioned by Rachel Carson. The environment introduced pesticides and other toxins, which caused the skepticism of science always having positive outcomes for human welfare to take shape in the name of progress. Silent Spring was a project that Carson took on due to the death of birds in her friend's yard following aerial spraying for mosquito control.