Revisiting Rachel Carson’s Place in Environmental History

Session Submission Type: Complete Panel

Abstract

Rachel Carson has rightly been cited as the founder of the modern environmental movement for her classic book, Silent Spring (1962). This panel revisits Carson’s contributions from a number of perspectives. Panelists will address Carson’s early writings before Silent Spring for clues about her approach, examine the logic and evidence she presented in Silent Spring to support her claims, the connections she drew in Silent Spring between the accumulation of DDT and other harmful chemicals in the environment and that of radioactive isotopes due to atmospheric testing of nuclear bombs and their impact on the science of ecology, and how legitimate it is, as some have claimed, for Theo Colborn to be called “the modern Rachel Carson” in the mid-1990s for her discovery of endocrine-disrupting persistent toxic chemicals in the environment. In short, this panel shines a critical eye on Rachel Carson to consider her place in the history of modern environmentalism.

Sub Unit

• ASEH Annual Conference

Individual Presentations

• Rachel Carson and the Wonder of Nature - Frederick R. Davis, Purdue University

• What Silent Spring Didn’t Say - David Hecht, Bowdoin College

• Ecology and the Bomb Reconsidered - Gene Cittadino, New York University

• Theo Colborn--The "Modern Rachel Carson"? - Marsha Leigh Richmond, Wayne State University

Chair

• Marsha Leigh Richmond, Wayne State University