Multimedia Collection
Rachel Carson's Silent Spring
VHS
60 minutes
SB959 .C31 1993
By the time she published Silent Spring in 1963, Rachel Carson had suffered a bout with cancer and the admonishment of friends who tried to convince her that a book on the chemical poisoning of the environment was too depressing for anyone to read. Carson had been a consulting biologist for the federal government's Fish and Wildlife Department when she first took note of the unregulated use of pesticides and herbicides - especially DDT - in "agricultural control" farming.
When Silent Spring was published, Carson was viciously attacked. Huge sums of money were spent to discredit her. She was called "an ignorant and hysterical woman who wanted to turn the earth over to the insects." While her scientific methods were problematic, her message about the environment as an interrelated organic system struck a popular nerve. The smear campaign backfired. Silent Spring sparked a revolution in government environmental policy and
became instrumental in creating a new ecological consciousness. This is the story of how one scientist's courage changed the way we think about our world.
Contact Us
(541) 737-2538
valley.circ@oregonstate.edu
