IN NATURE'S DEFENSE: Carson
was one of the catalysts for the environmental movement
Sept. 27, 1962
Breaking the Silence on DDT
By Charles Alexander
Excerpted in the New Yorker three months before it was published
as a book, biologist Rachel Carson's eloquent, rigorous attack on the
overuse of DDT and other pesticides—she called them "elixirs of
death"—had already upset the chemical industry. Velsicol, maker of
two top bug killers, threatened to sue the book's publisher, Houghton
Mifflin, which stood firm but asked a toxicologist to recheck Carson's
facts before it shipped Silent Spring to bookstores.
Carson spent publication day in her home in Silver Spring, Md.,
preparing for speeches and a book tour, according to biographer Linda
Lear. In a letter to a friend, Carson called Silent Spring
"something I believed in so deeply that there was no other course;
nothing that ever happened made me even consider turning back." When the
book appeared, industry critics assailed "the hysterical woman," but it
became an instant best seller with lasting impact. It spurred the
banning of DDT in the U.S., the passage of major environmental laws and
eventually a global treaty to phase out 12 pesticides known as "the
dirty dozen." Carson died, at 56, of cancer less than two years after
the book's publication, but if she were alive today, she would
undoubtedly warn about hundreds of other chemicals still released
recklessly into nature.
TIME Cover
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