Rachel Carson :: Essays Papers

Rachel Carson Hello, my name is Rachel Lousie Carson. I was born on a farm in Springdale, Pennsylvania on May 27, 1907. My mother, Maria McLean Carson was a dedicated teacher and throughout my childhood she encouraged my interests in nature and in writing. She also encouraged me to publish my first story A Battle in the Clouds in the St. Nicholas magazine while I was in fourth grade. After graduating from Parnassus High School, I enrolled into the Pennsylvania College for Women. I majored in English and continued to write but I also had to take two semesters of science, which changed my life. In my junior year I changed my major to zoology, even though science was not considered an appropriate avenue for women. After graduating college in 1928 I had earned a full one year scholarship to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. This scholarship did not relieve me or my family of our financial burdens, so I worked throughout graduate school in the genetics department assisting Dr. Raymond Pearl and Dr. H.S. Jennings and I worked as an assistant teacher in the zoology department at the University of Maryland. In 1932 I received my masters in marine zoology. I continued working part-time as a teacher after graduating to help support my family through the early years of the Depression. In 1935 my father had a heart attack and passed away leaving me to provide for my mother. In 1936, my sister Marion passed away at the age of forty leaving behind two young daughters, and my mother encouraged me to take them in. That same year I took the civil service examination necessary for promotion to full-time junior aquatic biologist. I scored higher than all the other candidates ( who were all male) and became the first female biologist ever hired by the Bureau of Fisheries whom I was employed by for sixteen years as a writer. My article entitled â€Å"Undersea† which had been published in the Atlantic Monthly, won praise from scientists, naturalists, and literary critics, inspiring me to write my first book. Under the Sea Wind debuted in 1941 to critical acclaim in both literary and scientific circles but sales plummeted with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. 1942 I began working for the Fish and Wildlife Service promoting fish as an alternative to foods in short supply because of the war. By 1948 I moved into an exclusively male domain, earning the grade of biologist, and becoming the editor-in-chief of the Information Division.