In honor of today's 50th anniversary of Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring, we're highlighting some of the discussion about the anniversary and the book's connection to modern issues.
Who among us will make the next Rachel Carson possible? David Klinger, writer in the Service's Endangered Species Bulletin, poses this question with a "critical reexamination of both the woman and
her groundbreaking bestseller, written by Carson amid the supercharged
Cold War atmosphere of John Kennedy's 'New Frontier'":
To some, she was a saint. The "fountainhead" of the modern
environmental movement, deified almost a half-century after her death.
To her memory are dedicated wildlife refuges and elementary schools,
bridges in Pittsburgh and office edifices in Harrisburg ... and a
training center dormitory in the Federal agency she had to quit in order
to write what she truly wanted to write. Read the rest of Klinger's story.
