ABSTRACT
Most Americans know Rachel Carson as the author of Silent Spring , the 1962 book which became a rallying point for the environmental movements of the 1960s and ‘70s. Silent Spring posed a radical critique of the country's dependence on chemical pesticides. The book issued a militant call to laypeople to question the power scientific and industrial groups held in the application of these environmentally hazardous chemicals to agricultural land, suburban green spaces, national parks, and forest preserves. But Rachel Carson, the woman who raised national concerns about such issues, has not been portrayed as a radical.
