ABSTRACT
Early Life Rachel Louise Carson was born on May 27, 1907, in Springdale, Pennsylvania, approximately eighteen miles from Pittsburgh. Her father, Robert Warden Carson, had purchased at least sixty-five acres of land, intending to sell house lots, but the failure of this plan ensured that the young Rachel would be brought up in a fairly rural setting. Her mother, Maria McLean Carson, was the daughter of a Presbyterian minister and instilled her love of language, music, and nature in her three children. Rachel's long walks with her mother in the nearby orchards and woods awakened in her an awe for and joy in the natural world which lasted her entire life.
