Silent Spring was a polemical treatise by Rachel Carson (1907-1964) that exposed the dangerous impact of pesticides on the environment.

Carson, a marine biologist and the author of three books on the ocean environment, became concerned about the effects of insecticides while working for the U.S. government during World War II. Following the publication of her book The Edge of the Sea (1955), she reluctantly chose to speak out. From her home in Silver Spring, Maryland, Carson enlisted assistants but discovered that her own knowledge enabled her to sift through data more quickly. Seven years later, about half of Carson's findings were serialized in The New Yorker magazine. Then, in September 1962, Houghton-Mifflin published her complete work under the title of Silent Spring.

Silent Spring became one of the most influential books of the twentieth century. Reviewers for the New York Times dubbed it "a cry to the reading public" to limit programs "which by use of poisons will end by destroying life on earth." The book combined Carson's two strengths: empirical research and vivid, compelling prose. Her opening chapter predicted a silent spring in which no songbirds returned to an area despoiled by pesticides. She stressed the dangers of fungicides, herbicides, and insecticides while asserting that chemicals were seldom capable of overwhelming the immune systems of insects. Carson described one campaign, against the gypsy moth, that killed birds, fish, and crabs and another, to eliminate fire ants, which destroyed pheasants. She identified the pesticide DDT as a cause of cancer in humans. Carson did not propose a ban on all insecticides. Instead, she attacked their widespread application and recommended using the natural enemies of pests to check their numbers.

Silent Spring became a runaway bestseller, with 100,000 copies sold within three months. The Book-of-the-Month Club listed Silent Spring; Reader's Digest condensed it; and CBS publicized its findings during an hour-long televised program hosted by Eric Severeid. Accolades followed. Carson won election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the New York Times hailed her as worthy of the Nobel Prize.

Silent Spring also drew its share of criticism. Representatives of the chemical and food industries denounced the book as "one-sided" and as fostering a state of mind among Americans "bordering on hysteria." Not surprisingly, two sponsors, one hawking food products, the other household disinfectants, withdrew their support from the CBS documentary.

Nevertheless, the effect of Silent Spring on the movement to control pollution proved immense. In 1963 a cartoon in The New Yorker, in which a supermarket shopper warns, "Now, don't sell me anything Rachel Carson wouldn't buy," captured the public's anxiety about pesticides. Carson's book prompted President John F. Kennedy to name a panel to study their use. In the long run, such concerns led the U.S. government to form the Environmental Protection Agency, tighten regulations on pesticides, and ban the use of DDT.

Graham, Jr., Frank. Since Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1970.

Lear, Linda. Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997.

Smith, Michael B. "ëSilence Miss Carson!': Science, Gender, and the Reception of Silent Spring," Feminist Studies, 27 (Fall 2001): 733-52.