Friday, June 10, 2022

Spring Awakening

By Michael Sims
June 10, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ET

The ocean was not the native habitat of Rachel Carson. She was born amid the tumbled hills near Pittsburgh, in Springdale, one of many western Pennsylvania hamlets that took root by a river and experienced a fleeting industrial heyday. Soon after I moved to this region I visited her birthplace on a pilgrimage of sorts, one I recently undertook again. Carson helped shape my worldview and values. An expert on the sea, through her vision of the operatic grandeur of evolution she gave context to my landlubber rambles. Childless herself, she helped frame my notions about parenting.

The Rachel Carson Homestead is a modest two-story house that I initially drove by without noticing, amid ordinary homes since built upon property once owned by her family. From her plank-floored room on the second floor, young Rachel could not see the Allegheny River sparkling at the bottom of the hill, but she could see smoke perpetually hanging over the town between its two large power plants. She could smell the glue factory. Born here on May 27, 1907, she attributed both her ambition to write and her love of nature to her mother and the tainted beauty of these riverside hills.

In 1925, when Carson ventured 14 miles to attend Pennsylvania College for Women in Pittsburgh, she wore homemade dresses that could not have been less Roaring Twenties. Now called Chatham University, Carson’s alma mater celebrates her as the inspiration for its Falk School of Sustainability and Environment and has even named its cougar mascot “Carson.” She started out as an English major, only to switch to biology after taking science classes with Mary Scott Skinker, who would become Carson’s mentor. “Biology” means the study of life: a large enough category to unite Carson’s intellectual and creative ambitions. “I have always wanted to write, but I know I don’t have much imagination,” she remarked to a friend. “Biology has given me something to write about.”

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