"Silence, Miss Carson!" Science, Gender, and the Reception of "Silent Spring"
Author(s): Michael B. Smith
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Feminist Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Autumn, 2001), pp. 733-752
Published by: Feminist Studies, Inc.
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"SILENCE,MISS CARSON!"
SCIENCE,GENDER,AND THE RECEPTIONOF
SILENTSPRING
MICHAELB. SMITH
The "controlof nature"is a phrase conceived in arrogance,born of
the Neanderthalage of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenienceof man. The concepts
and practicesof applied entomology for the most part date from
that Stone Age of science. It is our alarming misfortune that so
primitivea science has armeditself with the most modem and terrible weapons, and that in turning them against the insects it has
also turnedthem againstthe earth.
-Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, 262-63
Thus did RachelCarsonconclude her most controversialwork, a
book that has since been comparedwith HarrietBeecherStowe's
UncleTom'sCabinfor its capacityto awakenAmericansout of ethical and moral somnolence and with Charles Darwin's On the
Originof Speciesfor its challenge to the dominant scientificparadigm.' Despite being largely a synthesis of studies showing the
ecological toll pesticides and other agrichemicalswere exacting,
Silent Spring-firstappearing in an abridged serializationin the
in the summer of 1962-and its conclusionscame as a
New Yorker
revelation
to most Americans.Followingon the heels of
shocking
the thalidomidedebacleand recentpublicityabout the danger of
nuclearfallout, SilentSpringreachedan audience alreadyanxious
about the brave new world of chemicals and atomic energy.2
Carson'sinvocationof AlbertSchweitzer'sepitaphto humanityin
the introductionto her book-"Manhas lost the capacityto foresee
and to forestall.He will end by destroyingthe earth."-powerfully
primed readersfor her account of how illusory humanity's control of naturereallywas, a most dangerouskind of self-deception.
And readersresponded.The mailboxat the New Yorker
receiveda
in
letters
of
as
did
the
of
mailrooms
on
deluge
support Carson,
FeministStudies27, no. 3 (fall 2001).? 2001by FeministStudies,Inc.
733
734
Michael B. Smith
CapitolHill and the White House. Carson'sbroadsideagainstthe
petrochemicalindustry,the United StatesDepartmentof Agriculture,and researchuniversities,and the public supportit generated
posed a grave and immediatethreatto the economicinterestsand
institutionalintegrityof these entities.Collectivelythey mounteda
franticpublic relationscampaignto denounceCarsonand her collaborators,bringingto bearall the nefariousmachineryof the public relationsindustry.
The historyof this effortto discreditCarsonis alreadywell-covered scholarly terrain.4But although these studies have probed
the virulent and ad hominem rhetoricof the attacksagainst Carson, no one has scrutinized the gendered nature of these criticisms of both Carson as a person and scientist and of her vision
for the praxisof science.'The story of how RachelCarsonand her
work were received by her mostly male critics is important for
both the history of science and the history of women, for this
reception illuminates quite starkly the gendered ways Western
culture has constructedscience. SandraG. Harding and Evelyn
Fox Keller have led the way in identifying and offering correctives to the androcentrisminherent in the evolution of Western
science and the effect this has had on women practitionersof science in Westernculture.The criticismof RachelCarson'swork as
a scientistserves as a importantcase study for exploringthe very
cultural dynamics philosophers of science such as Harding and
Kellerhave been urging scholarsto address.6Moreover,through
her use of metaphorsabout a balanceof nature-preciselythe language that so incensed many of her critics-Carson crafted a
vision of naturethat would resonatewell with the philosophy of
ecofeminism that began to develop a decade after Silent Spring
was published.
Through an examination of the avalanche of press coverage
that followed the publication of Silent Spring,I will argue that
Carson posed a threat to her detractorsnot merely because she
had marshaleda scientificallysound indictmentof the indiscriminate use of chemicalsin the United Statesand the world. Carson
was also threateningbecause she was a woman, an independent
scholarwhose sex and lack of institutionalties placed her outside
the nexus of the productionand applicationof conventionalscientificknowledge. In an insightfulobservationabout the plight of
women scientistsin the cold war era, MargaretRossiterdescribes
MichaelB. Smith
735
how well-trained women scientists "were,to use some military
terms of the period, 'camouflaged'as housewives, mothers, and
'other'and 'stockpiled'in cities and college towns acrossAmerica
... ready but uncalled for the big emergency that never came."7
Carson, in a sense, called herself to address a big emergency.
Her scientific credentials included a master's degree in marine
biology from Johns Hopkins University and considerablework
toward a Ph.D. Her family'sfinancialcircumstancesin the Great
Depressionobliged Carsonto abandonher doctoralwork in favor
of a job with the Fish and WildlifeService.Despite her degree,her
well-respected researchfor a government agency, and two bestselling books on ocean biology in the 1950s,she was attackedby
criticsof SilentSpringfor both her scienceand her training.8
The gendered language used to discredit Carson was really
quite extraordinary,as we shall see. In order to assess why Silent
Spring-consideredapartfrom its author-provedto be such a provocativebook, I will also examinesome of the rhetoricalflourishes
Carsonemployed. As the epigraphto this articleillustrates,Carson had a vision of the world as an organicsystem, a living organism that insofaras humans needed to exploit it requireda delicate
balancingact, a tenderness,if you will. As CarolynMerchantand
others have pointed out, the scientificrevolutionof the sixteenth
and seventeenthcenturiesreorderedthe human perceptionof the
naturalworld in mechanisticterms. "Theworld we have lost was
organic,"Merchantbegins TheDeathof Nature:Women,Ecology,
and the ScientificRevolution,her pioneering work on the shift in
attitudes toward nature in early modern Europe. Merchant's
organicmodel of relationsbetween humans and natureincluded
the perceptionof natureas a living,feminineorganismrequiringa
special kind of stewardship,one that demandedfull reciprocityin
human-natureinteractions.For Merchant,the most problematic
result of the scientificrevolutionwas the fundamentalreconstruction of nature as a machine comprised of discrete,comprehensible, controllablebits. Male scientistscame to conceive of natureas
an unpredictableharridanin need of constraintand mastery,and
the notion of natureas a partnereroded. The quest to dominatea
female natureparalleledand reinforcedthe culturaltrend toward
the increasedsubordinationof women in society.9
This,indeed, is the position ecofeministshave staked out in the
culturaldebates over ecologicalconsciousness:as the "lostworld"
736
MichaelB. Smith
of a more reciprocalrelationshipbetween humans and natureand
between women and men has succumbedto various formsof dominationby men and male-constructedscience, women and nature have sufferedtogether.By positing that women are innately
more connected to the naturalworld (retainingthe construction
of natureas female) and instinctivelyconceptualizethe world in
organic terms, ecofeminists have argued that reestablishingthe
old notions of reciprocityis a task that should fall predominately
to women. Although the tacitassumptionthat women arebiologically (ratherthan merely culturally)ordained to be better stewards of nature remains a controversialtenet of ecofeminism,the
ecofeminist critique of culture helps us see that the roots of the
oppression of women are more than economic.10Although the
label of ecofeminist would be an anachronisticone for Carson,
she clearly evinced a reverence for the natural world that falls
under Merchant'srubricof a lost perspective.She also proved to
be a catalystfor the then-embryonicenvironmentalmovement, a
movement that has had a disproportionatenumberof women as
its motive force."
SILENCINGSPRING
In theirprofoundlydisturbingstudy of the public relationsindustry,JohnStauberand SheldonRamptonrelatethe story of how the
public relations men for the chemical industry and the Department of Agriculturegot wind of Carson'swork even before its
appearancein the New Yorker.
By the end of the summer of 1962,
when the book version of Carson'sstudy was being preparedfor
press, the anti-Carsonmachinery was already moving in high
gear.Monsantopublished a parody of SilentSpringin its in-house
magazine that was entitled "TheDesolate Year"and describeda
world overrun by insects.12The Velsicol Chemical Corporation
attemptedto convince Houghton Mifflinnot to publish the book
at all, linkingCarsonto "foodfaddists"and other "fringe"groups.
They also invoked the imperativesof the Cold War,contending
that an overly credulousand uninformedpublic might call for the
eliminationof pesticides and that "oursupply of food will be reduced to East-curtainparity."Finally,they threateneda libel suit
None of these attempts to foreagainst Carson's"innuendoes."13
stall the publicationof SilentSpringwas successful.So the chemi-
MichaelB.Smith
737
cal companiesand otherentitieswhose profitmarginswere threatened by Carson'sfindings resortedto counterattackthroughnegative book reviews and opinion pieces in majorperiodicals.These
attacksappeared in all forms of periodicals,from trade journals
andEngineering
such as Chemical
Newsto popularnews magazines
such as Timeand U.S.Newsand WorldReportto peer-reviewedscience journalssuch as Science.The popularityand appeal of Silent
Springdeveloped in spite of this barrage of discrediting assessments. But the rapid disappearanceof the issue of pesticidesfrom
the nationalradarscreenof public opinion by 1965;the assaulton
RachelCarsonherself,even in obituariesfollowing her death from
breast cancer in 1964;and the cheery "See,there were plenty of
birds this spring"rejoindersthat appeared in 1963 and 1964 all
serve as suggestive, if not conclusive,evidence that the anti-Carson rhetoricdid have a chillingeffecton the discourse.
Forthe remainderof this sectionof the articleI will examinethe
dissentingvoices that sought to silence SilentSpring.These critics
fell roughly into two categories.In the first were those who were
membersof the scientificcommunity.The writerswere almost all
men. Almost all of them found the researchundertakenby Carson
for the book to be suspect;many of them questionedCarson'screor a mere "scientificjournalist."
dentials,calling her an "amateur"
also
her
dismissed
Many
writing as "emotional"and lacking the
kind of cold, rationalrisk assessmentrequiredof modem applied
science.Readingthe reviews today one even senses some reviewers implicitlydrawing a line between the "hard"science of chemistry and the "soft"science of biology.The second categoryof critics were from the popularpress,the defendersof cold war-inflected notions of progressand justifiedmeans to ends. These writers
also engaged in gendered critiquesof what they called Carson's
emotionalism and her vision of progress rooted in "sentimentalism"ratherthan reality.Thesecritiquesof SilentSpringappearedin
magazines whose readershipranged across the spectrum, from
GoodHousekeepingto SportsIllustratedto Life.To be sure Silent
Springreceivednumerousfavorablereviews in the popularpress.
But even some of these reflectedthe genderbiases noted above.
It is not surprising that some of the most vicious attacks on
Rachel Carson and Silent Spring came from those with the great-
est economic stake in the widespread use of chemicalpesticides.
As noted above, many chemicalcompanieslaunched anti-Carson
738
Michael B. Smith
campaigns.But the reviews of SilentSpringthat appearedin some
of the trade journals reflected a hysteria that transcended even
that which they accused Carsonof. The most sexist, most unbalandEngineering
anced review of SilentSpringappearedin Chemical
Newsin Octoberof 1962,shortlyafterthe publicationof the book.
William Darby of the VanderbiltUniversity School of Medicine
attackedCarson from the first paragraphof his review, entitled
"Silence,Miss Carson!"The title itself (which the journallater admitted was its own creation,not Darby's)expressesthe prevailing
attitude among many of Carson'scritics that she was an uninformed woman who was speaking of that which she knew not.
Worse,she was speaking in a man's world, the inner sanctum of
masculinesciencein which, like the sanctuaryof a strictCalvinist
sect, female silence was expected."4Darby began his review by
lumping Carson with groups he considered to be antimodern
"freaks."
SilentSpringwould appealto readerssuch as "theorganic
gardeners,the anti-fluorideleaguers,the worshippersof 'natural
foods,' and those who cling to the philosophy of a vital principle,
and pseudo-scientists and faddists," wrote Darby. He then invoked a series of father-figurescientistswho supportedthe use of
pesticides and whom Carsonsupposedly ignored. "Itis doubtful
that many readerscan bear to wade throughits high-pitchedsequences of anxieties,"Darbycontinued,impugning Carson'scritical tone in terms all too reminiscentof sexist critiquesof so-called
femininestyles of discourse.But, Darby went on, if readerswere
moved by Carson'spleas and her invocation of Schweitzer and
othercriticsof uncontrolledmodernization,theirview augured
the end of all human progress, reversion to a passive social state devoid of
technology, scientific medicine, agriculture, sanitation, or education. It means
disease, epidemics, starvation, misery, and suffering incomparable and intolerable to modem man. Indeed, social, educational, and scientific development is
prefaced on the conviction that man's lot will be and is being improved by
greater understanding of and thereby increased ability to control or mold those
forces responsible for man's suffering, misery, and deprivation.'5
FrancisBaconwould have been proud of such a manifestoadvocating man'srole as conqueror,master,and controllerof nature.
Here we see not a judicious review of a controversialbook but a
defense of the ideology of modem science and progress against
femininesentimentality,the frightenedgrowl of cornereddogma.
Significantly,many readersof Chemicaland EngineeringNews objected passionatelyto Darby'scharacterizationof Carsonand Si-
MichaelB. Smith
739
lent Springin his review.16But Darby was speaking as someone
whose power was being undermined.
Another prominentmale physician wrote an only slightly less
corrosivereview for a tradejournalwith a slightly differentorientation,NutritionReviews.ForFrederickJ.Stare,Carson's"emotional picture"of a possible disasterdisqualifiedher as a scientistand
raised questionsabout her real commitmentto humanity,for "the
broad applicationof a brillianttechnology"has allowed humanity
to "staveoff starvation,disease, and social and political unrest."
Carson'sinterrogationof the applicationof science was, in Stare's
mind, naive at best and unpatrioticat worst. Miss Carson,Stare
concluded, was no scientist. Her use of phrases such as "never
ending stream of chemicals ...
now pervading the world" and
verbs such as "lurks"and "engulf"in referenceto chemicalresidue
consigned her to the role of sentimental essayist. Ignoring Carson's distinguishedcareeras a marinebiologist, Stareconcluded:
"InMiss Carson'scase, researchlimited to selective reading,plus
the urging of 'friends'with special interests,is certainlyno diploma of equivalency for the academic training and experience requiredfor authority."17
Reviews and essays aboutSilentSpringthatappearedin scientific journalsdid not contain such blatantattackson Carson'scharacter,although most were no less criticalof her conclusions.Reviewer afterreviewer-inall genreof periodicals-damnedCarson's
meddling in "progress,"condemned her for proposing "unrealistic"alternatives.I will returnto the rhetoricCarsonused and why
it may have so inflamed those who subscribed to conventional
notions of progressin the second partof this article.Butit is worth
pointing out here that criticismsof Carson'sscience often alluded
to her "soft"approach to a natural world that was humanity's
adversary.Therecan be little doubt her belief thatthe 'battle"with
nature was not a zero-sum game, that our relationshipwith the
nonhumanpartof natureshould not be characterizedas a battleat
all, threatenedan entiresectorof the economy whose profitswere
predicatedon an adversarialformulation.
One conceit that Carson employed again and again in Silent
Springis "thebalanceof nature."Such a view of the naturalworld
and the place of humanity in it raised the ire of I.L. Baldwin,
among others. In his 1962 review for ScienceBaldwin wrote: "Itis
certain that modern agriculture and modern public health, in-
740
MichaelB. Smith
deed, modem civilization,could not exist without an unrelenting
war against the return of a true balance of nature."Like Darby,
Baldwin deployed the assertion that from science had sprung
modernity,that alternativesto the existingpracticeof sciencewere
antimodernand would inevitablyresultin castinghumanityback
in the cauldronof competitionwith the restof the naturalworld, a
naturered in tooth and claw. Besides,Baldwinwrote, "Theproblem RachelCarsondramatizesis not a new one";competentmen
were working within the dominant scientificparadigm to make
necessary corrections."[Their]reportsare not dramaticallywritten, and they were not intended to be best sellers.They are,however,the result of carefulstudy by a wide group of scientists,and
they representbalancedjudgementsin areas in which emotional
appeals tend to over-balancesound judgementbased on facts."'8
and "emotional."
RachelCarson'sscience,then, was "unbalanced"
Restraint-thatis, protectingthe statusquo-was the most "rational"
course. OtherscriticizedCarsonin a similarvein. Her use of the
image of a "fragileand exquisitesongbirddying in paralyticconvulsions"was, accordingto ThomasH. Jukesin AmericanScientist,
an unforgivablysentimentaltacticfor raisingawarenessabout the
issue of "possible"pesticide misuse. Jukes condemned those followers of JohnMuirwho want to see his vision of pure naturepreserved but would not "adopthis diet of tea and bread crusts,"
those hypocriticalidealistswho want to have both modernityand
a balanceof nature:not possible,he flatly asserted."(I.L.Baldwin
had made a similarclaim,statingthat the eliminationor even significant reductionof pesticides would mean a '"back-to-the-farm
migrationfor millions.")20
These writers and others were trying to preserve the public's
credulityin the abilityof scienceand technologyto solve problems
both presentedby natureand those that developed as unforeseen
consequencesof applied science. Even one of the more balanced
reviews of SilentSpringin a scientificmagazinehad this agenda at
its core. "Isuspect that the inevitableway to progressfor man, as
for nature,"wrote LaMontC. Cole in ScientificAmerican,"isto try
new things in an almost haphazardmanner,discardingthe failures and building upon the successes."2'It was just this blind faith
Carson was trying to shake. The New YorkTimesopined even
beforeher book appearedthat "shewarns of the dangersof misuse
and overuse by a public that has become mesmerized by the
MichaelB. Smith
741
notion that chemistsare the possessors of divine wisdom and that
nothing but benefit can emergefrom theirtest tubes."22
Thata woman should challengethe mesmerists,thatshe should
try to shake Americansfrom their complacenttrust in their own
government and most powerful corporations,dismayed not just
the chemicalcompaniesand theircolleaguesin researchuniversities. Her New Yorker
pieces drew overwhelmingpraise from readers, but a vocal minorityobjectedto her and her findings strenuously. One writer wrote: "MissRachel Carson'sreferenceto the
selfishness of insecticide manufacturers probably reflects her
Communist sympathies, like a lot of our writers these days. We
can live without birds and animals, but, as the currentmarket
slump shows, we cannotlive without business.As for insects,isn't
it just like a woman to be scared to death of a few little bugs! As
long as we have the H-bombeverythingwill be O.K."23
If letters from cranks had been the extent of the public complaints against Carsonin the popular press, one could less confidently assertthatgenderbiases fromthe cultureat largedeeply inflected the receptionof her work. But when a magazine with the
wide readershipof Timecalled her findings and writing "patently
unsound,""hystericallyemphatic,"and an "emotionaloutburst,"
then the roots of the criticism,the reasonsCarsonwas so threatening, become clear:she was a woman and she was challenginga
cornerstone of industrial capitalism with a passion considered
unbecoming to a scientist. The Timepiece also trotted out the
familiarcriticismabout the 'balanceof nature":"Loversof wildlife
often rhapsodizeabout the 'balanceof nature'that keeps all living
creaturesin harmony,but scientistsrealisticallypoint out that the
balance of naturewas upset thousands of years ago when man's
invention of weapons made him the king of the beasts. The balance has never recovered its equilibrium;man is the dominant
species on his planet, and as his fields, pasturesand cities spread
across the land, lesser species are extirpated,pushed into refuge
areas,or domesticated."24
The Catholicperiodical of record,America,also savaged Silent
Spring, again noting Carson's "emotionalism"and lack of balance.2 The NationalReviewcalled the book "simplya long emotional attack,"Carson'sapproach "emotionaland one-sided,"an
"obscurantistappeal to the emotions."Again invoking the need
for "rational"and "scientific"(as opposed to emotional or irra-
742
MichaelB. Smith
tional and sentimental)approach,the review concluded by saying that "[theproblem of pesticides] is Burkean,and involves a
careful weighing of advantages and disadvantages with due
Newsweekwondered
regard to our lack of perfect knowledge."26
about the critics'view of SilentSpringas "innuendo"and having
"thequality of gossip."27 "Herextravagantlanguage ..., her unscientific use of innuendo ...,
her pantheism ...
,
and her disre-
gard for the studies of the problem by her fellow scientists in
industry,the university,and governmentservice"(mostly men of
course) rendered her study completely unreliable, commented
Even a profile of Carsonin Lifepurportingto
anotherreviewer.28
be a balancedassessmentof the woman and her work could not
overlook the implicationsof Carson'ssex noting that "forall her
gentle mien, RachelCarson,55, who is unmarriedbut not a femiThis phrase suggests that were
nist ... is a formidableadversary."
Carson a feminist she would indeed be a subversive force, for
(with a wink to the reader)Lifesubscribersall know what those
women are like. And yet thereis also in these words the implication that Carson'sunmarriedstatus is itself an expressionof some
deficiency,that were she married,none of this controversywould
have developed.Presumablyshe would have insteadbeen practicing home economics and recognizingthe overwhelmingbenefits
of pesticide-enhancedagriculturalbounty for the kitchen.Thereis,
in fact,no evidence to suggest Carsonopenly advocatedfor women's rights,althoughher own strugglewith the scientificestablishment served as a feminist statement.By the second page of the
profile Carsonhad morphed into a pesky gadfly, a "goodindignant crusader."Finally, the article concluded, like troublesome
MotherNature herself, "HurricaneRachel"must be endured,becalmed, and then "the real dangers to public health [could] be
evaluated,and then controlledby skilledmedicalmen.'"29
Likemany of the articlesaboutCarsonand SilentSpringthe Life
profile featured photographs of Carson, few of which depicted
her in the guise of a professionalscientist.Therewere none of the
usual press release photographsof a white-coatednotable scientist in the lab looking authoritativeor the dauntlessfield researcher above the volcano'smouth. Instead,Carsonwas almost always
photographedwith her cat or sitting in the woods surroundedby
childrengesturing at the naturalwonders of the world. Only occasionally did a photo of her at a microscope appear. By implica-
Michael B. Smith
743
tion, these photos located Carson in the world of the school
marm,not the world of science.She was a teacher-tosome a subversive, dangerous one-but not someone who was engaged in
meaningfulscientificresearch."
Even one year after the publication of the book, even after a
commissionappointedby PresidentKennedyhad sustainedmany
of Carson'sconclusionsabout pesticides,the assault on Carsonin
print continued. An early collaboratoron Silent Spring,Edwin
Diamond, described how he simply could not work with a
woman who let emotion interferewith accuracyand whose final
product relied on the same shock techniques and distortions
employed by Joseph McCarthy.3'The story, "Life-GivingSpray"
(featuring the obligatory photograph of Carson as sentimental
bird watcher), appeared in the quintessential male magazine,
Sports Illustrated,and concluded that one year after Carson's
frighteningindictmentwildlife seemed more abundantthan ever,
and was, in fact,aided by pesticideuse.32
Even the airwaves were filled with vilification of Carson, critiques once again suffused with gendered notions of science and
who does "good"science. In a widely distributedspeech of January 1963,the president of the Nutrition Foundation,C.G. King,
like FrederickStareand otherscited above, condemnedCarsonas
a fellow travelerwith all of the fringe elements of society: "Food
faddists,health quacks,and special interestgroups are promoting
her book as if it were scientificallyirreproachableand written by
a scientist. Neither is true .
. .
and [Carson] misses the very es-
sence of science in not being objectiveeitherin citing the evidence
or in its interpretation."33
The frequently interviewed RobertH.
whose
British
accent and grandfatherlyappearWhite-Stevens,
ance evidently conferredupon him a trustworthinessunmerited
by his intemperateremarks,proved to be the king of anti-Carson
sound bites with variations on the following characterizationof
Silent Spring:"Herbook is littered with crass assumptions and
gross misinterpretations,misquotations,and misunderstandings,
clearly calculated to mislead the uninformed....
Her book will
come to be regarded in time as a gross distortion of the actual
facts, essentially unsupported by either scientific experimental
evidence or practical experience in the field."34For these men,
whose power in shaping society through expert scientificadvice
hung on their credibilityas both protectorsof the public interest
744
MichaelB. Smith
and exemplarsof "true"science,RachelCarson'sconclusionsand
analysis were terrifying. Carson's critics-mostly men, mostly
white, mostly affiliatedwith some bureaucraticinstitution-recognized the general public'swillingness to accept science as it was
being practicedas the ultimateauthority.They thereforetook two
approachesto discreditingher,both of which often led the reader
to make inferencesabout how gender inflected her science and
both of which sought to shore up the foundationsof science that
Carson'scritiqueof modernityhad shaken. Carson'scriticstried
to reassurethe world that even if some of what Carson alleged
was true,the mistakesresultedfrom misapplication,not misguided science.Science,they argued,was almost solely responsiblefor
the extraordinarystandardof living Americanswere experiencing
by the early 1960s. To heed Carson'swarnings would be tantamount to killing the goose that was laying the golden egg. Since
the ProgressiveErawhen the federalgovernmenthad begun regulating society in earnestfor the first time, the burgeoningAmerican middle classhad been willing to acceptsafetyregulationsonly
to the extent that such regulationsdid not incur large increasesin
the price of consumergoods. As was the case with the meatpacking industryin the first decade of the twentiethcenturyfollowing
the publicationof Upton Sinclair'sTheJungle,those who stood to
profitdirectlyfromthe heavy use of pesticidesrespondedto Silent
Springwith the consumer's wallet in mind, thereby striking a
putative balance-if it can be called such a thing-between public
health safety and affordability."[Becauseof pesticides] today's
Americanhousewives have the widest choice of fruits and vegetables, and meats and dairy-at prices to fit theirbudgets,"characterizesthis rhetoric.35
'"THEOTHER ROAD"
Somethingotherthanjust the specterof bad sciencepiqued the ire
of Carson's critics. Although Carson'sjob in Silent Springwas
largely that of a synthesizer,her conclusionspointed to the practice of a profoundly differentrelationshipbetween humans and
nature than that which obtainedin early 1960s'America.Carson
avoided makingprescriptionsthat amountedto a call for the overthrow of the existing order.Her persistentinvocationof "balance"
and the rhetoric she employed in advocating a change in the
Michael B. Smith
745
applicationof scienceamountedto a subversiveact,however.This
challengeto the orderof things, even when it was not a conscious
one, inspired the modem environmentalmovement and underFor the remaingirds much of what is now called "ecofeminism."
der of this articleI will examine a few passages from SilentSpring
that illustratethe radical nature of Carson'scritique and briefly
outlineboth her legacy and the legacy of the public relationscampaign againsther.
In his essay on the politics of nature in Silent Spring,Yaakov
Garbargues that Carsonwas not really very radical.She was, he
to a certaindegree;that is,
contends,content to practicerealpolitik
she deliberatelyavoided connectingthe injusticesof the social environmentthat to a certainextentpreordainedthe injusticesto the
naturalenvironment.To argue that capitalismgenerally,not merely the corporategreed of chemicalmanufacturers,was responsible
for irresponsiblesciencewas not, obviously,Carson'sagenda.But,
as Garbpoints out, OurSyntheticEnvironment,
a book by the anarchist MurrayBookchin(writing pseudonymously as Lewis Herber), published only months before SilentSpringand making the
same indictment against pesticides using many of the same
sources,receivedlittleattention.Why?BecauseBookchin'spolemic
viewed pesticides merely as a symptom of an economic system
that was pathologicalto its core.Withoutsocialjustice,he argued,
there could be no environmentaljustice. He hoped to leverage a
popular overthrow of the status quo through his expose of government and corporatecomplicity in the poisoning of the environment and people. Bookchin'scritique of society was simply
unpalatable to even many of those "fringe"groups with whom
Carsonwas speciously associated.Garbsees SilentSpringas a far
less radicalcritiqueof society than Bookchin's.Carson,Garbconof nature"because it at once resonattends, invoked the '"balance
ed with an antimodernimpulse that resides in many denizens of
late-twentieth-century society and because it was sufficiently
vague not to be threateningto most of society.He writes:
Terms like "nature,""natural,"and the "balance of nature" have great discursive
force not in spite of but because of their fuzziness. Their multiple connotations
and self-evident (thus unexamined) definition within the community that
shares them enable protean versatility. We add great force to any argument by
adducing the "natural"to it, so long as no one asks carefully what we mean by
the term. If they do, it will often turn out that nature (and its cognates) are not
pre-existing, ontologically firm objects or conditions in the natural world, but a
reification of human criteria and definitions.2
746
MichaelB. Smith
Whateverthe wide-rangingresonanceof these termsin the popular consciousness,for Carsonthey had very specificmeanings,anchoredin a vision of thatworld CarolynMerchantcalledorganic.
I agree that Carsondid not explicitlymake the same sweeping
indictmentsas Bookchin;however, she offereda vision of science
that expressed a reconsiderationof the Baconianmodel that has
more or less guided Westernscience since the seventeenthcentury.In the firstpages of SilentSpring-the"Fablefor Tomorrow"that
so many criticsheld up as evidence that Carsonwas a storyteller
and nothing more-she evoked a world which, having been treated as a machinemore inorganicthan vital for so many centuries,
has died. "Nowitchcraft... had silenced the rebirthof new life in
this strickenworld,"Carsonwrote, "Thepeople had done it themThe scientists, mostly, had done it, with homeowners
selves.""37
and farmersabetting,largely unaware of what they were doing.
Time and again Carson refers to man's quest for dominion over
nature:his "assaultson the naturalworld"(16), his "[procession]
toward his announced goal of the conquest of nature"(83), his
tearingof "theearth'sgreenmantle"(64).
Her working titles for SilentSpringdemonstratethat she wanted to bring out the theme of man's relentlessstruggle to subdue
naturemore than she did. At various stages of the writing process
Carson wanted to call her book "Controlof Nature"and "Man
And she indicts the dictatorialnatureof sciagainst the Earth."38
ence and its star chamber of practitionerswho make decisions
that effect everyone, destroyinga part of the world without consent. Someone had appointed himself God. "Whohas made the
decision that sets in motion these chains of poisonings, this everwidening wave of death that spreads out, like ripples when a
pebble is dropped into a still pond?"She asked:"Whohas decided-who has the rightto decide-for the countlesslegions of people
who were not consulted that the supreme value is a world without insects,even though it be also a sterileworld ungracedby the
curvingwing of a bird in flight?The decisionis that of the authoritarian... ; he has made it during a moment of inattentionby millions to whom beauty and the orderedworld of naturestill have a
meaning that is deep and imperative"(119)."Manwith a spray
gun"is a phraseCarsonemploys to describethe militaristicfervor
with which pesticide users have carriedout theirprojectto eradicate all insects. This "manwith a spray gun"has ignored the bal-
MichaelB.Smith
747
ance of nature,destroyingas pests insectswhich preyed on insects
even more destructive to the sculpted environment of humans.
There are laws more fundamental than Bacon's and Newton's.
Carsonargued that "[t]hebalanceof nature... is a complex,precise, and highly integratedsystem of relationshipsbetween living
things which cannot safely be ignored any more than the law of
gravity can be defied with impunity by a man perched on the
edge of a cliff. ... Man, too, is part of this balance" (218).
Carsonwas not, of course,the firstto arguethathumans should
attendmore carefullyto ecologicalequilibrium.But in a way more
pointed than anyone before her she identifiedthe most profound
consequenceof humanity'stamperingwith this balance:humans
themselves.For Carson,one of the most disturbingaspects of the
chemicalworld of the postwar era was how it had compromised
future generations. "Chemicalsoccur in the mother's milk and
probably in the tissues of the unborn child"(24), she wrote. We
had engaged in an experiment with no control group, Carson
worried, a terriblydangerousgame. The illusion that human beings, by virtue of theirpower to manipulatenature,were immune
to the diffusion of toxins into the environmentwas no longer tenable afterSilentSpring.
CODA
The controversystirredup by SilentSpringcontinues to this day.
A presidential commission and congressionalinvestigation into
the dangers posed by pesticides led to stricterguidelines about
the testing, labeling,and applicationof pesticides.The road from
SilentSpringled directlyto the creationof the EnvironmentalProtection Agency. In the years since the publicationof SilentSpring,
other scientists have largely corroborated Carson's assertions
about the damage chemicalpesticides do to the environment.39
In
spite of this, the addiction of the industrialized world and, increasingly,the developing world, to powerful poisons for eradicating the "pests"that feast on the vast acreages of industrial
monoculture is as strong as ever. Perhaps even more troubling
has been the ever-growing acceptanceof genetically engineered
agriculturalproducts, many of which are genetically engineered
to resist herbicides. The continued complication of agriculture
makes the productionof food increasinglyrelianton corporatein-
748
MichaelB. Smith
terests, whose primary interest, of course, is profit. Although
some writers have read Carson as ignoring this element of the
pesticide problem, they have overlooked several searing indictments of corporate greed. "[This]is ... an era dominated by
industry,"Carsonwrote in the second chapterof SilentSpring,"in
which the right to make a dollar at whatever cost is seldom challenged. When the public protests,confrontedwith some obvious
evidence of damagingresultsof pesticideapplications,it is fed little tranquilizingpills of half truth"(23).
Anotherkind of opiate for the masses perhaps?Despite the initial uproarover pesticides therewas a markeddecline of the genEnvironmentalactivists
eralpublic'sinterestin the issue by 1965.40
on
the
table
but
the
attention
soon shifted to other
issue
kept
social problems:student unrest,the VietnamWar,racialtensions.
Although chemical pollution of the environmentremained (and
remains)a very seriousproblem,the loudest advocatesof curtailing the use of pesticides were, ironically,the much disparaged
"food faddists,"organic gardeners and farmers,and grassroots
activistswhose own lives had been directlyaffectedby environmentaltoxins.41
"Havewe fallen into a mesmerized state that makes us accept
as inevitablethat which is inferioror detrimental,as though having lost the will or the vision to demand thatwhich is good?"(22),
RachelCarsonasked in 1962.When her predictionsof the power
of environmentaltoxins to alterhuman germ plasm and in some
cases disrupthuman reproductivecapacitieshave come true, and
yet the general public seems largely unconcerned, one has to
wonder about the extent of mesmerism.In OurStolenFuture:Are
Our Fertility,Intelligence,and Survival?Theo ColWe Threatening
bum, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers document
just how chlorine-basedsyntheticchemicalscause serious reproductive problems in both animals and humans.42 But the book
made much less of a splash than SilentSpring,in partbecause the
public relationseffortsof the chemicalindustryworked to undermine the credibilityof the book even before it reachedthe bookstores. The stakes were even higher for the industry this time
around because Colborn and her collaboratorsfocused on the
way environmental toxins victimized women and children, both
already represented by powerful activist organizations. "No definitive proof!" cried the chemical industry and agribusiness, and
MichaelB. Smith
749
that seems to have placated all but the most determinedcriticsin
the booming 1990s'economy.1
And so it seems we have not learned the moral of RachelCarson's "Fablefor Tomorrow,"
her story about a world with no bird
no
edible
and
fish,
songs,
poisoned people that opened Silent
The
alternative
science,with its view toward maintaining
Spring.
a balanced relationshipbetween humans and their environment
that she and a minority of others have advocated,languishes on
the fringe of the scientificand culturaldiscourse.SandraHarding
has argued that a feminist critique of science must have as its
agenda the illuminationof both science'sprogressiveand regressive tendencies,of science'sinherentlypoliticalnature,of science
as a social process. Only after such exposure might it be possible
"to use for liberating ends sciences that are apparently so intimately involved in Western,bourgeois,and masculineprojects.""44
Rachel Carson would not have assessed Western science in so
many words, but her indictmentsin SilentSpringmost certainly
served to illuminate these dimensions of science. Without discardingscience'sbenefits to humanityCarsonshook her finger at
the careless,regressivepath science had takenwith regardto pesticides. With its call to action Silent Springwas a political statement and its very publication expressed the sentiment that science is a social process.
The indignation that greeted the publication of Silent Spring
and subsequentcritiquesof chemicaldamage to the environment,
the campaign that has so successfully painted them as emanations from the radicalfringe of society,is not merely about good
science versus bad science. The origins of the debate lie with
morality,in questions about how to define moral responsibility:
moral science versus immoral science. Carsonbelieved that humankind's rigid, impatient attempt to order the natural world
constitutedan abrogationof moral responsibilityto both the human community and the rest of the naturalworld. "Throughall
these new, imaginative,and creative approachesto the problem
of sharing our earth with other creaturesthere runs a constant
theme"(261),RachelCarsonwrote in SilentSpring.And only when
we revereall life, develop a sciencethat embracesaccommodation
rather than conquest, will we evolve beyond that "Neanderthal
age of biology,"and its attendantequivocatingmorality.
Michael B. Smith
750
NOTES
The author wishes to thank the participantsof RichardSorrenson's"Scienceand Gender"fall 1997 seminarat IndianaUniversity,ProfessorSorrensonhimself, and the two
anonymousFeministStudiesrefereesfor their many helpful suggestions for the conceptualization,writing,and revisionof this article.
1. See Linda Lear, "Bombshellin Beltsville: The USDA and the Challenge of Silent
Spring,"AgriculturalHistory66 (spring 1992):152; and Paul Brooks, TheHouseof Life:
RachelCarsonat Work(Boston:HoughtonMifflin,1972),293, for these comparisons.
2. See Ralph Lutts, "ChemicalFallout:RachelCarson'sSilentSpring,RadioactiveFallReview9 (fall 1985):211-25.
out, and the EnvironmentalMovement,"Environmental
3. See JohnStauberand Sheldon Rampton,ToxicWasteIs Goodfor You!Lies,DamnLies,
andthePublicRelationsIndustry(Monroe,Maine:CommonCouragePress,1995),123-27.
4. See, for example, Lear's "Bombshellin Beltsville,"151-71, and her RachelCarson:
Witnessfor Nature(New York:Henry Holt, 1997),396-456;FrankGraham,SinceSilent
Spring(Boston:HoughtonMifflin,1970),48-81;and Brooks,293-307.
5. In this contextmy use of ad hominemis especiallyapt. Ad hominem,literallymeaning "tothe man,"is significantbecause in many instances,as we shall see, Carsonwas
attackedpreciselybecause she was not a man, did not subscribeto a rational"masculine"vision of dominion over nature.Linda Lear'snew biographyof Carson does address the genderissue (428-41)but in a less systematicway than this articledoes.
6. Feministphilosophers and historians of science have produced much rich scholarship exploringthe culturalconstructionof Westernscience.The orientationof this article was heavily influenced by Sandra G. Harding's TheScienceQuestionin Feminism
(Ithaca,N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986), and WhoseScience?WhoseKnowledge:
from Women'sLives(Ithaca,N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991);and Evelyn
Thinking
on Genderand Science(New Haven:Yale UniversityPress, 1985).
Fox Keller'sReflections
See also EileenM. Byrne,WomenandScience:TheSnarkSyndrome
(London:FulmerPress,
1993),esp. 48-87.
7. AlthoughCarson'sposition as an independentscholarin 1962was largelyvoluntary,
she, like hundredsof women like her, had encounteredbarriersto advancementin both
governmentservice and higher educationher entirecareer.See Lear,RachelCarson,54198.On the discriminationagainstwomen scientistsgenerallyin this period and earlier,
see MargaretRossiter,WomenScientistsin America:BeforeAffirmative
Action,1940-1972
(Baltimore:JohnsHopkinsUniversityPress,1995).The quotationis fromxviii.
8. Carson'sTheSeaaroundUs (1951)and TheEdgeof the Sea (1955)were viewed as the
musings of a naturewriter ratherthan emanatingfrom the researchof a marinebiologist, a reactionwhich reflectsthe prevailingattitudeamong many scientiststhat popularizedscienceequalswatered-downscienceand that naturalhistoryis inferiorto physical science.
9. See CarolynMerchant,TheDeathof Nature:Women,Ecology,and the ScientificRevolution(SanFrancisco:Harper& Row, 1980).
10. Ecofeminismemerged with the publication of RosemaryRadford Ruether'sNew
Woman/NewEarth:Sexist Ideologiesand HumanLiberation(New York:Seabury Press,
1975).For the theoreticalfoundationsof ecofeminism,see CarolynMerchant,"Ecofemed.
inism and FeministTheory,"in Reweavingthe World:TheEmergence
of Ecofeminism,
Irene Diamond and GloriaF. Orenstein(San Francisco:SierraClub Books, 1990).Perhaps the best treatise on ecofeminismis MariaMies and VandanaShiva, Ecofeminism
(Halifax,Nova Scotia:Fernwood,1993).See also Vera Norwood, Madefrom ThisEarth:
AmericanWomenandNature(ChapelHill:Universityof North CarolinaPress, 1993),26184. The essentialization of women in their stewardship of the environment is hotly
Michael B. Smith
751
debated even within the feministcommunity.See, for example,CecileJackson,"Radical
EnvironmentalMyths: A Gender Perspective,"New LeftReview,no. 210 (March/April
1995):124-40.
11. For Carson's influence on women in the environmental movement, see Carolyn
Womenand the Environment
Merchant,Earthcare:
(New York:Routledge, 1995).On the
role of women in the environmentalmovement, see Mary Joy Broton,WomenPioneers
(Boston:NortheasternUniversityPress,1998).
for theEnvironment
12. Stauberand Rampton,123-27.
13. Lewis A. McLean,General Counsel, Volsicol Chemical Corporationto Houghton
Mifflin,2 Aug. 1962,quoted in Graham,49.
14. In this context,David F. Noble'sanalysisof the persistenceof the clerical"mantel"of
science with its roots in the exclusively masculineworld of medieval science is illuminating. See his A WorldwithoutWomen:TheChristianClericalCultureof WesternScience
(New York:Knopf,1992).
15. William Darby, "Silence,Miss Carson!"Chemicaland EngineeringNews 40 (1 Oct.
1962):60, 60-62.
16. See Chemicaland EngineeringNews, 40 (22 Oct. 1962):5, and (5 Nov. 1962):4-5.
Among the comments in letters to the editor: Ellie A. Shneourwrote, "themost irresponsible review that I have ever seen";FrankA. Meier wrote, "boththe title and the
review portrayan attitudeill becoming a scientist";and RobertJ. Good wrote, "Instead
of [a] positive type of responseto Miss Carson,C&ENand Dr. Darbyhave reactedlike a
cigarettecompanyexecutive when somebody asks if smoking causes lung cancer."This
last remarkis an ironic and fascinatingcomparisonin light of the recentdemise of corporatetobacco.Anothertradejournal,ChemicalWeek,publisheda criticalreportof Silent
Springand also received letterssupportingCarson.See ChemicalWeek91 (3 Nov. 1962):
7, and (27Oct. 1962):7.
17. FrederickJ. Stare,"SomeCommentson SilentSpring,"NutritionReviews21 (January
1963):1, 4.
18. I.L.Baldwin,"Chemicalsand Pests,"Science137 (28Sept. 1962):1043.
19. Thomas H. Jukes, "Peopleand Pesticides,"AmericanScientist51 (September1963):
355-61.
20. Baldwin,1043.
21. LaMontC. Cole, ScientificAmerican,no. 207 (December1962):176.
22. Editorial,New YorkTimes,2 July 1962,28.
23. "Inthe Mail,"the New Yorker71 (20 and 27 Feb. 1995):18. As part of its seventieth
anniversaryissue, the New Yorkerreprinteda numberof letters.
24. "ThePrice for Progress," Time80 (28 Sept. 1962): 45-48. This article goes on to
describehow modem large-scaleagriculturewas actuallypart of the problem:the scale
and varietyof pre-industrialagriculturediminishedthe damageinsects could do. Of interestgiven the contextof this paper:this critiqueof SilentSpringran in the "science"section of the magazine;immediatelyfollowing the savaging of the book was a story about
the "newheros of the space program,"the "handsomemen"of the Apollo program.
25. "Rebuttalto Miss Carson,"America107 (27Oct. 1962):944.
26. GordonTallock,"OfMites and Men,"NationalReview13 (20 Nov, 1962):398-99.This
was the only review that honored Carson with a "Dr."before her name. Although
Carson,for financialreasons,never did completeher doctorate,she did receive several
honorary doctorates.Although reviewers used "Miss"in keeping with contemporary
stylistic convention,many seemed to use it as an epithet as they gleefully castigatedher
for not being scientificenough.
27. "Hissof Doom?"Newsweek60 (6 Aug. 1962):55.
28. "EveryManHis Own Borgia?"TheEconomist105 (20Oct. 1962):248.
29. "TheGentleStormCenter,"Life53 (12Oct. 1962):105-10.
30. This connection of Carson to children was not limited to photographs. Even in
752
Michael B. Smith
reviews criticalof Silent Spring,writers praised her earlier books on the sea for their
ability to tap into a childlike sense of wonder. Such descriptions of the ocean, even
scrupulouslyscientificones, were not threatening,more like bedtimestories than nightmarishsocial criticism.
31. Edwin Diamond, "TheMyth of the "PesticideMenace,"'SaturdayEveningPost 236
(28 Sept. 1963):16-18. Given the theme of this article, I was acutely sensitive to the
depictionof women as I conductedmy research.The cover of this issue of the Saturday
EveningPost featured a picture of Vietnam's Madame Nhu and the headline: "The
Ruthless Beauty Who Helped Provoke the Violence."This was the culturalcontext in
which SilentSpringwas so hotly debated.
19 (18 Nov. 1963):22-25.
32. VirginiaKraft,"Life-GivingSpray,"SportsIllustrated
33. C.G. King, quoted in "SilentSpring on the Pacific Slope: A Postscript to Rachel
Carson,"AtlanticMonthly212 (July1963):81.
34. Robert H. White-Stevens,Address to the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association, April 1963, quoted in "SilentSpring on the Pacific Slope,"82. For
descriptions of Dr. White-Stevens'sbehavior during the debates over pesticides and
SilentSpring,see Lear,RachelCarson,437-40.
35. "IfYou Didn'tHave Poison Sprays,"U.S. NewsandWorldReport54 (3 June 1963):7475.
36. See Yaakov Garb, "ThePolitics of Nature in Rachel Carson's Silent Spring,"in
of Ecology,ed. David Macauley (New York:Guilford
MindingNature:ThePhilosophers
Press, 1996),238, 229-56.Lewis Herber [MurrayBookchin],Our SyntheticEnvironment
(New York:Knopf, 1962).Thereis nothing particularlyoriginalabout Garb'sassertion
that natureis a culturalconstruction.See, for example,WilliamCronon,ed., Uncommon
theHumanPlacein Nature(New York:Norton,1995).
Ground:
Rethinking
37. RachelCarson,SilentSpring(New York:Fawcett,1962), 14. Subsequentreferences
in this paswill be cited in parenthesesin the text. Carson'sexonerationof "witchcraft"
sage connectsher more closely to CarolynMerchantand otherecofeministsthan a casual reading might reveal. Merchantgoes to great lengths to show how "witchcraft"
was
really the persistence of premodern relationships with nature. The persecution of
"witches"during the fifteenththroughseventeenthcenturieswas part of the attemptto
reconstructnatureand eradicatethe organicworld that existedbefore the scientificrevolution.See TheDeathof Nature,chap.4.
38. Graham,21,25.
39. On SilentSpring'sregulatorylegacy, see Graham,266-71;and, especially,H. Patricia
Hynes, TheRecurringSilent Spring(New York:PergamonPress, 1989). See also KirkMovement,1962-1992
patrick Sale, The GreenRevolution:TheAmericanEnvironmental
(New York:Hill & Wang, 1997),3-28;and Samuel P. Hayes, Beauty,Health,Permanence:
Environmental
Politicsin the UnitedStates,1955-1985(New York:CambridgeUniversity
Press,1987),177-206.
Literature
and
40. One can get a sense of this by perusingthe Reader'sGuideto Periodical
newspaperindexes from 1962to 1968.The entriesunder the heading "Pesticides"occupied threecolumnsof copy from 1962to 1963-by1965,half a column.
41. See H. PatriciaHynes, "EllenSwallow, Lois Gibbs,and RachelCarson:Catalystsof
Forum8 (1985):291-98;
the AmericanEnvironmentalMovement,"Women'sInternational
139-66.
and Merchant,Earthcare,
42. See Theo Colburn,DianneDumanoski,and JohnPetersonMyers,OurStolenFuture:
AreWeThreatening
OurFertility,Intelligence,
andSurvival?(New York:Dutton, 1995).
43. See David Helvarg,"PoisonPens,"Sierra58 (January/February
1997):31-37.
44. Harding,WhoseScience?WhoseKnowledge?
1-15.