Rachel Carson: Power of the Pen
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  • Historical Context
    • Early Conservationists
    • Environmental Exploitation
    • Golden Age of Pesticides
    • Environmental Awareness
  • Leadership
    • Early Environmental Career
    • Spreading Awareness
    • Silent Spring: An Environmental Revolution
    • Mobilizing America
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    • Changing the conversation >
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      • DDT Ban
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  • So What?
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    • Process Paper
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      • Dr. Robert K. Musil
      • Dr. Linda Lear
      • Dr. Mark Madison

Environmental Exploitation 

We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.
-Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 1949

America’s desire for economic progress and widespread ignorance of the long-term consequences of man’s actions led to the overuse of natural resources and the creation of hazardous living conditions.

Overuse of Resources 

"...natural resources were heavily exploited, especially in the West. Land speculators and developers took over large tracts of forests and grazing land. Acreage important to water power was seized by private concerns. Mining companies practiced improper and wasteful mining practices. Assuming a seemingly inexhaustible supply of natural resources, Americans developed a 'tradition of waste.'"
- Library of Congress, American Memory Timeline, Progressive Era to New Era, 1900-1929

Devastation of Land

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Source: Library of Congress

Extinction of Buffalo

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Source: W. E. Webb, Buffalo Land, 1872

Over Fishing

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Source: The Salmon and Salmon Fisheries of Alaska by Jefferson F. Moser, 1899

Pollution 

Air Pollution

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Source: USC Libraries Special Collections
"[In]...1948, atmospheric conditions in the vicinity of Donora, Pennsylvania, contributed to the deaths of nineteen people within a 24-hour period...such contamination of the atmosphere was caused by the zinc smelting plant, steel mills' open hearth furnaces, a sulfuric acid plant, with slag dumps, coal burning steam locomotives, and river boats."
- James H. Duff Papers, Subject File, Letter of Mrs. Lois Bainbridge of Webster, PA, to the Governor, October 31, 1948

Water Pollution



"Beginning with the Industrial Revolution and the development of the Delaware Valley as a major industrial and manufacturing center in the 19th century, waste disposal from increasing population and industrial activities resulted in progressive degradation of water quality and loss of the once-abundant natural resources of the estuary."

R.C. Albert, Delaware River Basin Commission, July 31, 1997
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Source: Bill Roberts, Cleveland Press, July 24, 1964

Golden Age of Pesticides
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