Early Life
A picture of Rachel Carson that appears to be 14.
Rachel Louise Carson was born on May 27, 1907, in Springdale, Pennsylvania.She grew up on a 65-acre farm, spending time with her older brother and sister listening to the songbirds, strolling through the apple orchard, and exploring nature. Rachel attended the local school but did not have many childhood friends. She spent most of her free time reading or with her mother, with whom she shared an especially close relationship throughout her life.
Rachel especially enjoyed reading books about nature and animals by writers such as Ernest Thompson Seton and Henry Williamson. In 1918 St. Nicholas, a literary magazine that published works of young authors, accepted her story "A Battle in the Clouds," which told of a young pilot's struggle after being shot by German gunfire. Two others were accepted over the next year. Though at the time most children only attended public school until the 10th grade, Rachel's parents agreed that she should continue her schooling, so they enrolled her at Parnassus High School, just across the Allegheny River. After graduation in 1925, Rachel enrolled at the Pennsylvania College for Women (PCW, now Chatham College). Because she enjoyed writing, she decided to major in English.
Rachel's family struggled to pay for her college even though she received some aid in the form of a scholarship. After an initial adjustment to being away from home, she participated in extracurricular activities including basketball, field hockey, the student newspaper, and the literary magazine. During the summertime, Rachel tutored students to earn money. Though she was an English major, in order to fulfill general education requirements, as a sophomore, Rachel enrolled in a biology course that changed her life. She was captivated by learning about nature and the plants and animals that she had admired and that had given her pleasure since childhood. After taking several more biology courses, Rachel changed her major to biology and graduated with high honors in 1929.
Carson spent the summer following graduation as an intern at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where she saw the sea for the first time. Examining tissue specimens from ocean organisms under the microscope and studying the nervous system of turtles, she yearned to learn more about marine biology. That fall she entered Johns Hopkins University on a full tuition scholarship to study marine zoology. To help support her family, Carson worked as a laboratory assistant and taught a lower-level zoology course at Johns Hopkins and other courses at the University of Maryland in College Park, all the while working on her master's thesis, titled "The Development of the Pronephros during the Embryonic and Early Larval Life of the Catfish." The pronephros is a temporary kidney that only functions in catfish embryos for 11 days before being replaced by a permanent kidney. After obtaining a master's degree in 1932, she continued teaching at Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland. She began the doctoral program at Johns Hopkins, but in 1935 her father died, leaving her financially responsible for her mother.
Rachel especially enjoyed reading books about nature and animals by writers such as Ernest Thompson Seton and Henry Williamson. In 1918 St. Nicholas, a literary magazine that published works of young authors, accepted her story "A Battle in the Clouds," which told of a young pilot's struggle after being shot by German gunfire. Two others were accepted over the next year. Though at the time most children only attended public school until the 10th grade, Rachel's parents agreed that she should continue her schooling, so they enrolled her at Parnassus High School, just across the Allegheny River. After graduation in 1925, Rachel enrolled at the Pennsylvania College for Women (PCW, now Chatham College). Because she enjoyed writing, she decided to major in English.
Rachel's family struggled to pay for her college even though she received some aid in the form of a scholarship. After an initial adjustment to being away from home, she participated in extracurricular activities including basketball, field hockey, the student newspaper, and the literary magazine. During the summertime, Rachel tutored students to earn money. Though she was an English major, in order to fulfill general education requirements, as a sophomore, Rachel enrolled in a biology course that changed her life. She was captivated by learning about nature and the plants and animals that she had admired and that had given her pleasure since childhood. After taking several more biology courses, Rachel changed her major to biology and graduated with high honors in 1929.
Carson spent the summer following graduation as an intern at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where she saw the sea for the first time. Examining tissue specimens from ocean organisms under the microscope and studying the nervous system of turtles, she yearned to learn more about marine biology. That fall she entered Johns Hopkins University on a full tuition scholarship to study marine zoology. To help support her family, Carson worked as a laboratory assistant and taught a lower-level zoology course at Johns Hopkins and other courses at the University of Maryland in College Park, all the while working on her master's thesis, titled "The Development of the Pronephros during the Embryonic and Early Larval Life of the Catfish." The pronephros is a temporary kidney that only functions in catfish embryos for 11 days before being replaced by a permanent kidney. After obtaining a master's degree in 1932, she continued teaching at Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland. She began the doctoral program at Johns Hopkins, but in 1935 her father died, leaving her financially responsible for her mother.