Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature

A public lecture by Linda Lear in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Silent Spring

Published in 1962, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring did more than any other single publication to alert the world to the hazards of environmental poisoning and to inspire a powerful social movement that would alter the course of American history. As Carson’s biographer, Linda Lear speaks about Carson’s life, how she raised the public consciousness so that the environmental movement could take flight, and how environmental controversies of the past relate to current ecological issues. A public book signing will follow the lecture.

Linda Lear, biographer and historian, holds a Ph.D. in History from George Washington University. She has served as a Senior Smithsonian Research Associate, a Beinecke Fellow, Research Professor of Environmental History at George Washington University and Senior Research Scholar in History at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and has been writing biography nearly full time for the last 15 years. She is the author of the acclaimed biography of Rachel Carson, Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature, and numerous academic and popular articles on Carson, as well as the introductions to all of Carson’s published works. Lear's biography of Carson was awarded the prize for the best book on women in science by the History of Science Society in 1999. Chatham University conferred an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters on Linda in 2008 for her research and writing on women in the environment. Lear’s research papers and adjunct collections dealing with Carson’s life, Carson’s friends and colleagues, and the controversy over Silent Spring form the core of the Lear/Carson Collection at The Linda Lear Center for Archives and Special Collections at Connecticut College in New London, CT.

This event is open to the public. No registration is required.