The house where Rachel Carson was born in Springdale, Pennsylvania.
The only thing in the house that belonged to Carson or her family is this red coral, collected by Carson as a marine biologist.
As Iris, who gave me a tour of the house, said, this photo of the young Carson captures her determination and her independent spirit. When I left Pittsburgh early this month, I swung by the Rachel Carson homestead in Springdale, about a 30-minute drive from the city. Rachel Carson, famous marine biologist and nature writer, was born here in 1907, on what was then a 65-acre farm. The house, which sits on hillside, is now in the middle of a residential neighborhood, perhaps the kind of place that Carson's father envisaged when he bought the land for development. Now you can just see the Allegheny River over the rooftops sprawling below. Then it must have been a wonderful place for an imaginative young girl with a bent for nature to live and to explore.
The house is decorated with period furniture and items but the only thing that actually belonged to Carson or her family is a framed piece of red coral collected by the marine biologist. Small and simple, the house is lovely to visit and I thoroughly enjoyed my informative one-on-one tour. If I had the chance, I would go again.
It's been dismaying, however, to discover how many people do not know who Rachel Carson is and have not heard of Silent Spring, her 1962 book which examined the disastrous effects of DDT and other pesticides on nature and on humans. The book inspired an early worldwide environmental movement that eventually led here to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. I was stunned to learn that the people who run my local health food store had never heard of her, then to get the same blank look from an editor in New York.
