The beauty of the living world I was trying to save has always been uppermost in my mind—that, and anger at the senseless, brutish things that were being done. I have felt bound by a solemn obligation to do what I could—if I didn’t at least try I could never be happy again in nature. But now I can believe that I have at least helped a little. It would be unrealistic to believe one book could bring a complete change (Matthiessen 188).

Carson did indeed help “a little.” Her “one book” helped to reform the pesticide industry by removing DDT from products. While it did not “bring a complete change” in the use of pesticides, it did bring about an abundance of criticisms, both positive and negative. In this paper, I will analyze some of the different criticisms of Carson’s work. I will look at the mostly negative criticisms and show who disagreed with Carson and why.

As Rachel Carson opened consumers’ eyes to the dangers of pesticides, she posed a serious threat to chemical companies everywhere. The industries began to threaten her even before Silent Spring was published. As Peter Matthiessen wrote in Time magazine, she was “violently assailed by th

(Smith 748). Some people even quipped, “See, there were plenty of birds this spring” (Smith 735).

Even years after the original 1962 publication of Silent Spring, people continued to criticize Carson. An article published in Sports Illustrated claimed that in the year after Silent Spring’s debut, wildlife seemed “more abundant than ever” and that the abundance of wildlife was “aided by pesticide use”

In conclusion, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring received an overwhelming response from groups ranging from scientists to the media to chemical companies and the general public. While most critics were not applauding Carson for taking a stand for the health of the world and its people, Silent Spring still had a major impact on the use of pesticides and the entire agrichemical industry. I would say she went far beyond her expectancy of helping “a little.”

reats of lawsuits and derision” (188). In “Green PR: Silencing Spring,” Stauber and Rampton claim that Carson’s work resulted in a public relations crisis for the agrichemical industry (16). They state that the Velsicol chemical company attempted to “intimidate its publisher into changing it or canceling the publication.” Also, the National Agricultural Chemical Association “doubled its PR budget” and wrote and released thousands of reviews negatively portraying the book. In addition, “Monsanto chemical company published The Desolate Year, a parody in which failure to use pesticides [caused] a plague of insects that [devastated] America” (16).

Not all of the criticisms of Silent Spring were negative, however. In his article in Feminist Studies, Michael B. Smith reports that a “deluge of letters” flooded the mailbox at the New Yorker as well as the mailrooms on Capitol Hill and the White House. In first reading Spring, readers responded with much positive feedback. (This overwhelming support for Carson’s findings is what launched the anti-Carson campaign in th

Some topics in this essay:
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