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>> [Background Music] Chautauqua is made possible
by the Maryland Humanities Council, Montgomery College
and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
>> Welcome.
You've just tuned in to a program called Chautauqua.
Chautauqua is a living history program
where scholar actors dressed up in full costume and character
to portray famous people
in history who've had a significant impact on the world.
I'm Angela Rice Beamer here at the Germantown Campus
of Montgomery College.
Our theme is turning point in history.
Tonight, Chautauqua character lived from 1907 to 1964.
She helped us understand our interconnection with nature
and the dangers of environmental pollution.
Tonight, Chautauqua character was an ecologist,
a scientist and writer.
Tonight, Chautauqua character is Rachel Carson.
[ Music ]
>> How uplifting to see such a great turn out of people
who care for the environment.
I'm winded.
It's a long walk through these congressional corridors
of power.
I'm happy to have a few moments to regroup with you,
before what I believed to be an important day.
[ Pause ]
Thank you for your support
as I testify before President Kennedy's scientific
advisory committee.
I am here to answer questions about the harmful effects
of indiscriminate spraying of pesticides on our environment.
Your presence here not only bolsters my resolve,
but conveys strong solidarity of purpose
to promote responsible conservation
of our natural world.
Washington's summer heat is proving an extra
challenge today.
You may think my activism comes easily, it does not.
I am much more comfortable communing with nature
than here speaking in Congress.
How does a shy Pennsylvania farm girl come
to be here in this public forum?
Partly it's because of my books about the environment.
But I would not be here today if it weren't
for great role models and mentors.
Their guidance and nurturing my skills in writing
and scientific studies has brought me now
to a place to make a difference.
Dr. Albert Schweitzer was one of those role models.
He inspires not only me but millions of people
around the world with his missionary efforts in Africa.
That is why I am most humbled
to receive the Albert Schweitzer medal last year.
For I believe Dr. Schweitzer is one
of the greatest individuals of our times.
He was one of the first to warn the world
about nuclear contamination and to decry the destruction
of honeybees in France due to the spraying
of chemicals up to the war.
It is for those reasons and many more
that I have dedicated my book "Silent Spring"
to this gifted healer and humanitarian.
During World War II, I first became aware
of the chemical DDT.
Reports came across my desk-- get the bureau of fisheries
and wildlife and they were talking about the spraying
of chemicals around our troops in Italy
to stand the outbreak of typhus.
I was concerned about the effect on humans and wildlife
and I gathered my information and jotted
down my notes thinking that it's wise to look
into the situation after the war.
In 1957, I received a letter from a friend,
Olga Hawkins describing the devastation that happened
in her Massachusetts community when they sprayed DDT.
I brought that letter today.
I wanted to share some of that with the testimony,
perhaps you'll indulge me a moment.
Here it is.
She began the harmless shower, as she quoted, killed seven
of our lovely songbirds outright.
We picked up three dead bodies right
by our door the next morning.
The next day three were scattered at our bird bath.
I had scrubbed it out but you can never kill DDT.
And the following day a robin suddenly fell
from a tree in our woods.
We were too heartsick to haunt
for other corpses and-- excuse me.
[ Pause ]
I wonder what else I am drinking besides H20.
My mother was my greatest role model.
She shared with me her sense of wonder with nature
and helped me learn great observational skills.
I was a shy, somewhat isolated child with a much older brother
and sister and we shared a small farm house with my parents
in Springdale, Pennsylvania.
The children at school teased me because of our poverty.
But outside the classroom, outside I had the richness
of 65 rolling acres of farmland
as my playground, my Garden of Eden.
We delight in looking for wild flowers
and exploring the farmland searching out likens.
I can even remember the shared joy
of spotting a brightly colored peasant rising up from a meadow.
The mysteries of anything wild that crawled, swam, flew,
or run simply captivated me.
I don't remember a time
that I was not simply totally fascinated with nature.
We would hear the steamboats as they came around winding
around the bend of the Allegheny River and it was there
that I discovered a fossilized shell
in the rocky, shale river cliffs.
I wondered where it came from.
What happened to the animal that was living in it?
And what happened to the sea that nurtured it so long ago?
Well, mother wanted to encourage my fascination with the sea
and she gave me a shell.
I brought it today for inspiration.
[ Pause ]
Oh yes, I learned long ago
that the murmuring sounds inside the shell was just the echo
of my pulse inside my ear but harkens of the sea
and it reminds me of my dear mother.
She was compassionate but she could fight fiercely
against anything she felt wrong as in our current crusade.
[ Pause ]
I also don't remember a time
when I didn't want to be a writer.
Do you like books?
Do you? Do you like to read?
I devour books.
When father was hitching up the horses to go
into town I would plead with him to please take me with him
so I could go to the library.
I learned that writing was hard work, but I would write
and rewrite my stories.
And, when I was 11 years old I won a writing competition
and had my first story published in a magazine.
When the 10-dollar price money arrived
in the mail the following week,
that's all the encouragement I needed.
My high school friends wrote a poem about my diligence.
They put it next to my picture in the year book.
What did it say?
Oh yes, "Rachel is like the noonday sun, always very bright,
never stopped her studying till she gets it right."
Well, I'm afraid I'm not-- I was never the most popular
or dynamic student but I believe their assessment's accurate.
After high school I continued my studies
at Pennsylvania College for Women.
But I only had enough money for one year.
Fortunately, I had published a story
in the college literary magazine
and the college president had read it and she was inspired
to award me a full scholarship so I could become a writer.
Just when I thought my future plans were set,
the unexpected happened.
Oh, I took a biology class and the entire subject matter
and the teacher fascinated me.
Mary Skinker was her name.
And, she wanted to-- she was a popular teacher on campus.
And there was a lot of controversy
because science was considered a male domain
and Mary did not teach the ordinary classes
that women taught.
So there was much discussion and controversy but I didn't care.
Mary became my teacher, my role model and my friend
and radically altered the course of my life.
I wanted to change my major from English to Science.
But I worried about what mother would think
and the college president.
They both expected me to become an author.
While struggling with that decision I turned to a book
of poetry and in the middle of a Tennessean poem,
a beautiful line caught my attention,
"For the nightly wind arises, roaring seaward and I go."
Roaring seaward and I go.
My decision was made.
I would become a biologist.
After college, my first job was in the summer as a researcher
with the marine biology labs at Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
I was so excited because I was studying
with the most famous biologist in the world.
And finally, finally I was at the edge of the sea, the sea,
the sea that I had only dreamt and read about.
Oh, it was magical.
A wonderful place to biologize.
I studied the whole summer,
working in the lab studying the nervous system of turtles.
But every spare moment, I would race
down to the titled pool steaming with life.
I was fascinated with the sea anemone and urchins.
With all the many hours in the sun I also realized
that I would never get a tan, only a weathered-look
and a fresh set of freckles.
But it was there that I came
to understand the interconnectedness of life.
Only the most tardy
and adaptable creatures can survive the ebb and flow
of tides and yet the area between the tide lines is filled
with plant and animal life, some visible,
some invisible deep within the sand.
Oh, have you ever been to the beach and seen that tide lines?
Have you studied the area there?
It's fascinating.
Oh, the sea provides a model for our own adaptability
if we honor nature's balance and strive
to understand its dynamic of change.
The sea has relentless drive to life.
Well, despite my enthusiasm I felt in prudent to look
into possible employment
in science before I began my graduate studies
at John's Hopkins.
I went to talk with a man at the Bureau
of Fisheries and Wildlife.
His name was Elmer Higgins.
And he said to me, Ms. Carson,
since you are a woman you should become a scientist,
excuse me you should become a teacher,
we do not hire scientists, women scientists.
I looked at him and said,
"I am not studying to become a teacher.
I am studying to become a scientist.
A scientist."
Well, he must have been impressed with my determination
because he relented and said, "Stop by after grad school."
That's all I needed to hear.
My first year at John's Hopkins was very difficult.
Inorganic chemistry.
The hardest course I have ever taken.
And I missed my parents terribly.
I went to visit them and I was so disheartened when I saw
that the-- my hometown was no longer the Eden of my childhood.
It had become an ugly cityscape of power plants
and cheap developments that were polluting the air
and the Allegheny River.
My parents were hard hit by the depression
as most people were at that time.
We discussed it and decided that the best thing would be
to have them move with me to Baltimore.
I rented a house near the Chesapeake Bay
that was big enough for my family and had indoor plumbing.
Sadly, a few years later father died.
Had it fell holy onto me to support my family
which consisted of my mother, my older sister, who was quite ill,
and her two daughters.
I realized that my part time teaching jobs at the University
of Maryland and at Hopkins would not be sufficient.
So I remembered Higgins and I went back there to the Bureau
of Fisheries and he recalled my determination
to become a scientist.
He had me take the civil service exam
and I received the top score ever recorded.
He hired me.
And I received 38 dollars a week as a junior scientist.
I supplemented my income by writing stories
for the Baltimore Sun and other publications.
But while I was writing a long essay at work
for Higgins I was expecting to put this into a series
of brochures, Higgins just shook his head and said,
"This is much too literary for a government publication."
It needs to be must simpler for public information.
He did suggest that I submit
to the Atlantic Monthly which I did.
And they published it.
I was ecstatic to be published in a major magazine.
Oh, finally, finally, my passion for writing
and for science collided.
Oh, but I'm an introvert and I know nothing about the business
of publishing books and magazines.
But with the help of Marie Rodell,
a very sophisticated New Yorker as my literary agent,
my writing career has soared higher
than I could have ever dreamed.
Marie remains a dear friend to this day.
I love writing.
But my true joy, my true joy is to stand at the edge of the sea
and to sense the ebb and flow of tides and feel the rise
of the mist over a great salt marsh, or to watch the flight
of shorebirds that have swept up and down the shorelines
of continents for untold centuries, or to see the running
of the old eels or the young shad to the sea.
To have knowledge of these things is as nearly eternal
as any earthly life can be.
Knowing that joy.
The more I learned about the indiscriminate spraying
of chemicals around our environment the more appalled
I became.
I knew that there was material for a book.
And I discovered that everything I held sacred was
being threatened.
I knew that there was nothing more important for me
than to write that book.
Our effort today is to make sure
that future generations will be able
to enjoy the natural world as it is intended.
Responsible use of chemicals should be
of concern for all of us.
If we are going to consume these chemicals eating
and drinking them, taking them into the very marrow
of our bones, we better know more about their power
and what their nature is.
The television show, CBS Report has devoted over two hours
to "Silent Spring" broadcasting the information
to millions of people.
Of course the critics are raging.
The chemical companies have spent over a quarter
of a million dollars to defame my reputation as a scientist.
"What does she know?
She's just a woman scientist.
A communist.
A [inaudible].
A hysterical woman."
Well, now, knowing what I know, there can be no peace
for me without speaking out.
It will help knowing that you'll be
in the gallery cheering me on.
[ Pause ]
[ Music ]
[Singing] The shell you gave me as a child sees a song
of a far away place I long to explore.
The rush of the sea excites my mind.
The smell of enchanting it bring have the magical world.
I find where I am filled with the sense of wonder such a sense
of wonder cast a spell in my heart.
Such a sense of wonder, a sense of wonder, you knew so well.
Oh mother.
In the woods we would walk together,
watch the leaves falling tiding flowers wild.
Don't touch them likens have the base of trees,
get down on my knees where I can smell the Earth.
A bird in flight there is red on his wings.
Call its wings.
When I am here with the sense of wonder, such a sense
of wonder fills my heart.
I am fulfilled with the sense of wonder
which you give mother brought into my heart.
Oh mother, I miss you so much.
Please be with me today, I need full strength.
[ Music ]
[ Pause ]
>> June 4, 1963, Senate testimony begins today
on the controversial use of pesticides.
Rachel Carson, award-winning author of "Silent Spring",
will testify before the Presidents Science Advisory
Committee, headed by Senator Ab Ribicoff.
[ Music ]
>> [Singing] Mother, are you watching?
Is this just a show?
The tiny little creatures depend all us to know.
Oh, I can be strong, how can I go on?
Who will make them think after I'm gone?
Please, someone out there listen to me.
Let the forest keep its voice
and make my dreams in part rejoice.
[ Noise ]
>> Ms. Carson, on behalf for the committee we certainly welcome
you here.
You are the lady, who started all these?
>> Thank you for the opportunity to address this committee.
>> Senators, the problem you have chosen to explore is one
that must be solved in our time.
I feel strongly that the beginning must be made
on it now, in this session of congress.
[ Music ]
>> [Singing] God, please make them listen.
God, please make them care.
>> [Background Music] We must stop indiscriminate use
of pesticides.
>> [Singing] Make my words have power, floating on the air.
>> These chemicals invisibly contaminate our world.
>> [Singing] Oh, I can feel stronger, how can I go on?
>> Unless bring these chemicals under control,
we are headed for disaster.
>> [Singing] Who will make them think, after I'm gone?
>> There will be an irrevocable loss of species.
>> [Singing] Do they have a conscience?
Is this just a show?
The tiny little creatures depend on us to know.
Oh, God, please make them listen.
God, please make them care.
Why did they attack me, there's critics everywhere.
Let them care, make them care, all the people everywhere.
This legacy to me that I appreciate a tree
and every creature in the sea.
And let them care and make them care all the people everywhere.
The only science that is deserving is that which helps us
in preserving nature in its glory everywhere.
The power of my words, I share it with magic mystery.
A tiny life in the sea and beyond our view excitements,
share the creatures colorful and rare
that make their homes down there.
May the sea, with the power of my words,
I find expression before my soul, beyond the limits
of myself and my own word.
This full creation that we find
within ourselves is all connected with our whole planet.
By the power of my words, I have to move the people's thoughts,
I need to open up their eyes and make them see.
By the power of my words, I can change the people's voice
to preserve honor and natural harmony.
In the power, with the power, by the power of my words.
[ Applause ]
>> I'm here with Kate Campbell Stevenson
who just performed as Rachel Carson.
Thank you so much for being here,
it's a wonderful performance.
>> Well, thank you Angela, it's just a pleasure to be here.
>> How would you describe her?
She was an introvert, but how would you describe her having
read so much and performed learned about it?
>> Well, she was a very intricate woman.
She was an introvert and yet she had this beautiful talent
for writing and she could express herself
through her words.
And, it was very exciting to read about this woman
and to bring to her life.
>> Have you performed her a long time or was it?
>> Actually I have performed Rachel--
I wrote a song about Rachel Carson and in it,
a friend of mine,
Martha Hart-Johns wrote the beautiful lyrics about
"The Power of Her Words".
And I've been performing that part in--
that song in my show "Women, Back to Future".
I have just now expanded for Chautauqua
to have these 35 minute piece.
>> Have you performed "Woman, Back to the Future"
as Chautauquan, or is that something separate to do?
>> No, that's completely separate.
>> Have you been in Chautauqua in long time?
>> This is my first time.
>> OK.
>> And it's been a lot of fun.
I was very, very pleased that I could participate.
>> Did-- the fame that she received
from her writing surprised her.
She was that-- did it overwhelm her or did she just sort of--
at least able to put in perspective?
>> Well, I think she had, always had a passion for writing
and I think secretly, she really wanted to succeed as a writer.
And, although she was an introvert, she did have--
I'm not saying she had an ego but, you know,
she had some self-esteem and she was very proud
of the work that she produced.
>> Yeah, and her writing is so lyrical.
In many cases she does have that ability
to pick something complex and make it very understandable.
>> And that's where her success came
when she wrote the three books about the sea.
She took a very complicated scientific information
and she brought to life--
these beautiful words for everyday people
like you and me to understand.
And that's why she became successful.
>> Yeah, and truly is it is beautiful.
You begin to get through her words a sense of the person
and she draw such-- or she paints with her words
such pictures of beauty.
And then also she brought the stark realities of things that-
>> Right. Well, she have the sense of wonder
and she also had a scientific reality as a scientist
to understand terrible changes were going to be happening
if we didn't pay attention to what was going
on with the chemicals we are introducing to the world.
>> She was so ahead of her time.
>> She was indeed.
>> She was a visionary.
Because so many things that are going on now,
she spokes about so many years before.
>> She didn't when putting my script together it was very
important for me to put in when I read that she was concerned
about the destruction of honeybees in France
because of DDT that's going on today.
I mean, these problems are still here and so,
felt it really important to put that into the script.
>> And she was that-- the question answer that portion,
the audience didn't-- the television audience won't see,
so I'm going to ask some of the things--
>> OK. That's fine.
>> -- that were discussed there.
She did work with Chesapeake Bay,
and also I read something Chincoteague Island
in Virginia, is that correct?
>> Yes. She did go down there and she really explored all up
and down the East coast from Florida up to Maine,
and she was in love with the many different aspects
of sea life.
>> What's surprised you about her?
What was one of the-- or some of the things
that were most surprising about her?
>> She had such as strong inner strength.
She really-- I mean, when the critics were coming after here,
it was devastating to her.
And yet, she had such poise and such calm and she was
so confident in the scientific data she had collected,
that she was firm.
And I just find that tremendously inspiring
as a reader and understanding the strength
that she had a woman.
She supported her family.
She was working woman early, I mean,
started in the 30's working and she was really a trail blazer.
But she never would think of herself as a trail blazer,
she just was doing what needed to be done.
>> In the process of preparing to perform her,
what was your process?
How did you begin to--
>> I tied to collect as much information
as possible about her.
And, in putting the scripted together,
I wanted to expand the already existing song,
the scene from where she testifies in front of Congress.
I wanted to expand so go backward to lead up to
that scene and so I really did as much reading as possible
and I needed to put some background information
because I realized many of the people
who were coming tonight didn't necessarily have
that information about Rachel Carson.
And so I needed to have some family information
and some scientific information and things
that she felt passionate about.
I was able to expand it more from the song to--
there's a part in the show where she says "But my true joy is
to stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow
of tides, to feel the rise of morning mist
over a great salt marsh."
And she went on and on, I mean, beautiful words.
And so I wanted to make it sure that I can incorporate that.
>> Even though she has many critics, who are some
of the people who were her strong supporters throughout,
her family perhaps?
>> Definitely, her family.
Her mother was her biggest-- had the biggest impact on her.
They were soul mates.
Her mother was the one who really gave her--
or showed her, shared the gift of wonder with her and the sense
of wonder, and to appreciate nature, appreciate birds,
and her mother work with her up until the day she died.
She worked with her typing out her manuscript for
"Silence Spring" and helping her with her research.
So, they were really soul mates.
>> There's a powerful part in your performance
where you have the conch shell and she's singing
that to her mother that to support me to--
>> Right.
>> -- I miss you.
I know you're here with me.
>> I want to try and make that connection.
And, the shell which the mother gave her when she was a child,
it's still was an inspiration to her today--
I mean, during her time.
>> And her mother did get a chance to--
>> Her mothered died before she--
"Silence Spring" was published.
But she started-- she knew that what she was doing
and what Rachel was developing and she was able to type
out some of the first manuscripts of it
and some of her research.
But she died I think three
or four years before it was published.
>> And, one of the things that you mentioned
in your presentation was that she was the head
of the household so she was supporting her mother, a niece--
were there other-- were there two nieces?
>> Yes, her mother and two nieces and then the two girls
and then her great, great nephew, Roger,
she adopted when he was five years old.
And as a son, and he was 12 when she died, so.
>> What happened to her family members after she died
and she-- because she--
>> Hall Brooks adopted-- took on the care, which was one
of the publishers and he basically took on the care
of Roger and raising him.
>> And what about the two nieces?
Were they--
[ Multiple Speakers ]
-- at that point?
>> One had died and then other one.
>> Right. Do you have some recommendations for adults
and children to learn more about her?
>> There are some wonderful biographies out there.
Linda Lear, has an excellent biography and many--
if you just Google nowadays, you can just Google and get
that information, but the Linda Lear biography is really the
best I think in describing the situation.
>> Also by Linda Lear, "Lost Woods" which has a compilation--
>> Yes.
>> -- some of the writings of different periods of her life
and I think that's a particularly good one.
She does introductions before
and then Rachel Carson's actual words.
Did you work a lot with the Rachel Carson Council, at all?
>> Yes, I've actually-- the very fist time
when I was writing the song that I sang at the end
of the program, I put together-- I sang it for Dr. Diana Post
at the Rachel Carson's Council.
And, in my car I put it in-- just a rough draft,
and sang it for her, and we both were just crying
because it was so powerful.
And, Diana has been a wonderful resource,
and she's a great resource for all the community,
to contact Rachel Carson Council.
>> And you can find them on the web as well?
>> Yes, indeed.
>> We just have a little bit of time left.
What's next for you, because being Chautauquan is not the
only thing you do?
>> No, actually I have a new show coming out its called
"Forging Frontiers, Women Leaders in STEM, Science,
Technology, Engineering, and Math."
And, Rachel Carson will be a part of that show.
And, also my relative Louise Arner Boyd,
who lead seven Arctic Expeditions
in the 1920's and the 1930's.
Nobody knows about her but that's why I'm out there.
I'm going to spread the word.
And I also I'll be highlighting contemporary woman
of Science Technology Engineering and Math,
some women from NASA, FBI, woman from Medicine
that are really wonderful role models for today's students.
>> That is extremely important.
Did you talk about going to school as well
as some of the other venues--
>> Yes.
>> -- and it is important to let the students know.
Because I didn't hear about--
I didn't know about some of the woman that you mentioned?
>> Right, that's what I like to do.
I like to-- not only do some that are more well-known,
but some that aren't well-known so they can learn
about these wonderful women.
>> Yeah, thank you so much.
I did want to ask you, how did you find your outfit
because it is so quite essential and beautiful?
>> I researched it and I designed it and I made it.
>> Wonderful, wonderful.
OK, thank you so much for being here.
We've really enjoyed that you'd shared wonderful information
and we all learned a lot.
>> It was my pleasure, thank you Angela.
>> Thank you.
And thank you for joining us.
You've been watching Chautauqua turning point in history.
I'm Angela Rice Beemer from the Germantown Campus
of Montgomery College.
Good night.
[ Music ]