An Environmental Icon's Unseen Fortitude

The cost of this approach was that Carson fought her disease nearly alone. Her cancer was still a surprise to many people when she died at the house in Silver Spring in 1964, at age 56. Her adopted son survived her.

In the years since her death, Carson's conclusions about DDT have remained controversial. This year, during a hearing meant to honor Carson in Annapolis, State Sen. Andrew P. Harris (R-Baltimore County) said her book had helped scare people away from a pesticide that could have saved numerous human lives.

"In the end, you know, people are dying of malaria that don't need to die" because of bans on DDT, Harris, a doctor, said in an interview this week.

But the impact of her message was astounding. In the decade after her death, the U.S. government enacted a string of environmental laws, created the Environmental Protection Agency and banned most uses of DDT.

Outside Washington, Carson's book altered the nature of environmentalism. Previously, it had been mainly about preserving and appreciating parks and other beautiful places. But Carson's message was that all of nature should be protected, for its own sake and because people eventually would suffer if it was degraded.

"What she said was, the Earth itself needs an advocate," said Patricia M. DeMarco, executive director of the Rachel Carson Homestead Association, which runs an educational center at her childhood home, in Springdale, Pa.

Since then, Carson's message has been taken up by a profusion of new and newly aggressive environmental groups. Perhaps the most concrete gauge of the book's continuing relevance is that it still sells: 150,000 copies in the past five years, remarkable for a book 45 years old.

Lear, her biographer, said Carson felt that her struggle had paid off.

By the time she died, Lear said, the story was out.

"She had said what she felt she had to say before she died," Lear said. Still, "there was a lot more that she wanted to say."