Abstract
From early childhood onward, Rachel Carson’s relationship to nature was both imaginative and scientific, involving both literature and firsthand investigations of her homeplace. Later in life, Carson shared in a speech that, “I can remember no time, even in earliest childhood, when I didn’t assume I was going to be a writer. Also, I can remember no time when I wasn’t interested in the out-of-doors and the whole world of nature. Those interests, I know, I inherited from my mother and have always shared with her” (Carson, Lost woods: The discovered writings of Rachel Carson. Beacon Press, Boston, 1999, p. 106). Carson’s mother recognized her daughter’s gifts and surrounded her with opportunities to learn in two complementary directions: creative writing and nature study. This chapter examines the development of Carson’s famous “sense of wonder” through her own childhood immersion in the early twentieth-century nature study movement, as well as through her relationship with children’s literary magazines, particularly St. Nicholas. Like other exemplars of literary environmental history, Carson’s early childhood experiences nurtured the development of an artistic sensibility as well as a responsiveness to, and curiosity about, the more-than-human world. Carson’s aesthetic made her a best-selling author who catalyzed the modern environmental movement with Silent Spring. But her success as a writer and legacy as an activist were rooted in “the sense of wonder” – a phrase that would become the title of her last, posthumously published book. Today, The Sense of Wonder remains an ecological manifesto that summons learners and educators of all ages to keep alive this vital sense in our own lives.
References
Armitage, K. C. (2009). The nature study movement: The forgotten popularizer of America’s conservation ethic. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press.
Bailey, L. H. (1909). The nature-study idea: An interpretation of the new school-movement to put the young into relation and sympathy with nature. New York: Macmillan.
Carson, R. (1941). Under the sea wind. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Carson, R. (1951). The sea around us. New York: Oxford University Press.
Carson, R. (1955). At the edge of the sea. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Carson, R. (1956). Help your child to wonder. Women’s Home Companion, 25–27, 46–47.
Carson, R. (1962). Silent spring. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Carson, R. (1965). The sense of wonder. New York: Harper & Row.
Carson, R. (1999). Lost woods: The discovered writings of Rachel Carson. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Chawla, L. (1998). Significant life experiences revisited: A review of research on sources of environmental sensitivity. The Journal of Environmental Education, 29(3), 11–21.
Comstock, A. B. (1967). Handbook of nature study. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Dewey, J. (1997). Education and experience. New York: Touchstone.
Dewey, J. (2005). Art as experience. New York: Perigee Books.
Emerson, R. W. (1982). Selected essays. New York: Penguin.
Freeman, M. (Ed.). (1995). Always, Rachel: The letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy freeman, 1952–1964. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Lear, L. (2009). Rachel Carson: Witness for nature. Boston, MA: Mariner Books.
Pyle, R. M. (2001, Autumn). The Rise and Fall of Natural History. Orion Magazine, 16–23.
Schulz, K. (2015). Pond scum. The New Yorker. October 19. Retrieved from The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/pond-scum.
Tanner, T. (1980). Significant life experiences: A new research area in environmental education. The Journal of Environmental Education, 11(4), 20–24.
Whitman, W. (1980). Leaves of grass. New York: New American Library.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Greenwood, D.A. (2018). Rachel Carson’s Childhood Ecological Aesthetic and the Origin of The Sense of Wonder. In: Cutter-Mackenzie, A., Malone, K., Barratt Hacking, E. (eds) Research Handbook on Childhoodnature . Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51949-4_93-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51949-4_93-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-51949-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-51949-4
eBook Packages: Springer Reference EducationReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Education