Editing Rachel Carson (section)

== Early life and education ==
[[File:RachelCarsonHomestead.jpg|thumb|Carson's childhood home, the [[Rachel Carson Homestead]], in [[Springdale, Pennsylvania]], in November 2009]]
Carson was born on May 27, 1907, on a family farm near [[Springdale, Pennsylvania]], located by the [[Allegheny River]] near [[Pittsburgh]]. She was the daughter of Maria Frazier (McLean) and Robert Warden Carson, an insurance salesman.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.une.edu/mwwc/research/featured-writers/rachel-l.-carson-collection-1946-1964 |title=Maine Women Writers Collection—Research—Featured Writers—Rachel L. Carson Collection, 1946–1964 |publisher=University of New England |access-date=August 4, 2014}}</ref> She spent a lot of time exploring around her family's {{convert|65|acre||adj=on}} farm. An avid reader, she began writing stories, often involving animals, at age eight. At age ten, she had her first story published. She enjoyed reading ''[[St. Nicholas Magazine]]'', which carried her first published stories, the works of [[Beatrix Potter]], the novels of [[Gene Stratton-Porter]], and in her teen years, [[Herman Melville]], [[Joseph Conrad]], and [[Robert Louis Stevenson]]. The natural world, particularly that of the ocean, was the common thread of her favorite literature. Carson attended Springdale's small school through tenth grade, and then completed high school in nearby [[New Kensington, Pennsylvania|Parnassus, Pennsylvania]], graduating in 1925 at the top of her class of 44 students.<ref>Lear, pp. 7–24</ref> In high school, Carson was said to have been somewhat of a loner.

Carson gained admission to Pennsylvania College for Women, now [[Chatham University]], in [[Pittsburgh]], where she originally studied English but switched her major to biology in January 1928. She continued contributing to the school's student newspaper and literary supplement.<ref>{{cite web|title=Rachel Carson|url=http://www.fws.gov/northeast/rachelcarson/carsonbio.html|publisher=U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service|access-date=April 23, 2014}}</ref>

She was admitted to graduate school at [[Johns Hopkins University]] in [[Baltimore]] in 1928, but was forced to remain at the Pennsylvania College for Women for her senior year due to financial difficulties; she graduated ''[[Latin honors#Types|magna cum laude]]'' in 1929. After a summer course at the [[Marine Biological Laboratory]], she continued her studies in [[zoology]] and [[genetics]] at Johns Hopkins in the fall of 1929.<ref>{{harvnb|Lear|1997|pp=27–62}}</ref> After her first year of graduate school, Carson became a part-time student, taking an assistantship in [[Raymond Pearl]]'s laboratory, where she worked with rats and ''[[Drosophila]]'', to earn money for tuition. After false starts with [[pit viper]]s and [[squirrel]]s, she completed a dissertation on the embryonic development of the [[pronephros]] in fish.

In June 1932, she earned a master's degree in zoology. She had intended to continue for a doctorate, however in 1934 Carson was forced to leave Johns Hopkins to search for a full-time teaching position to help support her family during the [[Great Depression in the United States|Great Depression]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Smith |first=Michael |date=Autumn 2011 |title='Silence, Miss Carson!' Science, Gender, and the Reception of 'Silent Spring' |journal=Feminist Studies |volume=27 |issue=3 |pages=733–752 |doi=10.2307/317881 |jstor=3178817}}</ref> In 1935, Carson's father died suddenly, worsening their already critical financial situation and leaving Carson to care for her aging mother.