The series, titled Conservation in Action: Lear, Rachel Carson, p. 132.
Over the course of several days: Ibid., p. 133.
The government had purchased its nine thousand: Carson, Chincoteague: A National Wildlife Refuge, Conservation in Action 1, 1947, NCTC.
Assateague is one of the barrier islands: Ibid.
Because Chincoteague was primarily: Ibid.
Settled by English immigrants: Randall, Newburyport and the Merrimack, p. 7. If the reader detects an affection for and familiarity with Newburyport and Plum Island it is because I lived there once.
Since the earliest settlement: Weare, Plum Island, pp. 43–48.
In 1929 a small, private bird sanctuary: Ibid., pp. 89–91.
The local residents: Doyle, Life in Newburyport 1900-1950, p. 245.
When Carson and Howe boarded the train: Kay Howe to Shirley Briggs, September 25, 1946, Beinecke.
The ocean, rising over a level bottom: Personal observation. The description of Plum Island is based on my experience from when I lived in Newburyport and a subsequent research visit I made to the area in the summer of 2010.
Standing at the water’s edge: Carson, Parker River: A National Wildlife Refuge, Conservation in Action 2, 1947, NCTC.
Carson and Howe toured the island: Carson to Shirley Briggs, September 28, 1946, Beinecke.
They found a restaurant in Newburyport: Ibid.
Howe hoped the weather: Kay Howe to Shirley Briggs, September 25, 1946, Beinecke.
There were rumors in town: Carson to Shirley Briggs, September 28, 1946, Beinecke.
In the end: Kay Howe to Shirley Briggs, September 25, 1946, Beinecke.
Carson began the second Conservation in Action pamphlet: Carson, Parker River.
A striking fact about the Atlantic flyway: Ibid.
Parker River was the only: Ibid.
“As you drive out from the town”: Ibid.
Carson had learned more: Ibid.
The fifth in the series: Carson, Guarding Our Wildlife Resources, Conservation in Action 5, 1948, NCTC.
“For all the people”: Ibid.
In the spring of that year: Meine, Aldo Leopold, p. 517.
Four publishers had already turned it down: Ibid., pp. 509, 511, and 517; and Meine, Correction Lines, pp. 152–53. Rejections had come from the University of Minnesota Press, Macmillan, Knopf, and William Sloan Associates. The latter didn’t literally reject the book but failed to act before Oxford bought it. Knopf, which passed on several versions of the manuscript, remained interested and had continued to discuss how the book might be reworked.
But Leopold died unexpectedly: Meine, Aldo Leopold, p. 520.
Oxford determined the book could still: Ibid., p. 524.
In one of the book’s essays: Leopold, Sand County Almanac, p. 204.
Leopold wrote that of the: Ibid., p. 210.
When A Sand County Almanac was reissued: Meine, Aldo Leopold, pp. 525–26.
“A thing is right,” Leopold wrote: Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, pp. 224–25.
“When we see the land as a community”: Ibid., p. viii.
“That land is a community”: Ibid., pp. viii–ix.
In the fifth Conservation in Action booklet: Carson, Guarding Our Wildlife Resources, NCTC.
Carson had managed to take: Carson to Maria Leiper, November 18, 1946, Beinecke.
They rented a cottage on the eastern shore: Carson to Shirley Briggs, July 14, 1946, Beinecke.
in a corner of the Pratt Library in Baltimore: Carson to Henry Beston, May 14, 1954, Beinecke.
Beston was born in 1888: Wilding, Henry Beston’s Cape Cod, p. 7.
Beston attended Harvard: Ibid., pp. 9–10.
Beston was nearly killed: Ibid., p. 10.
He returned to Massachusetts: Ibid., p. 12.
In 1923, Beston did a magazine piece: Ibid., p. 15.
In 1925 he bought thirty-two acres: Ibid., pp. 1–2, 51–54, and 89.
One night when the surf was churning: Ibid., pp. 21–22.
Beston stayed at the Fo’castle: Ibid., p. 18.
Beston, who was over six feet tall: Ibid., p. 30. Wilding quotes from an interview Beston gave to the New York Times.
Outermost cliff and solitary dune: Beston, Outermost House, pp. 5–6.
Night is very beautiful: Ibid., p. 166.
In 1940, while she was working on: Lear, Rachel Carson, pp. 101–2; and Dorothy Algire to Paul Brooks, February 15, 1970, Beinecke. Dorothy Algire, formerly Dorothy Hamilton, was a colleague of Carson’s at the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries and at Woods Hole. She was with Carson on the day they visited Beston’s little house.
Everywhere around the world: J. B. Hersey and H. B. Moore, “Progress Report on Scattering Layer Observations in the Atlantic Ocean,” Transactions 29, no. 3 (June 1948), Beinecke. This paper was in Carson’s research files for The Sea Around Us.
Researchers eventually determined: Tom Garrison, Oceanography, pp. 447 and 449.
She made plans: U.S. Department of the Interior, records for the Albatross III, “Instructions for Cruise No. 10,” Lear Collection. On October 1 and 2, 1948, the ship stopped at Boothbay Harbor, Maine, for the annual meeting of the Atlantic Fisheries Biologists. For some reason, Carson would later pretend that a cruise she made with Marie Rodell aboard the Albatross III the following year was the first time any woman had ever done so. But the listed “collaborators” on the October 1948 trip included Joseph Puncochar, Jean Hartshorne, and Rachel Carson.
Equipped with sonar: U.S. Department of the Interior records, “Albatross III,” March 19, 1948, Lear Collection.
Carson began enlisting a group: Carson to Henry Bigelow, August 22, 1948, Beinecke.
He didn’t, but: Henry Bigelow to Carson, August 26, 1948, and March 14, 1950, Beinecke.
One university professor: R. G. Hussey to Carson, March 18, 1950, Beinecke. Hussey was at the University of Michigan. Carson consulted with him about the geology of the sea floor.
A no-doubt skeptical Carson: Carson to Thor Heyerdahl, September 23, 1948. Carson’s letter is not preserved but is referenced by Heyerdahl in his reply on October 19, 1948, Beinecke.
Heyerdahl wrote back: Thor Heyerdahl to Carson, October 19, 1948, Beinecke.
She waited more than a year: Carson to Thor Heyerdahl, January 9, 1950, Beinecke.
Heyerdahl, civil but again testy: Thor Heyerdahl to Carson, February 2, 1950, Beinecke.
Carson had meanwhile signed on: Lear, Rachel Carson, p. 149.
Undaunted, Carson sent Rodell: Carson to Marie Rodell, December 5, 1948, Beinecke.
CHAPTER SIX: AUTHOR TRIUMPHANT
By February 1949, Carson: Carson to Marie Rodell, February 23, 1949, Beinecke.
A month later she told Rodell: Ibid., March 26, 1949, Beinecke.
In April, Rodell: Marie Rodell to Philip Vaudrin, April 12, 1949, Beinecke.
By May she was in serious discussions: Marie Rodell, handwritten notes from telephone conversations with Philip Vaudrin on May 4 and May 5, 1950, Beinecke.
On June 3, 1949: Philip Vaudrin to Marie Rodell, June 3, 1949, Beinecke.
Carson resisted this: Carson to Marie Rodell, June 8, 1949, Beinecke.
Meanwhile, Carson made plans: Carson to William Beebe, April 5, 1949, and William Beebe to Carson, July 5, 1949, Beinecke.
Shirley Briggs accompanied: The account of Carson’s diving trip is recorded in a series of handwritten field notes spanning the years 1940 through 1951, Beinecke. Shirley Briggs also took some photographs on this trip, several of which are in the Lear Collection at Connecticut College.
She also unself-consciously wrote to: Carson to William Beebe, August 26, 1949, Beinecke.
A couple of weeks later Carson was off again: U.S. Department of the Interior records for the Albatross III, “Instructions for Cruise No. 26,” Lear Collection; and Frontiers, October 1950. Rodell’s nicely written magazine piece about the cruise includes the odd claim that she and Carson were the “first women ever to
spend more than a few hours aboard” the ship. In a memo Carson wrote for her British publisher on the origins of The Sea Around Us, Carson repeats this false history. In the same memo, Carson also mentions having done “a little helmet diving” as part of her research. Carson—perhaps sacrificing accuracy in the interest of a better story—again overlooked her first cruise on the Albatross III in her later speech at a Theta Sigma Phi dinner, “The Real World Around Us.”
It was a hot morning: Ibid.
Not long after returning: Lear, Rachel Carson, pp. 172–73; Philip Vaudrin to Carson, October 4, 1949, and Carson to Philip Vaudrin, October 6, 1949, Beinecke. Lear writes that Carson discussed the Fuertes project with Rodell during the cruise aboard the Albatross III in July, and this seems probable. In her October letter to Vaudrin she says she is going to go over the Fuertes paintings with Rodell.
In the summer of 1950: Paul Brooks to Carson, July 20, 1950, Carson to Paul Brooks, July 28, 1950, and Paul Brooks to Carson, September 1, 1950, Beinecke. In his September 1 letter, Brooks formally asked Carson if she would do the book.
Carson told Marie Rodell: Carson to Marie Rodell, September 5, 1950, Beinecke.
She applied for a grant: Carson, application to the Eugene F. Saxton Memorial Trust, n.d., ca. November 1948, Beinecke.
In July 1949: Amy Flashner to Carson, July 14, 1949, Beinecke. Flashner was the secretary of the Saxton Trust.
Elated, Carson dashed off: Carson to Amy Flashner, July 24, 1949, Beinecke.
Carson got a letter back: Amy Flashner to Carson, August 4, 1949, Beinecke.
Furious, Carson pointed out: Carson to Amy Flashner, August 8, 1949, Beinecke.
They wrote to her again: Amy Flashner to Carson, August 11, 1949, Beinecke.
Eventually, Marie Rodell stepped in: Ibid., August 23, 1949, Beinecke.
Carson wrote to the trust: Carson to Amy Flashner, August 30, 1949, Beinecke.
She also received a courtesy copy of: Philip Vaudrin to Carson, October 4, 1949, Beinecke.
which she said she looked forward to: Carson to Philip Vaudrin, October 6, 1949, Beinecke.
She sent seven chapters: Marie Rodell to Edward Weeks, January 6, 1950, Beinecke.
which turned them down: Charles W. Morton to Marie Rodell, March 3, 1950, Beinecke. Morton was an associate editor of the Atlantic.
More rejections stacked up: Correspondence between Marie Rodell and various magazine editors, 1950, Beinecke.
Although most of the rejections were polite: Helen Grey to Marie Rodell, April 20, 1950, Beinecke. Grey was manuscript editor at Town & Country.
In April 1950: Carson to Philip Vaudrin, April 3, 1950, and Marie Rodell to Amy Flashner, April 14, 1950, Beinecke. In fact, Carson confessed that they’d tried out so many titles that she’d lost track as to whether this one had been previously proposed. Evidently it had been, as a letter to Carson from the publicity department at Oxford had referred to the book as The Sea Around Us back in January (Catherine S. Scott to Carson, January 3, 1950, Beinecke).
The river is within us: Eliot, The Four Quartets.
“So long ago that we do not know”: Draft fragment, Beinecke. Carson put this down in one of her many small brown spiral notebooks.
and in June 1950, Oxford said: Carson to Henry Bigelow, July 17, 1950, Beinecke.
Science Digest offered fifty dollars: G. B. Clementson to Marie Rodell, June 5, 1950, Beinecke. Clementson was the managing editor of Science Digest.
She heard from Edith Oliver: Marie Rodell to G. B. Clementson, June 8, 1950, and Marie Rodell to Carson, June 13, 1950, Beinecke.
By midsummer Oliver had: Edith Oliver to Marie Rodell, July 11, 1950, Beinecke.
She’d also begun sending the material: Edith Oliver to Marie Rodell, July 17, 1950, Beinecke.
“Darn the New Yorker”: Carson to Marie Rodell, July 17, 1950, Beinecke.
Oliver promised Rodell: Edith Oliver to Marie Rodell, July 17, 1950, Beinecke.
Rodell, meanwhile, sold: Paul Pickerel to Marie Rodell, August 18, 1950, Beinecke. Pickerel was the managing editor of the Yale Review.
She sold another: Marie Rodell to G. B. Clementson, July 21, 1950, Beinecke.
Reader’s Digest turned down: Merle Crowell to Marie Rodell, July 27, 1950, Beinecke.
Sometime around the middle of August: Carson to Marie Rodell, August 17, 1950, Beinecke.
A month later, Carson wrote to Rodell: Ibid., September 10, 1950, Beinecke.
Carson was going to have a: Ibid.
“The operation will probably turn out”: Ibid., September 13, 1950, Beinecke.
Carson dashed off: Ibid., n.d., ca. October 1950, Beinecke.
Carson was impatient with Oxford: Ibid., October 19, 1950, and December 9, 1950, Beinecke.
Rodell reminded her that: Marie Rodell to Carson, October 23, 1950, Beinecke.
She recklessly told Rodell: Carson to Marie Rodell, October 2, 1950, Beinecke.
In October 1950: Carson, Guggenheim Fellowship application, October 14, 1950, Beinecke.
a $900 advance from Houghton Mifflin: James F. Mathias to Carson, March 29, 1951, and Guggenheim formal announcement, April 16, 1951, Beinecke.
Beebe told her he couldn’t understand: William Beebe to Carson, November 7, 1950, Beinecke.
Then in early December 1950: Marie Rodell to Paul Pickerel, December 11, 1950, Beinecke.
Carson mentioned to Rodell: Carson to Marie Rodell, January 30, 1951, Beinecke.
Carson had been promoted: U.S. Department of the Interior, personnel records, promotion, February 1, 1950, NCTC.
Carson hated this prospect: Carson to Marie Rodell, January 7, 1951, Beinecke.
March 1951 brought mixed news: Lear, Rachel Carson, pp. 191 and 193.
a happy development that was partially offset when: Marie Rodell to Carson, March 21, 1951, Beinecke.
Astonishingly, Vogue magazine bought: Carson to Allen Talmey, March 29, 1951, Beinecke. Talmey was feature editor for Vogue.
In April, Carson got: Carson to Henry Z. Walck, April 6, 1951, Beinecke. Walck was president of Oxford University Press.
In May, William Shawn sent: William Shawn to Marie Rodell, May 9, 1951, Beinecke.
Rodell deducted her 10 percent: Marie Rodell to Carson, May 11, 1951, Beinecke.
The next month, Carson applied for: U.S. Department of the Interior personnel records, request for leave without pay, June 4, 1951, NCTC.
She told Rodell she believed: Carson to Marie Rodell, n.d., ca. July 1951, Beinecke.
The New Yorker reported that: Washington Star, July 8, 1951. A word about newspaper and magazine citations: For most of her publishing career Carson had a clipping service that routinely sent her copies of articles about her work from across the country and around the world. A great many, but not all, of those I cite in these notes are found in the Rachel Carson Papers in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale. But because such clippings are not unique to this collection I have not given it as the primary repository. Suffice it to say that the thousands of articles at the Beinecke, as well as references to many others I retrieved elsewhere, were invaluable in my research.
Walter Winchell, the prominent: New York Mirror, June 6, 1951.
“an introduction to oceanography”: Carson to Philip Vaudrin, December 16, 1950, Beinecke.
She began at the beginning: Carson, Sea Around Us, epigraph, p. 3.
Beginnings are apt to be shadowy: Ibid., pp. 3–4.
Imagine a whole continent of naked rock: Ibid., pp. 8–9.
Carson said that the “backbone” of the work: Carson, “Origins of the book The Sea Around Us,” 1952, Beinecke. This is the memo Carson prepared for her publisher in London.
Most of man’s habitual tampering: Carson, Sea Around Us, pp. 95–96.
Where and when the ocean will halt: Ibid., pp. 99–100.
Writing in the New York Herald Tribune: The New York Herald Tribune, July 15, 1951.
Leonard wrote that the errors poets make: New York
Times Sunday Book Review, July 1, 1951.
though the reviewer for the Indianapolis Times: Indianapolis Times, July 7, 1951.
The critic at Newsweek: Newsweek, July 16, 1951.
Carson landed on the cover: Saturday Review of Literature, July 7, 1951.
The Buffalo Evening News agreed: Buffalo Evening News, July 7, 1951.
A week after its review: New York Times Sunday Book Review, July 8, 1951.
In a publicity piece: Carson, “Origins of the book The Sea Around Us,” 1952, Beinecke.
Proving that everyone seemed to: Christian Science Monitor, January 3, 1952.
Society columnist Mary Van Rensselaer Thayer: San Francisco Argonaut, June 29, 1951.
In a short essay she wrote: New York Herald Tribune Book Review, October 7, 1951.
“In minor ways I am a disappointment”: Ibid.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer referred to Carson: Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 1, 1951.
The Boston Post described her: Boston Post, July 8, 1951.
Among Carson’s fans were: Jane Barkley to Carson, June 22, 1951, Catherine Nimitz to Carson, n.d., ca. May 1951, and Thor Heyerdahl to Carson, May 3, 1951, Beinecke. Jane Barkley was Vice President Alben Barkley’s wife. Catherine Nimitz was Admiral Chester Nimitz’s wife. Barkley, Nimitz, and Heyerdahl all received advance copies of The Sea Around Us.
Carson also got a generous: Quincy Howe to Carson, July 30, 1951, Beinecke.
One letter that probably impressed itself: R. M. Much to Carson, October 20, 1951, Beinecke.
A man named Alfred Glassel: Alfred C. Glassel, Jr., to Carson, June 11, 1952, Beinecke.
Even Marie Rodell was suddenly: Washington Daily News, July 4, 1951. The responses, almost always glowing but sometimes strange, continued for years. In 1957, Carson got a letter from a young physician in the pathology department at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor. The doctor, who seemed passionate about the subject, wanted more information about bathyspheres and other deep-diving devices. He wondered if Carson might have access to technical information on such equipment not available to the general public—and, if such details were not “restricted,” whether she might share them. He also said how much he liked her book and apologized if his inquiry was an imposition. The letter was signed “Very truly yours, Jack Kevorkian, M.D.” (Dr. Jack Kevorkian to Carson, December 4, 1957, Beinecke).
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