Women’s History Month
The environmental and public health movements have been fighting for our safety, diversity, and quality of life for generations. Rachel Carson represented an irresistible clarity about blind industrial methods destroying our own future and everything that gives life meaning in our natural environment. Female writers like Olga Owens Huckins chronicling bird deaths from DDT, scientists like Ellen Swallow Richards and Dr. Alice Hamilton identifying toxins and their effects in waterways and factories, government compatriots like Shirley Briggs continuing Carson’s fight after her death, and the network of women like Marjorie Spock working with Carson all made a difference. They all cleared paths for Carson, or created laboratory areas like Woods Hole where she would work, and ensured her efforts were not in vain by fighting alongside her and after her death.
Perhaps most true of all of them was an unshakable set of priorities and the discipline to persevere, putting the environment and our health above prestige, acclaim, or a private domestic isolation from wider concerns. Their goal was always to communicate clearly, working with whatever power structure or partisan opposition for the best result that could be obtained. Good enough for now, safe to try, for the good of the whole community. A pleasant reminder as we approach 2025 in Rachel Carson EcoVillage at Providence Heights.
– David Clapp, Founding Member & future resident of RCE, March 18, 2024