Hello, my name is Rachel Lousie Carson. I was born on a farm in Springdale,
             Pennsylvania on May 27, 1907. My mother, Maria McLean Carson was a dedicated
             teacher and throughout my childhood she encouraged my interests in nature and in
             writing. She also encouraged me to publish my first story A Battle in the Clouds in the St.
             Nicholas magazine while I was in fourth grade.
             After graduating from Parnassus High School, I enrolled into the Pennsylvania
             College for Women. I majored in English and continued to write but I also had to take
             two semesters of science, which changed my life. In my junior year I changed my major to
             zoology, even though science was not considered an appropriate avenue for women.
             After graduating college in 1928 I had earned a full one year scholarship to Johns
             Hopkins University in Baltimore. This scholarship did not relieve me or my family of our
             financial burdens, so I worked throughout graduate school in the genetics department
             assisting Dr. Raymond Pearl and Dr. H.S. Jennings and I worked as an assistant teacher in
             the zoology department at the University of Maryland. In 1932 I received my masters in
             marine zoology. I continued working part-time as a teacher after graduating to help
             support my family through the early years of the Depression. In 1935 my father had a
             heart attack and passed away leaving me to provide for my mother. In 1936, my sister
             Marion passed away at the age of forty leaving behind two young daughters, and my
             mother encouraged me to take them in. That same year I took the civil service
             examination necessary for promotion to full-time junior aquatic biologist. I scored higher
             than all the other candidates ( who were all male) and became the first female biologist
             ever hired by the Bureau of Fisheries whom I was employed by for sixteen years as a
             My article entitled "Undersea" which had been published in the Atlantic Mont
             ...