Representing the 60s: Rachel Carson and Betty Freidan

Introduction

            In the 1950s and early 1960s the knowledge and power in many fields was centralized and held aloft from the general public. In the absence of any popular movement in most areas, corporate interests as well as certain racial and gender practices could flourish that the majority of Americans would not have supported if they had sufficient knowledge. The change that occurred in the 1960s was that experienced members of some fields, in a effort to make change, released the knowledge of their field out into the larger public. Of course, changes to the status quo in Cold War America were never easily accepted, and most of these educators faced intense criticism, either from the government, some subsection of the population, or corporate interests. The emphasis on popular education of the masses as a way to enact change was an integral part of the movements of the 1960s, as is shown by the education of everyday citizens by Rachel Carlson and the education of housewives by Betty Friedan.

Rachel Carson

            Rachel Carson is perhaps the most well-known of the public educators during the 1960s thanks to her wildly publicized book Silent Spring. In this book, Carson illustrated the dangers of “biocides,” synthetic pesticides that were used extensively following World War 2.[1] She wrote in a literally pleasing style that had significant appeal to the American public, which was a sharp contrast from the typical discussion on environmental issues, which was always written in scientific jargon. The large public appeal of Silent Springs, which sold over two million copies, allowed Carson to launch a popular movement that opposed the indiscriminate usage of pesticides.

            Carlson is clearly a huge influence on, if not solely responsible for, the beginnings of the modern environmentalist movement, as Is shown by the clear divide between the time before the publishing of Silent Spring and after. Before, there was mass usage by almost all levels of society, from the housewife wishing to kill bugs to the military using them overseas for disease prevention to the average commercial farmer. Massive corporations racked in impressive profits without having to disclose how damaging their products were, except on small labels. To be fair, many of these corporations may not have been aware of the harmful effects of their pesticide. However, it is undeniable that some did, and they still did not publicize the harms enough. In addition, the federal government took a very hands-off approach to regulating these corporations, so they were able to sell chemicals that had not been extensively tested, or tested long-term, which led to more dangerous products entering the market. Lastly, during this period, chemicals were not always viewed with the suspicion that they are typically viewed today.

            After Silent Springs was published, there was immediate public outcry. Americans had been used to thinking of themselves as separate of nature, destined to control it. In the first passage of the chapter Elixirs of Death, Carson rudely shattered this notion, writing that the “dangerous chemicals” that humanity now produced “occur in the mother’s milk, and probably in the tissues of the unborn child.”[2] The severity of the popular reaction is shown both by the chemical industry’s opposition to Carson’s book and the quick federal action on the topic.

            In the big chemical corporations, executives met to discuss how to most efficiently discreet Carson, spending over $250,000 campaigning for this purpose. Not two months after Silent Spring was published, President John F. Kennedy ordered the Life Sciences Panel of the President’s Science Advisory Committee to investigate her claims. In this way, Carson launched the modern environmentalist movement.

Betty Freidan

            The effect that Betty Friedan and her book, The Feminine Mystique, had are so great, that even 70 years after its original publication, it is still controversial. The issue that Betty Freidan was seeking to fix the dissatisfaction that many housewives faced in their roles as wives and mothers. Women’s dissatisfaction was not a neurological issue as the Freud-dominated psychiatric industry had named it. Rather, it was something that many other women faced, and it was caused by a lack of employment among women. In essence, Betty Freidan gave a name to the problem that, before her book, “had no name.”[3] This allowed her to launch the modern feminist movement.

            Freidan’s influence is shown, again, by the fact that there is a clear before and after of her book. Before The Feminine Mystique, most American women appeared to be completely content being a housewife. However, there was a hidden tension. Many of the women were faking being content in their roles as wife and mother. They yearned for more, yet that was against every cultural message they received. Those women who spoke out were diagnosed by psychoanalysis, even though they had no understanding of what was wrong.[4] Women never talked to each other about the problem, so they all assumed they were the only ones who had that problem. The issue was themselves, not society, and they needed to adjust to fit social standards.

            After Friedan’s book, the way women could express themselves changed fundamentally. Friedan told women that it was ok for them to have these feelings of dissatisfaction. The cure, for Friedan, was for women to get to work. More than one million copies of The Feminine Mystique sold during the 1960s. All those women now knew that they were not alone in feeling the way they did, which allowed them to begin to organize. In this way, Freidan launched the modern feminist movement.

Conclusion

            During the 1960s, a large driver of social change was individuals with privileged knowledge educating the general public. In Rachel Carson’s case, she introduced a healthy fear of chemicals that we did not understand nor control, which launched Americans’ concerns with the environment that would form into the modern environmentalism movement. Similarly, Betty Freidan educated women that they were not alone in their feelings of dissatisfaction, launching the modern feminist movement. In this way, both women were pioneers of their respective movements.  

[1] Rachel Carson, Silent Springs (Houghton Mifflin, 1963), 4.

[2] Ibid., 15-16.

[3] Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (NEW YORK: DELL PUBL. CO, 1964), 11.

[4] Ibid., 6.