Rachel Carson Biographer, Linda Lear
Whenever my parents drove over the Allegheny River into downtown Pittsburgh from
the rural community where I was born, I begged my father not to take the bridge
that passed above the stock yards. There were animal parts visible in the yard,
and debris strewn along the river's edge. The smell of dead animals mixed with the
stench of sulfur from the smelting operations further down river. It always made
me sick to my stomach.
We talked about why the city was dirty, the river polluted, and what we could do
about it. For generations my family had been involved in the natural world and from
them I learned to appreciate and nurture the earth. From my grandparents and from
my mother I later appreciated the joy of being in the garden and of gardening myself.
I became interested in botany,wildlife,natural science and horticulture.
I was educated at women’s schools until my graduate work at Columbia University.
Before finishing my doctorate, I taught history at several independent girls' schools,
and fortunately ended up in Washington, D.C. in the late 1960s-just in time to become
an activist. I have had a long career in college and university teaching and have
written a variety of books and articles. In the 1980s,I began to specialize in environmental
history just as the field was being defined.
For many years I was a professor of environmental history, but with the publication
of my biography of Rachel Carson in 1997, my full-time writing and lecturing career
began in earnest. Writing the life of Rachel Carson gave me a chance to give voice
to someone whose work reflects what a single individual can do to bring about change.
Carson and I came from the same western Pennsylvania landscape. She abhorred the
same things I did. Writing her life became a decade-long work of love as I discovered
the vitality of her vision.
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I began writing the life of the famous children's author and illustrator Beatrix
Potter (1866-1943)in 1998 by happenstance while on book tour in the UK. It too has
taken nearly a decade of effort. It will be published in the UK by Allen Lane/Penguin
in December 2006, and in the US by St. Martin's Press. As a wealthy Victorian woman,Beatrix
endured enormous obstacles as someone who wanted to find something useful to do
with her life, and as a woman who had the potential to contribute significantly
to natural science. Ultimately she gave the world not only imaginative tales of
memorable animals, like Peter Rabbit and Jeremy Fisher, to shape our childhood vision
of nature, but also many exquisite paintings of the natural world. She was fortunate
to have a real third act to her life and made the most of it as a country woman
and farmer who used her talent and wealth to preserve the landscape that inspired
her art. Her stewardship is still evident in the a large tracts of land that she
donated to the National Trust in what is now the English Lake District.
I currently serve on the Board of Trustees of my alma mater, Connecticut College.
I was honored with the Goodwin-Niering Center Alumni Environmental Achievement Award
in 1999, and have donated my manuscript materials to establish The Lear/Carson Collection
there. My biography of Carson was awarded the prize for the best book on women in
science by the History of Science Society for 1998.
I have traveled extensively in Great Britain to appreciate and describe the places
that influenced Beatrix Potter and I too, have fallen in love with the English Lake
District that she worked so hard to preserve.
I spend my time between Bethesda, Maryland and Charleston, South Carolina with my
husband, John Nickum, and four little Norfolk terriers. We cherish occasional visits
from our son, Ian Cole who is the head man of the rock band, VAEDA, and his beautiful
bride,Lindsay,who soon will be the veterinarian who takes care of the doggie tribe.
Linda Lear has always been intrigued by how the lives of artists and writers have
been influenced in th natural world. She discovered quite by accident that before
Beatrix Potter began her legendary series of "little books" for children she had
been an avid student of natural history and might have had a career in science had
such opportunities been available to women. As Lear explored Potter's evolution
from amateur scientist of the land, she herself became an admirer of Lakeland's
farms, fells, and sheep. A professor of environmental history and the author of
the prize-winning biography, Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature, Lear is
an enthusiastic horticulturist and collector of botanical art. She and her husband
live in Bethesda, Maryland.
