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University of California Press

The Myth of Silent Spring

Rethinking the Origins of American Environmentalism
by Chad Montrie (Author)
Hardcover Paperback eBook
Price: $24.95 / £21.00
Publication Date: Jan 2018
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 200
ISBN: 9780520291348
Trim Size: 5.5 x 8.25
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About the Book

Since its publication in 1962, Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring has often been celebrated as the catalyst that sparked an American environmental movement. Yet environmental consciousness and environmental protest in some regions of the United States date back to the nineteenth century, with the advent of industrial manufacturing and the consequent growth of cities. As these changes transformed people's lives, ordinary Americans came to recognize the connections between economic exploitation, social inequality, and environmental problems. As the modern age dawned, they turned to labor unions, sportsmen’s clubs, racial and ethnic organizations, and community groups to respond to such threats accordingly. The Myth of Silent Spring tells this story. By challenging the canonical “songbirds and suburbs” interpretation associated with Carson and her work, the book gives readers a more accurate sense of the past and better prepares them for thinking and acting in the present.

About the Author

Chad Montrie is Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He is the author of several books, including A People’s History of Environmentalism in the United States.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: “The Fight for a Balanced Environment and the Fight for Social Justice and Dignity Are Not Unrelated Struggles”

1. “I Think Less of the Factory Than of My Native Dell”

2. “Why Don’t They Dump the Garbage on the Bully-Vards?”

3. “Massive Mobilization for a Great Citizen Crusade”

Conclusion: “They Keep Threatening Us with the Loss of Our Jobs”

Notes
Further Reading
Index

Reviews

“Chad Montrie's book restores complexity to the history of American environmentalist movements and does justice to the actions against the degradation of nature that have been forgotten by the historiography, too focused on the heroic story (or history) of a white and bourgeois (or middle-class) scientist. The risk of such a thesis would be to minimize the diagnosis and the action of Rachel Carson, but Chad Montrie recognizes at the same time her courage, her pugnacity and her determination. It is less a matter of denying her impact—recognized by the historiography—than of recalling the competing imaginaries and actions that have also worked for the protection of the environment, in a long history that precedes Rachel Carson, to show that the environment is not necessarily opposed to use (or utilization), and to introduce a social analysis to a trajectory of degradation (or alteration) of the environment that is not a process involving humanity as a whole.”
— Le Mouvement Social
"Montrie’s purpose in writing this book . . . is to do more than inspire mere academic debate. Instead, he hopes to broaden the sights of environmentalists as well as to encourage them to seek out allies beyond the suburbs. In correcting what he sees as a truncated and therefore deeply flawed narrative of US environmental activism, he posits a more usable past, one from which modern-day activists can draw lessons about both the long-term environmental concerns and protest of working people. For this reason, this book deserves a wide readership."
— Environmental History

"The Myth of Silent Spring is a concise and valuable contribution, proving that labor history can make important contributions to environmental history."

— Metascience
“The Myth of Silent Spring finds the origins of modern environmental consciousness in the history of the American worker—autoworker and farmworker, socialist and social worker, union rank-and-file and inner-city black—showing us a world not only unexplored, but largely unimagined by environmental historians. This book rewrites the history of environmentalism, infusing it with contemporary relevance.”—Richard W. Judd, author of Common Lands, Common People: The Origins of Conservation in Northern New England

“The Myth of Silent Spring successfully attacks the dominant narrative of the environmental movement’s origins. Importantly, author Chad Montrie deftly uncovers the pivotal importance of labor and the working class in environmental struggles since the late nineteenth century. His well-researched book deserves close attention by scholars, activists, and politicians alike.”—Elizabeth D. Blum, author of Love Canal Revisited: Race, Class, and Gender in Environmental Activism

“A much-needed synthesis of current scholarship on environmentalism ’from the bottom up’ Montrie introduces us to a whole host of forgotten working-class, Latino, African American, immigrant, and female green activists. In so doing, he shows us that environmentalism was always far more than simply a white suburban initiative.”—Colin Fisher, author of Urban Green: Nature, Recreation, and the Working Class in Industrial Chicago
 

Awards

  • 2018 Green Book Festival Grand Prize 2018, Green Book Festival