Biography

Abstract

In 1886, twenty-one years before Rachel Louise Carson was born, Sarah Orne Jewett published one of her best known stories, “A White Heron.” The story tells about Sylvie, a young girl attuned to nature. She knows where the heron roosts, but keeps the location secret in order to protect the bird from a hunter who wished to add it to his collection of stuffed specimens. Like the fictional Sylvie, the real Rachel Carson wandered in the woods in her neighborhood and knew where to find birds and their hidden nests.