Visionary Women: How Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Jane Goodall, and Alice Waters Changed Our World ~ by Andrea Barnet, 2018, biographies, 528 pagesRachel Carson's beginning ~ in 1938 As the winter of 1938 limped into spring, the news from Europe grew increasingly grim. On March 12, Nazi soldiers stormed into Austria, annexing the country in a single day, while the world looked helplessly on.
Jane Jacobs' beginning ~ in 1955
In the spring of 1955, a tell, self-effacing man in a rumpled suit paid a visit to a young editor at Architectural Forum magazine to ask her aid in writing about what he called "a blodletting." William Kirk didn't know much about Jane Jacobs. He was the head of the Union Settlement, a community group that helped the indigent in East Harlem. But he hoped he would find a receptive ear.
Jane Goodall's beginning ~ in 1961
In the winter of 1961, in a far-flung corner of what is now Tanzania, a young Englishwoman sat alone in a tropical rain forest. She was just past twenty-seven. But like Jacobs, who was eighteen years older and whose book Death and Life would appear that same year, her stature in the world was about to change. She too was on the verge of rattling the foundations of what had seemed a settled field, defying all expectations for her sex in her pioneering observations of animal behavior.
Alice Waters' beginning ~ in 1965
Alice Waters stepped into the little stone house in Brittany, trailed by her friend Sara Flanders. It was the spring of 1965 and she was just twenty-one, a footloose Berkeley student on a semester abroad in France. An elfin creature with expressive gray eyes, she was small boned and slender, barely five two in height, and there was a faint air of dreaminess about her.
Four influential women we thought we knew well — Jane Jacobs, Rachel Carson, Jane Goodall, and Alice Waters — and how they spearheaded the modern progressive movement
This is the story of four visionaries who profoundly shaped the world we live in today. Together, these women — linked not by friendship or field, but by their choice to break with convention — showed what one person speaking truth to power can do. Jane Jacobs fought for livable cities and strong communities; Rachel Carson warned us about poisoning the environment; Jane Goodall demonstrated the indelible kinship between humans and animals; and Alice Waters urged us to reconsider what and how we eat.
With a keen eye for historical detail, Andrea Barnet traces the arc of each woman’s career and explores how their work collectively changed the course of history. While they hailed from different generations, Carson, Jacobs, Goodall, and Waters found their voices in the early sixties. At a time of enormous upheaval, all four stood as bulwarks against 1950s corporate culture and its war on nature. Consummate outsiders, each prevailed against powerful and mostly male adversaries while also anticipating the disaffections of the emerging counterculture.
All told, their efforts ignited a transformative progressive movement while offering people a new way to think about the world and a more positive way of living in it.
Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts
