Who Was Rachel Carson?

I'm reading The Sea Around Us, the first bestseller by Rachel Carson, and I became curious about the author. All I could find at my library were two biographies written for children, so I decided to read them and see what I could find out.

I was most interested to see how Rachel Carson was set on the path to becoming a naturalist and an early environmentalist. It seems that one of the influences was that of her mother, an avid bird-watcher, who encouraged others to study nature. Rachel and her mother took long walks together and Rachel would ask questions as they walked. If her mother didn't know the answer, she taught Rachel how to find answers in books. Rachel also had a teacher who encouraged her toward a career in science.