Visionary Women: How Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Jane Goodall, and Alice Waters Changed Our World

by Andrea Barnet

Winner of The Green Prize for Sustainable Literature

A Finalist for the PEN/Bograd Weld Prize for Biography

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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, History, Feminism, Science, Biography Memoir, Womens

528 pages, Paperback

First published March 13, 2018

About the author

Andrea Barnet is the author of Visionary Women: How Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Jane Goodall and Alice Waters Changed Our World, a finalist for the 2019 PEN/ Bograd Weld Award for Biography and one of Booklist’s four “2018 Editors’ choice for biography” selections. Her previous book, All-Night Party: The Women of Bohemian Greenwich Village and Harlem, 1913-1930 was a nonfiction finalist for the 2004 Lambda Literary Awards. She was a regular contributor to the New York Times Book Review for twenty-five years, where she wrote primary on the arts and culture. Her journalism has appeared in Smithsonian Magazine, the New York Times, Elle, Harpers Bazaar and The Toronto Glove and Mail, among other publications. She splits her time between the Hudson Valley and New York City, where she lives with her husband, the painter Kit White.

Reviews

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this last week — I thoroughly enjoyed listening to these women I admire.

Terrific audiobook read by Cassandra Campbell!!!

Each story …
from
Jane Goodall,
Rachel Carson,
Jane Jacobs,
and
Alice Waters
….was fabulous!!!

[Courtney Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Just wow, what a great read about four incredibly strong and important women. My hands-down favorite section was the chapters covering Jane Goodall, but I attribute that to at least knowing who she was before sitting down to read this. This gem sent me down so many wonderful rabbit holes it was hard to come back sometimes.

A well written history-nonfiction-women are awesome-read. It has a great format that makes it easy to read in spurts. I myself would take breaks between sections to learn more about each of the women discussed in the section. It helped make the history easier to read. I'm glad I picked this up, and I will happily recommend to pretty much anyone.

[Maddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This read like a college thesis, to be honest. Though I found some of the research and the overall stories somewhat compelling, the writing was repetitive and irritating. I also felt that the addition of Alice Waters to the trio of other women felt a little forced, like Barnet needed someone to round out the group and felt that since Waters had done some good work in Berkeley that she was someone worthy of sharing this book with pioneering Carson, Jacobs, and Goodall. All three of those women contributed in a huge way to their respective fields and awakened the world to the plight of the delicate web that connects us all from the smallest being to the largest.
Though Alice Waters has created the Edible Schoolyard and done a lot for her community and while the story of her restaurant is very interesting, I don't know that any of the other programs that have been created around the country have come about because of her influence so much as they have been a result of the greater shift that's occurring away from what is bad back to what is good. I feel that Julia Child would have been a much better candidate for the food section of this book than Alice Waters. She was publishing around the same time as the other women (Mastering the Art came out in 1961) and would have been a more natural fit.
Overall, I did learn a lot, especially because I was unfamiliar with the work of Rachel Carson and Jane Goodall and I suppose I did enjoy it, but the book really got in its own way quite a bit.

[KC · Rating 5 out of 5]

This outstanding narrative covers four revolutionary women all striving and executing historical and monumental achievements surrounding the eco-movement during the 20th Century. Rachel Carson brought to our attention the dangers of DDTs, Jane Jacobs who fought for the stability of New York City's urban communities, parks, and neighborhoods, Jane Goodall who made humans aware of the similarities between man and primate, and Alice Waters who brought to light the importance of organic foods, farming, and the innovative path to healthier eating and living. With the soothing and exceptionally etherial expression of Cassandra Campbell, this audiobook will be listed as one of my top picks of the year.

[Loreley · Rating 4 out of 5]

ცოტა უფრო შეკრული რომ ყოფილიყო არ აწყენდა წიგნს, მაგრამ საერთო ჯამში მაინც ძალიან კარგია.
ამ ოთხიდან ორი ვიცოდი ამ წიგნამდე მხოლოდ - რეიჩელ კარსონი და ჯეინ გუდოლი. ჯეინ ჯეიკობსი ნიუ-ორკელი ნატა ფერაძე აღმოჩნდა დაახლოებით ;დდ
ელის ვოთერსი ცოტა ამოვარდნილია ოთხეულიდან, დანარჩენებისგან განსხვავებით უფრო გვიან დაიწყო მოღვაწეობა, მაგრამ ერთგვარად იმათი სხვადასხვა დარგში მოხდენილი ცვლილებების შემკვრელად შეიძლება წარმოიდგინო (დამაგვირგვინებლად ვერა, მაგდენს ვერ ქაჩავს ჩემი მოკრძალებული აზრით :D)
ზოგადად იმედისმომცემი წიგნიცაა მაგრამ თან შემაწუხებელიც, 60-იანი წლების დასაწყისში რომ რაღაცეები გადალახეს ამერიკაში (თუმცა ბოლომდე მაინც ვერა) - დღეს მაგ რაღაცეების შეგნებისთვის ბრძოლა გვიწევს ჯერ საქართველოში - შუა ქალაქში გიგანტური ტრასების ჩაკვეხება მწვანე სივრცეების ხარჯზე რომ კარგი არაა, პესტიციდების უგზოუკვლო გამოყენება მოგეკითხება ადრე თუ გვიან, ჩვენს გარდა სხვა ცხოველებსაც რომ აქვთ უფლება საკუთარ გარემოში იარსებონ და ა.შ.

მოკლედ კმაყოფილი ვარ წიგნით, რეკომენდაციას ვუწევ და წავედი ამდენი წლის ფეხის თრევის შემდეგ Silent Spring უნდა წავიკითხო <3

[Laurie Shook · Rating 3 out of 5]

In today's distracted world of 140 character tweets, reading a 452 page book with just 4 chapters can be a bit of a slog. The author's prose is robust and detailed, not succinct. Visionary Women tells the story of four women who had a major impact on their fields if not the broader world:
Rachel Carson, credited with starting the ecology movement with publication of Silent Spring.
Jane Goodall, noted researcher into primate behavior (chimpanzees). I had her confused with a different researcher, Dian Fossey, of Gorillas in the Mist fame.
Jane Jacobs, an outspoken advocate for human-friendly urban design and living. I had never heard of her, but I'm a midwestern suburbanite at heart.
Alice Waters, legendary chef and restauranteur of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, and one of the earliest voices for direct farm-to-table food supply chains and California cuisine.

The author explains inclusion of this eclectic assortment of biographies:

"all saw the world as a web of interactions and exchanges, rather than a strict hierarchy...all intuitively grasped the overarching idea of 'connection,' which is the basis of what we now call 'web' or 'systems thinking.'"

Although all faced obstacles with their careers, it's really evident how quickly opportunities became more available to women when comparing Rachel Carson's life to Goodall and Waters, who were born 25 to 35 years later. I enjoyed the Carson and Goodall biographies the most, perhaps because I personally appreciated their advances in science over Waters' and Jacobs' cultural advances.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Promising, but ultimately frustrating book. Way too long, way too much detail, much of it drawn from secondary sources (with endnotes). I started with Alice Waters, because I knew nothing about her but had dined once at Chez Panisse, and Jane Jacobs, because her book Death and Life of American Cities had made a big impression on me a million years ago in college. The women all are fascinating and important, but packing in essentially four almost-full-length biographies into one book didn't work that well. It also seemed unnecessary as there are existing biographies of all of them. The whole thing seemed like a rehashing of existing work, not especially well written. That said, I still enjoyed learning about the four women, about whose lives I knew little.

[Joy (joyous reads) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a fascinating read. Made me want to read more about these forward-thinking nurturers.

[Noreen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think that my expectations of how enjoyable and informative this book would be were so under what the true experience has been.
Andrea is a writer with credibility and heart. These women came alive because of her skill for me.
I think it’s a must read for all generations of women. The impact it left me, growing up in the 50s and 60’s, was profound. But, I also want my daughter and grand daughter to read it with hope, so they will know that now the sky is the limit to what they can achieve if they have will and determination. Look how far these women came with social and cultural road blocks in their way.
It is also a wonderful read for men who appreciate women and are secure with who they are and how much they have been afforded in this society.
I am much looking forward to another book about women of color and LGBTQ
people. The world is hungry for writers with Andrea’s insight.
Bravo!!!
Well done!

[Katie Branson · Rating 5 out of 5]

the link between consumerism, capitalism, environmental collapse, and community planning - academic theorists with tangible impact.

*see the meta analyses of global association of air pollution and cardiorespiratory / black carbon particle and neuroinflammation + oxidative stress. climate change as the greatest threat to human health

“engineered housing, wartime chemical, industrialized agriculture, manufactured food… part of the same cultural push to bend nature and natural systems to serve mankind”

not a fast read but an authentic, important one

that most of these women made their impact later in life, with little plan but instead by being observers of the world around them

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing read, the ideas and theories of these women resonate even more today. The authour neatly brings together the intersecting and converging ideas of all four women and their continued impact.
Even though Carson,Jacobs and Goodall were disparaged and dismissed due to their gender they bravely stood their ground and continued fighting for what they knew to be truth. Each woman looked beyond the now to the future and what that meant for our children.
Rachel Carson's work of all four speaks to me the most.

[Dena · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an interesting collection of biographies of four (4) different women who all found a passion and applied it to helping to make the world a better place.  This book profiles: Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Jane Goodhall and Alice Waters -- previously I was only familiar with the work of Carson and Goodhall, but their profiles were quite in depth and I enjoyed learning more about their backgrounds.

Carson is known for being the founder of the ecology movement which pre-dates a lot of activism we are seeing today, and in many senses she faced a lot of backlash because of being a woman, with many of her theories being dismissed by male peers and/or the scientific community but she found her niche through several well written and researched books. I have only read Silent Spring but it was ground breaking in its message and it has a very prominent place in the environment movement, in the sense of questioning both the short and long term impact of what we do to the Earth and those consequences, many of which we are seeing now.

Jacobs was an advocate for poor urban neighborhoods usually areas where lower class to lower middle class people lived, including both immigrants and blue collar laborers.  Post World War II, and into the 1950's, 1960's, and the 1970's many of these older neighborhoods were razed in favor of urban development projects that did not help the poverty issues they said they would resolve, nor address homelessness, unemployment, drug use, or crime.  In many U.S. cities, they even made certain factors worse by isolating public housing from neighborhoods with thriving commerce that could nurture small business and jobs.  Jacob's efforts centered around New York City and the West Village.  Her efforts to organize and succeed were interesting to compare and contrast.  My city Boston, MA saw similar losses in the bulldozing of the West End Neighborhood into a development of apartment towers--high end housing and office space and the famous traffic bottle neck of Storrow Drive, which continues today even post the Big Dig Project.  And to note, my great grandmother's half brother spent most of his life writing angry letters to the Boston Redevelopment Authority/BRA demanding reparations for people displaced from their homes and businesses/jobs.  I'm sure he would shudder and scream, at all the buildings being sold to developers around the city in different neighborhoods and being turned into high end residency towers.

Goodhall is quite well known for her ground breaking work observing and studying primates.  Before reading I knew a little about her work, this profile was really enlightening to learn about her upbringing and education and the challenges she faced and her often troubled relationship with her mentor Lewis Leakey as well.

Waters was an early pioneer of the slow food movement including pioneering the idea of "farm to table" -- locally source products -- and her restaurant in California became center of those movements and change on the west coast.

This was an interesting, educational and enjoyable read -- highly recommended.

[Scottsdale Public Library]

Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Jane Goodall, and Alice Waters came from different generations. They worked in different fields. Yet they all made significant contributions in the early sixties (going up against powerful and entrenched interests at the time). Carson spoke up about DDT poisoning the environment, and subsequently helped create the EPA and Endangered Species Act in 1973; Jacobs advocated for livable cities and strong communities, laying a groundwork for current principles in community planning; Goodall’s work impacted animal studies. Her push to have chimpanzees recognized as engendered led the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to recommend chimps in captivity be granted the same protections as those in the wild; Waters’ ongoing advocacy has helped pave the way for sustainable food and farm-to-table movements. Each identified the moral crisis of modernity and out of their arguments came social movements that would change the world. I highly recommend this book; people should know of the work they did and be inspired to think how they can help their own communities (even on a global level)! -Sara Z.

[Karen Shilvock-Cinefro · Rating 3 out of 5]

How four visionary women changed our thoughts in nature, environment, and ecology. Jane Jacobs, Rachael Carson, Jane Goodall, and Alice Waters lives, work, and contributions to society are presented. Their childhood and family dynamics are interesting. Some of the details of their work get lengthy but in areas of interest fascinating. I am tired of the trend of the lengthy discussion of some of their private lives in adulthood, especially the belabored details of their sexual choices. I realize the authors who now include this information in their books are trying to make the individuals seem more human and wanting us to understand and accept all their choices but I find the information too dragged out and really care more about the women’s research and accomplishments and could care less about their sexual preferences.

[Jdetrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fascinating book, focusing on four women (three of whom I was not familiar with, despite the fact that I work in close proximity to a building named for one of them) who were brilliant and who really did view the world differently and helped to focus energies on some of the societal problems that saw. Very enjoyable and it really helps to open the reader's eyes to how the world is one giant ecosystem, with everything dependent on everything else.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was introduced to this book when an 89-year-old community member published an enchanting review of it in our local newspaper. I am a devotee of Jane Jacobs and knew at least something about the three other women profiled, but this book contextualizes their work in the era of the early 1960s and within their respective disciplines. A very worthwhile read!

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book that details the journey of influential women. Grounding and inspiring, these chapters will captivate you and provide the necessary reminder that we are all a sum of our actions.

[Anna Abney Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read, really illuminating on these four creative, important women and how they challenged prevailing norms and values to help create the world we live in today.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look at four women (Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Jane Goodall and Alice Waters) whose ideas and research changed the world. Worth reading.

[Mary Stokes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book about four women who made tremendous impact in the 20th century and into the 21st in major ways that affect all of our lives. All four were interesting but I particularly enjoyed the sections on Jane Jacobs who was unknown to me and Jane Goodall with whom I was very familiar but about whim I learned a ton.

[Patti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like most of the other reviewers, I loved this book and found it very inspiring. It is a gift to learn so much more about those you thought you admired in the past and to have two more inspiring women added to those you greatly admire. Their wholistic view of the world and their faith and perseverance in having an impact on changing the world for the better should set a standard for all.
In the chapter about Alice Waters, the author writes "Looking hard, trusting one's senses, letting the ingredients speak for themselves; paying attention to how elements combine and interact; allowing the meal in some senses to self-assemble- all notions strikingly similar to the way Carson, Jacobs and Goodall approached their work. All were drawing upon deep reserves of empirical knowledge, intuition, and an unerring sense of the natural harmonies they uncovered through close observation. Gone were loyalties to received knowledge and preconceived attitudes. In their place was a fresh respect for seeing the world anew and entering a dance in which the physical and the firsthand were allowed to lead."

[Melinda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well-written and well-researched account of four extraordinary women and how they influenced events and issues of post World War II America. Barnet has a way of putting you into their lives, and she includes much in the way of important events of the times. Even though these women did not know each other and were not contemporaries, their contributions to our world have common themes. Barnet ties them together well.

[Chris Demer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful and inspiring book about four women who changed the way we think about our environment, ourselves and our place in the animal kingdom, and our food and how it is related to our health.

The author writes about the early lives of these women, and later about their public lives. Although none of them sought the limelight, they were all forced into the public sphere because of the breadth and depth of their understandings of the world around us.

Rachel Carson had a difficult early life. Her mother was her sole guide, as her father was mostly absent. Although she never married or had children, she became the guardian of her grand nephew when her niece died at a young age. She herself died from cancer when she was barely middle aged. However, her impact on he world has been profound. She is considered the founder of the concept of ecology. She was a brilliant writer and a meticulous scientist. She wrote about the communities of organisms in the sea and was clear about the connections of all species.
Somewhat later she became aware of the onslaught of chemicals in the fight against insects, particularly DDT in the efforts to eliminate mosquitoes. She pursued clues, studied the impact of these chemicals on other species, and realized that a single minded approach to wiping out any species would affect many others. Her whole approach from her scientific studies showed the inter connectedness of living organisms.
Her book, Silent Spring, was a polemic against this approach, and to any control of the larger environment. It was a blockbuster. But there was a huge amount of push-back from chemical companies of course. She was derided in public, criticized as a dilletante (which she most definitely was not!) and described as a hysterical spinster!

She was a careful scientist and understood the web of life in a way that most did not. Her legacy has been to impress upon the world that science is not infallible, and that attempts to control nature are not progress. Conservation is critical to maintain the world as we know it.

Jane Jacobs was a pioneer in another sense-that of the importance of community to human beings. She and her husband settled in he West Village in New York rather than suburbia, that was the "thing" at the time. As they settled in and became part of the community they came to love-with its diversity of people, buildings, architecture, street life- she became aware that there was a redevelopment plan afoot. Robert Moses had decided to re-structure that par of the city. First by building a 4-lane road through Washington Park, and later by bulldozing the West Village (after having it declared a slum) and re-building it as luxury high rises. She became a political activist par excellence. Fighting City Hall and the powers that be, with a large cadre of like-minded inhabitants, they were able to prevent that catastrophe. She eventually wrote "The Death and Life of American Cities" a book which is now the bible of city planners. Her approach was not dissimilar to that of Rachel Carson, in as much as she saw the fabric of communities in its people. She saw that the interactions of neighbors, vendors , shop owners, small manufacturing businesses, were not messy, but were intertwined in a functional whole. Thanks to Jane Jacobs, it is now understood that communities have the power to renew themselves for their own benefit and large scale destruction--with its usual lack of green space, mixed use buildings, street life, is not advantageous to anyone who has to live there. (Recall the building of "housing projects" which were such a disaster, that most have long since been demolished.)
Thanks to Jacobs, cities are (mostly) more thoughtful in managing development, building mixed use buildings, insuring green areas, and preserving architectural gems.

Jane Goodall was fascinated by animals from the time she was a young girl. She always wanted to go to Africa. So when the opportunity came, she headed for Nairobi, where she met Louis Leakey, the famed paleoanthropogist. Although it took some time to reach her destination and her work with the chimpanzees, she had all the personality traits that made her ideal for a study of these animals in their natural habitat. She loved animals and the outdoors. She was fearless. She was fine living with lack of creature comforts, and she had almost unimaginable patience. She lacked academic credentials, however. So as Leakey found funding for her study and realized the value of her work,
he arranged for her to go to Cambridge and enroll in a doctoral program -even though she did not have an undergraduate degree.

She was loath to leave the Gombe stream reserve where she was finally making headway in observing the chimps, but went on to study for her doctorate. She found, in researching the literature that practically nothing was available on the behavior of these animals. The few studies that had been done were either done with animals in captivity or by men with rifles and an aggressive approach to the chimps which was totally useless (as they all fled, of course.)

Her studies broke new ground in many ways. She was able to study many individuals--not one or a few and then generalize about those few. She could see that they had different personalities. She observed group behavior, mating behaviors, and mothering styles. She observed chimps making and using simple tools, such as adapting long blades of grass to poke into termite mounds, and eat the termites as they withdrew the tool. She even observed them eating small game-to the shock (and disbelief) of other scientists. She set the stage for studying animals in their natural setting and their relationships with each other, other species and their surroundings. She saw how connected the animals are to the world around them- and that they are not so different from us. She gave life to the concept of the connections between us and nature and the importance of caring for all of it.

Alice Waters, came a bit later, and was enmeshed in the 60's counterculture. Her personal history involves living in Paris for a semester and sampling as many bistros and cafes as possible. She was amazed at the freshness and taste of foods she thought she knew, but that tasted so much better.

Eventually she returned with the idea of developing a restaurant that attempted to mimic the delicious foods that she had remembered from France.
The earlier details of this development was perhaps somewhat more in depth than was necessary- the only criticism I have of this book.

In any case, through trial and error, over the years, the restaurant (Chez Panisse) was successful, but Alice's main contribution was not the restaurant, although it was necessary to reach her conclusion-which was that mass produced, processed foods from the ever enlarging agribusiness was seriously lacking in taste and freshness, and was being produced with chemicals, antibiotics, hormones, genetic modifications. All these factors were for the purpose of "efficiency"-producing more food and making more money. The methods were not sustainable.The food was bad. The idea of eating on the run, in the car, and any fast food became the norm. No more enjoying a meal with friends and conversation. We were losing all the joy related to the preparation and communing while enjoying a carefully prepared and wholesome meal.

She became political about her ideas. She sourced all her foods from local farmers. She sought only foods that were organically grown and in season. Eventually, the idea of farmer's markets has grown considerable and we can support them to enhance our health. She started healthy gardens at schools, where the children produced and ate the foods they grew. (This organization is still growing and thriving.)

These four women were all nurturers. to quote "Instead of material expansion, each emphasized quality of life, the public good, what was sensible and ethical. ..each was looking for what was sustainable in the long term. " They all sense the interconnectedness of the living world.

They were truly visionaries who changed the way we think of the environment (both natural and man made) and our place in it, as well as our responsibility to it.

I highly recommend this book!!!!

[Jenni · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 stars

I really enjoyed this! I was vaguely familiar with the work of all four of these women before starting this collection of mini-biographies, but it was great to learn more about each of their personal lives and how that informed their work. My one critique is that I found the biographies of Rachel Carson and Jane Jacobs to be a bit more nuanced and interesting, but that may be because I can see the greater international impact of these two women (and see the ways they, but particularly Carson, informed the thinking of Jane Goodall and Alice Waters). I also felt, as with some reviewers, that Alice Waters was a bit of the odd one out here, given her impact is fairly localized to the Bay Area (although perhaps her impact has not yet been realized elsewhere) and her chapter seemed to focus a lot more on her personal relationships than some of the previous chapters did. Nevertheless, I still thoroughly enjoyed this and would highly recommend it if any of these women are of interest to you!

[Julie Barnard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great book - interesting, well written and definitely worth reading. All four women - Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Jane Goodell and Alice Waters - did much to change the world and the way we look at it.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing women, all of them. Proof (as if we need it) that one woman’s passion can make a difference. My surprise was in seeing that sometimes they got involved reluctantly, sometimes they struggled for years to get their brilliant ideas across, often they brought many people to their way of thinking just by being themselves. They made a difference despite the odds against them. Well read audiobook.

[Bill S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Visionary Women by Andrea Barnet
Should be a part of a course on the 1960's.

The four women are linked as they challenged the "cultural push to bend nature and natural systems to serve mankind's ends." They, and the 60's were a response to the "misguided values and priorities of the 1950's. Together, they changed how we live. They indicted technologies that didn't consider 'feedbacks' such as pollution, or degraded quality of experience, but only the 'narrow purposes' for which their innovations were designed."

Jane Jacobs wrote The Death and Life of American Cities - 1961 - one year before Silent Spring. Challenged the conventional wisdom which was urban renewal - tearing down old neighborhoods and rebuild with cold, modern housing projects, reserving streets for cars only, sectioning off the city like a suburb with separate places for living, working, entertainment, and retail. Without a college degree (she dropped out rather than take prerequisites) she actually observed cities and talked to people. Realized that what seemed to be chaotic and congested, was what made cities vibrant places. Complex mixture of old and new, living, working, and retail. Places where people congregated and watched out for one another - a community, not a dormitory. People were safer because people were always in the street for a variety of purposes, so there were eyes everywhere. Organic and changing. Saved Washington Park from being turned into a street to ease traffic. Jacobs was right that closing traffic from the park actually eased traffic. People decide to walk or use public transport when they know the city is difficult to drive in. When you build more streets or widen them, it encourages people to drive and they fill them up. Then saved her own neighborhood in Greenwich Village, the key being when she uncovered that the developer who stood to profit had most likely drawn up the plans before the community was slated for renewal and had created the "citizens" group pushing for renewal by making outlandish promises to the people who got on board.
Stopped the Lower Manhattan Expressway from destroying 400 buildings and 800 small businesses in Greenwich Village and Little Italy. Would turn NY into LA she stated. Grassroots beat the top-down dogma of the day. She was a master at getting press attention and organizing the neighborhood. Moved to Canada so her boys would not have to go to Vietnam. When she died in 2006 a bouquet of flowers was found at her former home in the Village with an unsigned note: "From this house, in 1961, a housewife changed the world"

Jane Goodall - Brit. Louis Leaky, the scientist who established that man's origins were in Africa, turned to Jane to do a study of chimpanzees in the wild of what is now Tanzania. She had no credentials at all, but he rightly reasoned that she would have the stamina and patience to do it as well as having a woman would help since they would seem less threatening to the shy creatures. Leaky felt that since humans and apes had a common ancestor that learning about ape behavior would give us insight into the behavior of early man - what did we share with our cousins? Nobody had successfully studied apes in nature before. Unlike others she approached in the open, alone, acted bored and non-threatening. It took a year before the chimps came to Jane's camp. Eventually, she set out bananas and they came everyday.
1960 - first to see them eat meat and FIRST TO OBSERVE THE USE OF TOOLS. Used twigs or grass to fish termites out of their nests. To this point we assumed that the use of tools was what made us human. This moment moved Leaky to say "We must redefine what a "tool" is, redefine man, or accept chimpanzees as humans." She further insisted that they were emotional creatures who were self-aware and self-directed which directly challenged the prevailing view that sex and violence was the simple fixed pattern of behavior. She was sent to Cambridge to get a PHD lest her work be doubted, but she caught plenty of flak. Scorned for using anecdotes rather than data and writing for a popular audience. And of course, it did not help that she was a beautiful woman. Her article in national Geographic in 1963 caused a sensation. Set up a research facility and starting in the 1980's turned to travelling the world urging us to live sustainable lives. She realized that the only way to save the chimps was for the people in the area to get out of poverty. Most effective tool was educating girls and then family size went down.
"How is it possible that the most intelligent creature to ever walk the planet is destroying his own home...There seems to be a disconnect between the clever brain and the human heart." - Goodall

Alice Waters - A radical from Berkley who spent a semester abroad in France where she fell in love with the food, the perfection of preparation and presentation, and saw how food was connected to community. When she attempted to bring it back home she realized that the key was ingredients. French cooks went to market to see what was fresh and then improvised based on what they found. But, we did not have many of the ingredients. Saw eating as a political act. A revolution against corporate America's fast and convenient and processed food. A war against agribusiness. She started using local ingredients in her restaurant, Chez Panisse (named after a character in a movie) in Berkley CA, opened in 1972. One dish per night and it changed every night for a low price at first (Now it is 75 on Monday nights, 100 or 125 the rest of the week. She never really made much money at it as she treated her workers very well and did not want to make a chain. Early convert to organic food as those who took care of the soil produces the best quality and best tasting produce. Started farm to table and then began Edible Schoolyards. To her, "We are what we eat" meant that "When you eat fast food, you're digesting the values of a culture that says there are no seasons, that everything should be available 24/7, that food isn't important, that advertising confers value, that waste is fine. Cooking and farming, don't bother with those. Someone else will take care of that...Sitting at the table, that doesn't matter either. You can eat in your car. Time is money. More is better. Everything should be fast, cheap, and easy. That's what fast food culture is telling us, and we are eating these values."

And let's not forget that Feminine Mystique, Harrington's The Other America came out at the same time, Unsafe at any Speed 1965. All challenged the existing order and changed how we think and how we live.

[Pegggggy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating book about fascinating women. I dipped in and out of this one as a "filler" book which allowed me to reflect on each of these women and their lives. I found it very inspiring, entertaining and informative. The author draws parallels among all of these women and their important work. She makes me want to know these women!

[Andréa]

Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss.