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On May 1, 1915, Clara Immerwahr Haber sat down at her desk to write farewell letters to friends and family. A week before her death her husband had organized the first chlorine-gas attack of World War I at Ypres, Belgium, in an attempt to break the military stalemate in Germany’s favor.
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was first published 50 years ago. Her genius lay in pulling together already existing data from many areas and synthesizing it to create the first coherent account of the effects persistent chemicals had on the environment.
Visitors come today to the Chemical Heritage Foundation to wander our museum or use the library collection, but 100 years ago people walked into this building for a very different purpose: taking out money. On this spot the First National Bank once lived.