Reference
- George Washington Carver (c. 1864–1943)George Washington Carver was born a slave in Diamond Grove, Missouri, between 1861 and 1865. Carver was only an infant when he and his mother were abducted from his owner's plantation by a band of slave raiders. His mother was sold and shipped away, but Carver was ransomed by his master in exchange for a race horse.
While working as a farm hand, Carver managed to obtain a high school education. He was admitted as the first black student of Simpson College, Indianola, Iowa. He then attended Iowa Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) where, while working as the school janitor, he received a degree in agricultural science in 1894. Two years later he received a master's degree from the same school and became the first African American to serve on its faculty. Within a short time his fame spread, and Booker T. Washington offered him a post at the Tuskegee Institute.
Carver revolutionized the southern agricultural economy by showing that three hundred products could be derived from the peanut. By 1938 peanuts had become a $200-million industry and a chief product of Alabama. He also demonstrated that one hundred different products could be derived from the sweet potato.
Although he held three patents, Carver did not patent most of his many discoveries made while at Tuskegee, saying, “God gave them to me, how can I sell them to someone else?” In 1938 he donated over $30,000 of his life's savings to the George Washington Carver Foundation and willed the rest of his estate to the organization so his work might be carried on after his death.
George Washington Carver devoted his life to research projects connected primarily with southern agriculture. The products he derived from the peanut and the soybean revolutionized the economy of the South by liberating it from an excessive dependence on cotton. Carver died on January 5, 1943.
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Perspectives
My Work Is That of Conservation
George Washington Carver (ca. 1864-1943) is at once one of the most familiar and misunderstood figures in American history. In My Work Is That of Conservation, Mark D. Hersey reveals the life and work of this fascinating man who is widely--and reductively--known as the African American scientist who developed a wide variety of uses for the peanut. Carver had a truly prolific career dedicated to studying the ways in which people ought to interact with the natural world, yet much of his work has been largely forgotten. Hersey rectifies this by tracing the evolution of Carver's agricultural and environmental thought starting with his childhood in Missouri and Kansas and his education at the Iowa Agricultural College. Carver's environmental vision came into focus when he moved to the Tuskegee Institute in Macon County, Alabama, where his sensibilities and training collided with the denuded agrosystems, deep poverty, and institutional racism of the Black Belt. It was there that Carver realized his most profound agricultural thinking, as his efforts to improve the lot of the area's poorest farmers forced him to adjust his conception of scientific agriculture. Hersey shows that in the hands of pioneers like Carver, Progressive Era agronomy was actually considerably "greener" than is often thought today. My Work Is That of Conservation uses Carver's life story to explore aspects of southern environmental history and to place this important scientist within the early conservation movement.
George Washington Carver
This book strips away the myths surrounding the famed scientist George Washington Carver and portrays him as a brilliant, creative man who nonetheless possessed very human peculiarities and frailties. * A dozen black-and-white photographs that help document the life of George Washington Carver * A "Selected Bibliography" of sources most useful in understanding the life of George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver, one of the most famous scientists in the United States, was an African American born into slavery. He pioneered many developments in plant use, crop rotation, and promoted peanuts as a standard food choice. Readers will be motivated as they discover how much can be accomplished with hard work, ambition, and dedication.
George Washington Carver's Peanut Research
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Boll weevils decimated the cotton crops in Texas. Carver believed the best defense against the menace was the peanut, but he had to convince farmers that peanuts could replace cotton as the cash crop of the South.
George Washington Carver, the Man
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowThough he headed the agricultural department at Tuskegee, he was often mistaken for a hired hand. He never married and professed to be fulfilled by his work. He painted with pigments he made himself out of Alabama clay.
Introduction to Dr. Carver
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowGeorge Washington Carver was born a slave but ended up a master of scientific discovery. He is well known for his revolutionary research, particularly with the peanut. He is credited with countless breakthroughs in agricultural research.
Online Resources
- Caring for the fruits of creationIn a reprint by the scientist famous for introducing the peanut as a commercial crop, Carver states the importance of treating the soil with kindness. One must enrich the soil rather than depleting it.
- Retrospective: George Washington CarverGeorge Washington Carver (1864?-1943) mastered chemistry, botany, mycology (study of fungi), music, herbalism, art, and cooking; his life began in slavery about 1864 in Diamond Grove, Missouri. Finding himself rejected from college due to his race, he tried his hand at homesteading in Kansas. Finally, in 1890 he was accepted as an art major at Simpson College in Iowa, where he was the only African American. Within a year, he transferred to Iowa State Agricultural College (today's Iowa State University) to pursue agriculture. Hence, Carver earned a master's degree at Iowa State Agricultural College and went on to become that university's first Black faculty member. His peanut work, beginning in about 1903, was aimed at freeing African American farmers and the South from the tyranny of cotton production. With innovative farming methods, Carver convinced Southern farmers to grow such soil-enriching crops as soybeans and peanuts, in addition to cotton. At the heart of his vision for an economically rejuvenated South was his teaching that nature produced no waste.
George Washington Carver's Early Education
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowGeorge Carver was born into slavery in 1864 in Diamond Grove, Missouri. He was the property of Moses Carver. He was kidnapped as a baby but found by the Carvers who cared for this nature loving child as their own.