George Washington Carver

Early life

George Washington Carver was born enslaved in Diamond Grove, Newton County, Missouri, around 1864. The exact date is uncertain: the National Park Service gives 12 July 1864, while the Science History Institute notes that reported years range from 1860 to 1865. Orphaned as an infant, he was raised by the family of Moses Carver.

As a boy he left home to find schooling, moving through Missouri and Kansas. In 1885 Highland College accepted him and then withdrew the offer on learning he was Black. He homesteaded in Ness County, Kansas, in the late 1880s, then sold the land to pay for study.

Education

Carver studied art and piano at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, from 1890, before moving to Iowa State Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) in 1891 to study botany. He was its first Black student. He earned a bachelor's degree in agricultural science in 1894 and a Master of Science in 1896.

Work at Tuskegee

In 1896 Booker T. Washington recruited Carver to Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama, where he led agricultural work and the experiment station for the rest of his life, some 47 years. Studying the soils of southeastern Alabama, he urged farmers to rotate crops and fertilize their land, and to plant crops such as peanuts and sweet potatoes, which suited the local soil, instead of relying on cotton alone. His teaching aimed at making poor farmers more self-sufficient.

He also looked for new uses for these crops. The National Park Service credits him with 325 uses for peanuts, 108 for sweet potatoes and 75 for pecans, ranging from foods to cosmetics, paints and inks. In 1921 he spoke before the House Ways and Means Committee in support of a tariff protecting the peanut industry. According to the Science History Institute, the peanut was not a recognized U.S. crop when he arrived at Tuskegee, but by 1940 it was one of the country's six leading crops.

Myth and record

Carver is often said to have invented peanut butter. He did not. The National Archives notes that he filed only three patents, and none was for peanut butter: one for a cosmetic cream made from peanuts (granted 1925) and two for paints and stains made from clay. None was a commercial success.

Legacy

Carver received the NAACP's Spingarn Medal in 1923 and was later inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He died at Tuskegee on 5 January 1943 and is buried on the campus. That July, Congress authorized the George Washington Carver National Monument at his birthplace, the first national monument dedicated to a Black American and the first to someone other than a president.