George Washington Carver

Born: c. 1864
Diamond Grove, Missouri
Died: January 5, 1943
Tuskegee, Alabama
African American agricultural chemist

George Washington Carver started his life as a slave and worked his way to becoming a respected and world-renowned agricultural chemist. He helped develop agricultural techniques used around the world.

Early years

George Washington Carver was born in Kansas Territory near Diamond Grove, Missouri, during the bloody struggle between free-soilers and slaveholders. His father, a slave on a nearby farm, was killed shortly before Carver was born. Carver himself became the kidnap victim of night riders while still a baby. With his mother and brother, James, he was held for ransom. Before they were rescued, his mother died. Moses Carver, a German farmer, ransomed (traded) the infant Carver for a $300 race-horse. Thus he was orphaned and left in the custody of a white guardian from early childhood.

Carver was a talented student, but even his talents could not overcome racism (feelings of racial superiority). He was not allowed to attend the local schools because of his color. Instead, Carver had responsibility for his own education. His first school was in Neosho, Kansas. Neosho had once been a Confederate capital. Now it had become the site of the Lincoln School for African American children, a school for black children some nine miles from Carver's home. Every day Carver walked there with his brother James. His first teacher was Stephen S. Frost, an African American. Carver and his brother faithfully went to school for several years. Finally James, tired of formal schooling, quit to become a house painter, but not George. He continued until he was seventeen. Then he went on to complete his high school work in Minneapolis, Kansas, and finally graduated in his mid-twenties. At the time Carver had wished to become an artist. His sketch of the rose Yucca gloriosa won him a first prize at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893.

An agricultural education

Carver applied to study at the Iowa State College of Agricultural and Mechanical Arts, but he was turned down when it was learned that he was of African heritage. He then applied to Simpson College at Indianola, Iowa, where he was the second African American to be admitted. Tuition was $12 a year, but it was hard to come by even this small amount. Carver worked as a cook at a hotel in Winterset, Iowa, to raise the money.

After attending Simpson College for three years, he once again applied for admission to Iowa State. He was admitted and was placed in charge of the greenhouse of the horticultural department while doing graduate work. Carver quickly won the respect and admiration of the faculty and student body. He earned his master's degree in agriculture in 1896, and, by the time he left, Carver was an expert at mycology (the study of fungi) and plant cross-fertilization.

A career begins

In April 1896 Carver received a unique offer from the African American educator Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) to teach at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Said Washington: "I cannot offer you money, position or fame. The first two you have. The last from the position you now occupy you will no doubt achieve. These things I now ask you to give up. I offer you in their place: work—hard, hard work, the task of bringing a people from degradation, poverty, and waste to full manhood. Your department exists only on paper and your laboratory will have to be in your head."

Carver accepted the challenge. He arrived at the tiny railroad station at Chehaw, Alabama, on October 8, 1896. In a report to Washington he wrote: "8:00 to 9:00 a.m., Agricultural Chemistry; 9:20 to 10:00 a.m., the Foundation of Colors (for painters); 10:00 to 11:00 a.m., a class of farmers. Additional hours in the afternoon. In addition I must oversee and rather imperfectly supervise seven industrial classes, scattered here and there over the grounds. I must test all seeds, examine all fertilizers, based upon an examination of soils in different plots."

Through the years Carver gained a national, as well as an international, reputation. Chinese and Japanese farmers raised many unique problems for him. Questions were referred to him from Russia, India, Europe, and South America. He later had to turn down a request to journey to the Soviet Union, the country that once consisted of Russia and other smaller nations. In 1916 he was elected a member of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts in England, the world's oldest scientific organization. Later, in 1918, he went to the War Department in Washington, D.C., to demonstrate his findings on the sweet potato. He was awarded the Spingarn Medal of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1923.

The personality of Carver

An early close friend of Carver was Henry A. Wallace; the pair knew each other for forty-seven years. Wallace said that Carver often took him on botanical (relating to plants) expeditions, and it was he who first introduced Wallace to the mysteries of plant fertilizers. Carver was a shy and modest bachelor, an unmarried man. An attack of whooping cough (a contagious disease that attacks the respiratory system) as a child had permanently caused him to have a high-pitched tenor voice. He considered it a high duty to attend classes and was seldom absent. In 1908 he returned to the West to visit his ninety-six-year-old guardian, Moses Carver, and to visit the grave of his brother, James, in Missouri.

A careful and modest scientist, Carver was not without a sense of humor. When one of his students, hoping to play a trick on him, showed him a bug with the wings of a fly and the body of a mosquito, Carver was quick to label it "a humbug."

Developments and world fame

Carver utilized the materials at hand. He was interested in crop rotation and soil conservation. From the clay soil of Alabama he extracted a full range of dyestuffs, including a brilliant blue. He created sixty products from the pecan. From the common sweet potato he developed a cereal coffee, a shoe polish, paste, oils—about one hundred products. From the peanut he came up with over 145 products. Carver suggested peanuts, pecans, and sweet potatoes replace cotton as money crops. He published all of his findings in a series of nearly fifty bulletins.

The testimony of Carver before the congressional House Ways and Means Committee in 1921 led to the passage of the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Bill of 1922. Scheduled to speak a short ten minutes, he was granted several time extensions because of the intense interest in his presentation. At the lecture he appeared in a greenish-blue suit many seasons old, having refused to invest in a new suit and announced, "They want to hear what I have to say; they will not be interested in how I look."

In 1935 Carver was chosen to work with the Bureau of Plant Industry of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He received the Theodore Roosevelt Medal in 1939 for distinguished achievement in science. During his lifetime Carver had made many friends. Automobile manufacturer Henry Ford (1863– 1947) was his frequent host. Carver was also a treasured friend of inventor Thomas A. Edison (1847–1931). It was Edison who offered to make him independent with his own laboratories and an annual stipend (fixed payment) of $50 thousand. Other famous friends included horticulturist Luther Burbank (1849–1926), industrialist Harvey Firestone (1868–1938), and naturalist John Burroughs (1837–1921). He was also a friend of three presidents: Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933), and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945).

Carver had earned the salary of $125 a month from the beginning until the end of his service at Tuskegee Institute, which spanned forty-six years. He might have had much more. In 1940 he gave his life savings, $33 thousand, to establish the George Washington Carver Foundation at Tuskegee Institute to continue research in agriculture and chemistry. He later left his entire estate to the foundation, a total of about $60 thousand. He died on January 5, 1943.

At the dedication of a building in his honor at Simpson College, Ralph Bunche (1904–1971), a Nobel Prize winner, pronounced Carver to be "the least imposing celebrity the world has ever known." Carver's birthplace was made a national monument on July 14, 1953.

For More Information

Gray, James Marion. George Washington Carver. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Silver Burdett Press, 1991.

Holt, Rackham. George Washington Carver: An American Biography. Rev. ed. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963.

McKissack, Pat, and Fredrick McKissack. George Washington Carver: The Peanut Scientist. Rev. ed. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, 2002.

Moore, Eva. The Story of George Washington Carver. New York: Scholastic, 1995.

George Washington Carver

George Washington Carver (1864-1943) started his life as a slave and ended it as a respected and world-renowned agricultural chemist.

Born in Kansas Territory near Diamond Grove, Mo., during the bloody struggle between free-soilers and slaveholders, George Washington Carver became the kidnap victim of night riders. With his mother and brother, James, he was held for ransom; but before they could be rescued the mother died. Merely a babe in arms, Carver was ransomed for a $300 racehorse by Moses Carver, a German farmer. Thus he was orphaned and left in the custody of a white guardian from early childhood.

Carver had responsibility for his own education. His first school was in Neosho, lowa, some 9 miles from his home. Neosho had once been a Confederate capital; by now it had become the site of the Lincoln School for African American children. With James he walked there every day. His first teacher was an African American, Stephen S. Frost. He and his brother went faithfully to school for several years. Finally James tired of formal schooling and quit to become a house painter, but not George. He continued until he was 17. Then he went on to complete his high school work in Minneapolis, Kans.

Carver really wished to become an artist. His sketch of the rose Yucca gloriosa won him a first prize at the World's Columbian Exposition (1893).

Carver applied to study at the lowa State College of Agricultural and Mechanical Arts but was turned down when it was learned that he was of African heritage. He then applied to Simpson College at Indianola, lowa, where he was the second African American to be admitted. Tuition was $12 a year, but even this small amount was hard to come by. Carver raised the money by working as a cook at a hotel in Winterset, lowa.

After 3 years' attendance at Simpson College, he once again applied for admission to lowa State. He was admitted and was placed in charge of the greenhouse of the horticultural department while doing graduate work. He earned his master's degree in agriculture in 1896.

In April 1896 Carver received a unique offer from the African American educator Booker T. Washington to teach at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Said Dr. Washington: "I cannot offer you money, position or fame. The first two you have. The last from the position you now occupy you will no doubt achieve. These things I now ask you to give up. I offer you in their place: work—hard, hard work, the task of bringing a people from degradation, poverty, and waste to full manhood. Your department exists only on paper and your laboratory will have to be in your head."

Carver accepted the challenge. He arrived at the tiny railroad station at Chehaw, Ala., on Oct. 8, 1896. In a report to Dr. Washington he wrote: "8:00 to 9:00 A.M., Agricultural Chemistry; 9:20 to 10:00 A.M., the Foundation of Colors (for painters); 10:00 to 11:00 A.M., a class of farmers. Additional hours in the afternoon. In addition I must oversee and rather imperfectly supervise seven industrial classes, scattered here and there over the grounds. I must test all seeds, examine all fertilizers, based upon an examination of soils in different plots."

Through the years Carver was gaining national and international stature. Chinese and Japanese farmers raised many unique problems for him. Questions were referred to him from Russia, India, Europe, South America. He later had to turn down a request to journey to the Soviet Union. In 1916 he was elected a member of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts in England; he went to Washington to the War Department to demonstrate his findings on the sweet potato in 1918. He was awarded the Spingarn Medal of the NAACP in 1923.

An early close friend of Carver was Henry A. Wallace; the pair knew each other for 47 years. Wallace said that Carver often took him on botanical expeditions, and it was he who first introduced Wallace to the mysteries of plant fertilizers. Carver was a shy and modest bachelor. An attack of whooping cough as a child had permanently caused him to have a high-pitched tenor voice. He considered it a high duty to attend classes and was seldom absent. In 1908 he returned to the West to visit his 96-year-old guardian, Moses Carver, and to visit the grave of his brother, James, in Missouri.

A careful and modest scientist, Carver was not without a sense of humor. When one of his students, hoping to play a trick on him, showed him a bug with wings of a fly and body of a mosquito, Carver was quick to label it "a humbug."

Carver utilized the materials at hand. He was interested in crop rotation and soil conservation. From the clay soil of Alabama he extracted a full range of dyestuffs, including a brilliant blue. He created 60 products from the pecan. From the common sweet potato he extracted a cereal coffee, a shoe polish, paste, oils—about 100 products. From the peanut he developed over 145 products. Carver suggested peanuts, pecans, and sweet potatoes replace cotton as money crops. He published all of his findings in a series of nearly 50 bulletins.

The testimony of Carver before the congressional House Ways and Means Committee in 1921 led to the passage of the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Bill of 1922. Scheduled to speak a scant 10 minutes, he was granted several time extensions because of the intense interest in his presentation. (He appeared in a greenish-blue suit many seasons old, having refused to invest in a new suit: "They want to hear what I have to say; they will not be interested in how I look.")

In 1935 Carver was chosen to collaborate with the Bureau of Plant Industry of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He received the Theodore Roosevelt Medal in 1939 for distinguished achievement in science. During his lifetime Carver had made many friends. Henry Ford was his frequent host. Carver was a treasured friend of Thomas A. Edison. It was Edison who offered to make him independent with his own laboratories and an annual stipend of $50,000. Other intimates of his were Luther Burbank, Harvey Firestone, and John Burroughs. He was also a friend of three presidents: Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Dr. Carver had earned the salary of $125 a month from the beginning until the end of his service at Tuskegee. He might have had much more. In 1940 he gave his life-savings, $33,000, to establish the George Washington Carver Foundation at Tuskegee Institute to perpetuate research in agriculture and chemistry. He later bequeathed his entire estate to the foundation, making a total of about $60,000. He died on Jan. 5, 1943.

At the dedication of a building in his honor at Simpson College, Dr. Ralph Bunche, Nobel Prize winner, pronounced Dr. Carver to be "the least imposing celebrity the world has ever known." Dr. Carver's birthplace was made a national monument on July 14, 1953.

Further Reading

Of the many studies of Carver the best is Rackham Holt, George Washington Carver: An American Biography (1943). Also useful is Shirley Graham and George D. Lipscomb, Dr. George Washington Carver, Scientist (1944). □

Carver, George Washington

AMERICAN BOTANIST
c. 1864–1943

George Washington Carver was born on a Missouri farm near Diamond Grove sometime toward the end of the U.S. Civil War. The exact date of

his birth was never recorded, although later in life Carver gave the year as 1864. His father died in an accident prior to or shortly after Carver's birth. His mother Mary was kidnapped with her infant son by slave raiders shortly after his birth. Although Carver was eventually returned to Moses and Susan Carver in exchange for a horse, his mother was never heard from again.

Carver was not a strong child and this prevented him from working the fields. Instead, he helped with household chores and gardening. It is likely that these duties and the hours spent exploring the woods surrounding his home induced his keen interest in plants and led to his life of study and scholarly pursuits. He gathered and cared for a wide variety of plants from throughout the region and frequently helped friends and neighbors treat ailing plants.

As an adolescent, Carver was sent to Neosho, Missouri, where he worked as a farmhand and studied in a one-room schoolhouse. From there, he moved to Kansas and attended Minneapolis High School. In 1885, as a young adult, Carver was accepted to Highland University in Kansas on scholarship. However, when he showed up the first day of class, the president of the university is said to have denied him entrance because of his race. Other colleges rejected him for the same reason, but that did not stop Carver from attempting to seek a higher education.

In 1890 Carver entered Simpson College, a Methodist school in Indianola, Iowa, to study piano and art. While he excelled at both, his art instructor Etta Budd recognized his horticultural talent. She persuaded him to pursue a more pragmatic career in scientific agriculture. In 1891 Carver transferred to the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, which is now Iowa State University. Carver was the first African-American student accepted by the college.

As an undergraduate student, Carver was a leader. He became involved in all facets of university life; his poetry was published in the student newspaper and his paintings exhibited at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. It was for his excellence as a botanist, however, that he earned his B.S. in agriculture in 1894. Joseph Budd (Etta's father and a professor of horticulture) and Louis Pammel (a botany professor) encouraged Carver to stay on as a graduate student. His proficiency in plant breeding soon led to his appointment as a member of the Iowa State faculty. Over the next two years, Carver's extensive work in plant pathology and mycology (the branch of botany that studies fungi) prompted him to publish several articles, and, as a consequence, he gained national respect as a scientist. In 1896 he earned his M.S. in agriculture from Iowa State and was invited by Booker T. Washington to join Alabama's Tuskegee Institute.

At Tuskegee, Carver found his intellectual home. As the director of its Agricultural Experiment Station, he was given a barren 21-acre plot to work on. Carver and his students conducted experiments on crops requiring low input and capable of fixing nitrogen, such as the cowpea and the peanut. The resulting soil enrichment substantially increased crop production and became an accepted agricultural practice for both cotton and tobacco growers.

It was working with the surplus of peanuts that this practice produced that led to Carver's reputation as a "chemurgist," a chemist interested in the industrial applications of organic raw materials and particularly farm products. His research resulted in the creation of over 325 different products from peanuts, ranging from buttermilk to shaving cream to synthetic rubber. He generated 108 products from the sweet potato and invented countless other products from a wide variety of agricultural plants—everything from pecans to soybeans. Indeed, Carver pursued biomass conversion with a zeal that is only now being matched as contemporary society searches for alternatives to fossil fuel consumption.

Toward the end of his life, Carver received numerous accolades and honors; a feature film about his life was even produced in 1938. He died on January 5, 1943. In 1994 Iowa State posthumously awarded Carver the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters. This was a fitting tribute to a life spent in the pursuit of knowledge.

see also Agricultural Chemistry.

Todd W. Whitcombe

Bibliography

Holt, Rackham (1945). George Washington Carver: An American Biography. New York: Doubleday.

Kremer, Gary S., ed. (1987). George Washington Carver: In His Own Words. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.

McMurry, Linda O. (1982). George Washington Carver: Scientist and Symbol. New York: Oxford University Press.

George Washington Carver 1864?–1943, American agricultural chemist, b. Diamond, Mo., grad. Iowa State College (now Iowa State Univ.; B.S., 1894; M.A. 1896). Born a slave, he later, as a free man, earned his college degree. In 1896 he joined the staff of Tuskegee Institute as director of the department of agricultural research, retaining that post the rest of his life. His work won him international repute. Carver's efforts to improve the economy of the South (he dedicated himself especially to bettering the position of African Americans) included the teaching of soil improvement and of diversification of crops. He discovered hundreds of uses for the peanut, the sweet potato, and the soybean and thus stimulated the culture of these crops. He devised many products from cotton waste and extracted blue, purple, and red pigments from local clay. From 1935 he was a collaborator of the Bureau of Plant Industry. Carver contributed his life savings to a foundation for research at Tuskegee. In 1953 his birthplace was made a national monument.

Bibliography: See biographies by R. Holt (rev. ed. 1966) and L. Elliott (1966).

Carver, George Washington

American Botanist
1865-1943

George Washington Carver was born in 1865, near the end of the Civil War (1861-65). His mother was a slave on the Moses and Susan Carver farm close to Diamond Grove, Missouri. Carver was orphaned while still in his infancy and was raised by the Carvers. He received a practical education working on the farm and in 1877 was sent to attend a school for African-American children in the nearby town of Neosho. From Neosho, Carver traveled through several states in pursuit of a basic education. He took odd jobs to support himself and lived with families he met along the way.

In 1890 Carver began a study of art at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa. The following year he left Simpson to pursue studies in agriculture at the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in Ames. He enrolled in 1891 as the first African-American student at Iowa State. Carver maintained an excellent academic record and was noted for his skill in plant hybridization using techniques of cross-fertilization and grafting. An appointment as assistant botanist allowed him to continue with graduate studies while teaching and conducting greenhouse studies.

In 1896 American educator Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) extended an invitation to Carver to head the agriculture department at Alabama's Tuskegee Institute. Carver accepted the invitation and remained at Tuskegee until his death forty-seven years later in 1943. During his tenure at Tuskegee he taught classes, directed the Agricultural Experiment Station, managed the school's farms, served on various councils and committees, and directed a research department.

Carver's work focused on projects that held potential for improving the lives of poor southern farmers. Years of repeated planting of a single crop, cotton, and uncontrolled erosion had depleted southern soils. He advocated the wise use of natural resources, sustainable methods of agriculture, soil enrichment, and crop diversification.

One of Carver's first efforts was to find methods within reach of the farmer with limited technical and financial means for enriching the soils. He conducted soil analysis to determine what was needed to make soils more productive. Then Carver proceeded to set up scientific experiments to determine organic methods for building up the soil. He also tried planting and cultivating various plants and plant varieties so he could identify ones that could be successfully grown. Sweet potatoes, peanuts, and cowpeas were considered the most promising. These plants were favored because they could help enrich the soil, they could offer good nutritional value to animals and humans, they were easily preserved and stored, and they could be used as raw material for the production of useful products. Carver developed hundreds of products from these resources. He recognized that processing raw materials was a means of adding value to and increasing the demand for the agricultural products of the South.

When the United States entered World War I in 1917, shortages of certain goods were felt. This caused Carver's substitutes and alternatives to gain attention. Sweet potato products and peanut milk were especially of interest. In 1921 Carver appeared before a congressional committee to testify on the importance of protecting the U.S. peanut industry by establishing a tariff on imported peanuts, and a tariff was established. This event brought Carver national and international recognition as a scientist. Carver spent the remainder of his life conducting agricultural research and sharing his knowledge with individuals in the South and throughout the world.

see also Agriculture, Organic; Breeder; Breeding; Economic Importance of Plants; Fabaceae.

Janet M. Pine

Bibliography

Kremer, Gary R. George Washington Carver in His Own Words. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1987.

McMurry, Linda O. George Washington Carver, Scientist and Symbol. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.

Carver, George Washington (1864–1943) US agricultural chemist. He is best known for his scientific research on the peanut, from which he derived more than 300 products. Born into an African-American slave family, his chief motive was to benefit the impoverished farmers of the South.