An Innovating Inventor: George Washington Carver

As an innovating inventor, George Washington Carver was an agricultural researcher, agronomic chemist, and mycologist (an individual who works with fungi, living organisms, molds, yeast, and mushrooms), just to mention a few of his many talents. Mr. Carver created hundreds of products using (groundnuts) peanuts (Mr. Carver cultivated a style of peanut butter, but did not invent it, as he is often credited), sweet potatoes, and soybeans. Mr. Carver is credited with helping alter the agricultural market of the South. For the majority of his career, he educated and researched at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, now named Tuskegee University located in Tuskegee, Alabama.

Mr. Carver was born into slavery on a farm near Diamond, Missouri, the exact year and date of birth is uncertain, but believed to be around 1864, just before slavery was outlawed. A white farm owner, Moses Carver, purchased George Carver’s mother when she was approximately thirteen-years-old. It was reported Moses Carver was against slavery but was in dire need of help farming his 240-acres.

As an infant, George Carver, his mother, and his sister were abducted from the Carver farm by a band of slave thieves roaming Missouri through the Civil War era. The family was sold in Kentucky. Moses Carver hired his neighbor to rescue them; however, the neighbor was only able to find George. The neighbor purchased George by trading one of the best horses owned by Moses Carver. Because of these events, Mr. Carver grew up knowing very little about his mother or his father, who died before he was born.

In 1865, slavery was brought to an end in Missouri, as the Civil War had ended. Moses and Susan Carver decided to keep George and his brother James at their home after the end of the Civil War, raising and educating both George and James. Susan taught George to read and write because no local school would receive black students during this time. This did not stop George, as his search for knowledge, would remain a guiding influence in his life.

Mr. Carver left the home of Moses and Susan Carver, at a young age to pursue education, believed to be between the age of 11 to 13, he wanted to attend an academy in Fort Scott, Kansas, moving in with a foster family. Mr. Carver left the city after witnessing a tragic event, the killing of a black man. He attended a variety of schools before earning his high school diploma at Minneapolis High School in Minneapolis, Kansas.

Mr. Carver applied to numerous colleges before being accepted at Highland Presbyterian University in Highland, Kansas. Upon arrival at Highland, he was denied admission when the school learned of his race. Unable to attend the University, Mr. Carver left Highland, Kansas, and traveled to the Eden Township in Ness County Kansas with J. F. Beeler.

He claimed a homestead near Beeler, maintaining a small greenhouse of plants, flowers, and an ecological collection. Mr. Carver plowed 17 acres by hand, planting rice, corn, Indian corn, and garden produce. Mr. Carver planted various fruit trees, forest trees, and shrubbery and earned extra money by completing odd jobs in town and working as a farmhand.

In his 20s, he never gave up on his pursuit of education, Mr. Carver obtained a $300 loan at the Bank of Ness City for education, in early 1888. By June of that year, he left the area, heading north, enrolling as the first black student at Simpson College located in Indianola, Iowa. Mr. Carver started studying art and piano, while interested in science, Mr. Carver had a shared interest in the arts.

As Mr. Carver was studying art and music, he developed his painting and drawing abilities through sketches of botanical models. Mr. Carver later stated, “The kind of people at Simpson College made me believe I was a human being.”

Mr. Carver’s apparent talent for drawing the biological world prompted an art teacher, Etta Budd, to suggest he enroll in the botany program at the Iowa State Agricultural College, later named Iowa State University in 1959. Iowa State Agricultural College, founded in 1858, was the country’s first land-grant university, a group of schools with a mission to teach not just the liberal arts but the applied sciences, including agriculture.

Mr. Carver moved to Ames, Iowa beginning his botanical studies the following year as the first black student at the Iowa State Agricultural College and excelled in botanical studies. Mr. Carver's Bachelor's thesis was named "Plants as Modified by Man". After completing his Bachelor of Science degree in 1894, professors Joseph Budd and Louis Pammel convinced him to remain at the university to continue his work and receive a master's degree.

Mr. Carver’s graduate studies included focused work in plant pathology at the Iowa Experiment Station where he conducted research under Pammel during the subsequent two years. His work at the experiment station in plant pathology and mycology gained him national respect as a botanist.

Mr. Carver received his master of science degree in 1896 and was the first black faculty member at Iowa State Agricultural College (Iowa State University). During his years at the school, his reputation grew as a gifted botanist that sustained for the remainder of his career.

After graduating from Iowa State Agricultural College in 1896, Mr. Carver was overwhelmed with offers to teach. The most alluring offering was from Booker T. Washington, the head of the Tuskegee Institute, which was opening an agricultural school. As the first black man in the United States to receive graduate training in modern-day agricultural techniques, Mr. Carver was the sensible choice. In a letter to Booker T. Washington, Mr. Carver said “Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom” (1896).

After accepting the position, Mr. Carver went on to say “It has always been the one great ideal of my life to be of the greatest good to the greatest number of ‘my people’ possible, and to this end, I have been preparing myself these many years; feeling as I do that this line of education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom to our people.”

Mr. Carver was a supporter of Washington's teachings and believed that his agricultural research could support black farmers to become more self-reliant, wanting small Southerly farms to become more viable and less dependent on cotton, the region's main crop.

In 1896, when Mr. Carver left Iowa for Alabama to direct the newly formed department of agriculture at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, led by noted Black American educator Booker T. Washington. Mr. Washington worked to improve the lives of Black Americans through education and the procurement of valuable skills. He stressed resolution, cooperation, and economic advancement for the progress of Black Americans in modern society.

In a radio interview years later, Mr. Carver recalled the train ride from Iowa to Alabama. “My train left the golden wheat fields and the tall green corn of Iowa for the acres of cotton, nothing but cotton, ... ... The scraggly cotton grew close up to the cabin doors; a few lonesome collards, the only sign of vegetables; stunted cattle, boney mules; fields and hillsides cracked and scarred with gullies and deep ruts ... Not much evidence of scientific farming anywhere. Everything looked hungry: the land, the cotton, the cattle, and the people” (George Washington Carver, 1941).

During this time, in 1896, cotton manufacture was on the decrease in the South, and the overproduction of the single crop had left many fields depleted and desolate. Mr. Carver suggested planting peanuts, soybeans, and sweet potatoes could re-establish much-needed nitrogen in the soil. These crops grew nicely in southern environments; however, there was little demand. Mr. Carver’s research and innovation resolved this problem helping struggling sharecroppers in the South, many of them formerly enslaved now encountered essential farming.

Mr. Carver's work at the Tuskegee Institute’s agricultural department was pioneering research on plant biology focusing on the expansion of new utilization for crops that included peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans, and pecans. Mr. Carver's inventions included hundreds of products using peanuts, such as milk, plastics, paints, dyes, soap, and ink, and hundreds of products made from sweet potatoes, such as molasses, postage stamp glue, flour, and synthetic rubber. Mr. Carver went on to say, "When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world."

Mr. Carver went on to become a renowned scientific authority and arguably one of the most infamous Black Americans of all time, achieving international notoriety in political and professional groups. President Theodore Roosevelt respected his work and requested his advice on agricultural matters. Mr. Carver advised Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi on matters of agriculture and nourishment. In 1916, he was made a member of the British Royal Society of Arts, a rare honor for an American citizen.

In 1920, Mr. Carver became notorious as the “Peanut Man” after giving a speech to the Peanut Growers Association, confirming the possibility of peanuts. The next year, Mr. Carver went to Washington D.C., on the organization's behalf to urge for a tariff on imported peanuts. Mr. Carver was supposed to have a short discussion showing off some alternate peanut food products as he addressed the legislators.

A congressman, from Connecticut, sarcastically asked if Mr. Carver would like some watermelon to go along with his food. Mr. Carver unwilling to take the impulse, simply responded, “Watermelon was fine, but it was a dessert food.” Congress supported the notion of a tariff on imported peanuts and in 1922 passed the tariff.

Mr. Carver was named Speaker for the United States Commission on Interracial Cooperation, holding the post from 1923 to 1933. The United States Department of Agriculture named Mr. Carver the head of the Division of Plant Mycology and Disease Survey, in 1935. The South, known mainly for its cotton crops, watched peanuts grow to a $200-million-a-year crop in the United States and became the primary agricultural product grown in Alabama, by 1938, essentially because of Mr. Carver’s influence.

Development to build a national monument in Mr. Carver's honor began before his death. A Senator from Missouri, Harry S. Truman, sponsored a bill in support of a monument during World War II. Supporters of the bill contended that spending, even during a time of war, was justified because the monument would boost patriotic enthusiasm among Black Americans, encouraging them to join the military. The bill passed unanimously in both the House and the Senate.

Mr. Carver's iconic prominence remained after his death and President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated $30,000 for the memorial west of Diamond, Missouri located on the site of the homestead where Mr. Carver lived as a child, creating the first national monument dedicated to a Black American. The 210-acre complex includes a statue of Carver as well as a nature trail, museum, and cemetery.

Intermittently, being addressed as a doctor, Mr. Carver never officially received his doctorate, he noted it was a misleading phrase, given by others because of his skills and their beliefs regarding his education. However, Simpson College and Selma University awarded Mr. Carver honorary doctorates of science. In 1994, Iowa State University awarded a doctorate of humane letters, an honorary degree awarded to individuals who have distinguished themselves as humanitarian and development professionals.

Mr. Carver died following a fall down the stairs at his home in 1943, at the age of 78. Mr. Carver was buried next to Booker T. Washington on Tuskegee land. Mr. Carver's engraving reads: "He could have added fortune to fame but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world."

Mr. Carver was a true innovating inventor respected for his work as an agricultural researcher, mycologist, educator, and humanitarian work. Mr. Carver was a symbol of hope and a shining example for all, never giving up on his pursuit of education and being the greatest good to the greatest number of people. “Where there is no vision, there is no hope” (George Washington Carver).