| George Washington Carver | |
|---|---|
Photograph circa 1910
| |
| Born | 1860s Diamond, Missouri, U.S. |
| Died | January 5, 1943 (about 80 years old) Tuskegee, Alabama, U.S. |
| Awards | Spingarn Medal (1923) |
"George Carver" redirects here. For the English cricketer, see George Carver (cricketer). For the American professor and author, see George Carver (academic).
George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver c1910 - Restoration.jpg
Photograph circa 1910
Born 1860s
Diamond, Missouri, U.S.
Died January 5, 1943 (about 80 years old)
Tuskegee, Alabama, U.S.
Awards Spingarn Medal (1923)
George Washington Carver (1860s[2][3] – January 5, 1943), was an American botanist and inventor. He actively promoted alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion.
While a professor at Tuskegee Insitutute, Carver developed techniques to improve soils depleted by repeated plantings of cotton. He wanted poor farmers to grow alternative crops, such as peanuts and sweet potatoes, as a source of their own food and to improve their quality of life. The most popular of his 44 practical bulletins for farmers contained 105 food recipes using peanuts. Although he spent years developing and promoting numerous products made from peanuts, none became commercially successful.[4]
Apart from his work to improve the lives of farmers, Carver was also a leader in promoting environmentalism.[5] He received numerous honors for his work, including the Spingarn Medal of the NAACP. In an era of very high racial polarization, his fame reached beyond the black community. He was widely recognized and praised in the white community for his many achievements and talents. In 1941, Time magazine dubbed Carver a "Black Leonardo".[6]
Contents
1 Early years
2 College
3 Tuskegee Institute
4 Rise to fame
5 Life while famous
6 Relationships
7 Death
8 Voice pitch
9 Christianity
10 Honors
11 Legacy
12 Reputed inventions
12.1 Peanut products
12.2 Sweet potato products
13 Carver bulletins
14 See also
15 Notes
16 References
16.1 Scholarly studies
16.2 Popular works
17 Further reading
18 External links
18.1 Archival collections
18.2 Other
18.3 Print publications
Early years
George Washington Carver was born into slavery in Diamond Grove, Newton County, near Crystal Place, now known as Diamond, Missouri, some time in the early-mid 1860s. The exact date of his birth is uncertain and was not known to Carver – however it was before slavery was abolished in Missouri in January 1865 after the American Civil War. His master, Moses Carver, was a German American immigrant who had purchased George's parents, Mary and Giles, from William P. McGinnis on October 9, 1855, for $700.[7][3]
When George was only a week old, he, a sister, and his mother were kidnapped by night raiders from Arkansas. George's brother, James, was rushed to safety from the kidnappers. The kidnappers sold the slaves in Kentucky. Moses Carver hired John Bentley to find them, but he located only the infant George. Moses negotiated with the raiders to gain the boy's return, and rewarded Bentley. After slavery was abolished, Moses Carver and his wife Susan raised George and his older brother James as their own children. They encouraged George to continue his intellectual pursuits, and "Aunt Susan" taught him the basics of reading and writing.[8]
Black people were not allowed at the public school in Diamond Grove. George decided to go to a school for black children 10 miles (16 km) south in Neosho. When he reached the town, he found the school closed for the night. He slept in a nearby barn. By his own account, the next morning he met a kind woman, Mariah Watkins, from whom he wished to rent a room. When he identified himself as "Carver's George," as he had done his whole life, she replied that from now on his name was "George Carver". George liked Mariah Watkins, and her words, "You must learn all you can, then go back out into the world and give your learning back to the people", made a great impression on him.[9]
At the age of 13, due to his desire to attend the academy there, he relocated to the home of another foster family in Fort Scott, Kansas. After witnessing a black man killed by a group of whites, Carver left the city. He attended a series of schools before earning his diploma at Minneapolis High School in Minneapolis, Kansas.
Did you mean: www.georgewashingtoncarver.org
At work in his laboratory
Carver applied to several colleges before being accepted at Highland University in Highland, Kansas. When he arrived, however, they rejected him because of his race. In August 1886, Carver traveled by wagon with J. F. Beeler from Highland to Eden Township in Ness County, Kansas.[10] He homesteaded a claim[11] near Beeler, where he maintained a small conservatory of plants and flowers and a geological collection. He manually plowed 17 acres (69,000 m2) of the claim, planting rice, corn, Indian corn and garden produce, as well as various fruit trees, forest trees, and shrubbery. He also earned money by odd jobs in town and worked as a ranch hand.[10]
In early 1888, Carver obtained a $300 loan at the Bank of Ness City for education. By June he left the area.[10] In 1890, Carver started studying art and piano at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa.[12] His art teacher, Etta Budd, recognized Carver's talent for painting flowers and plants; she encouraged him to study botany at Iowa State Agricultural College in Ames.[12] When he began there in 1891, he was the first black student. Carver's Bachelor's thesis was "Plants as Modified by Man", dated 1894.[13]
Iowa State professors Joseph Budd and Louis Pammel convinced Carver to continue there for his master's degree. Carver did research at the Iowa Experiment Station under Pammel during the next two years. His work at the experiment station in plant pathology and mycology first gained him national recognition and respect as a botanist. Carver taught as the first black faculty member at Iowa State.
Tuskegee Institute
George Washington Carver (front row, center) poses with fellow faculty of Tuskegee Institute in this c. 1902 photograph taken by Frances Benjamin Johnston.
In 1896, Booker T. Washington, the first principal and president of the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), invited Carver to head its Agriculture Department. Carver taught there for 47 years, developing the department into a strong research center and working with two additional college presidents during his tenure. He taught methods of crop rotation, introduced several alternative cash crops for farmers that would also improve the soil of areas heavily cultivated in cotton, initiated research into crop products (chemurgy), and taught generations of black students farming techniques for self-sufficiency.
Carver designed a mobile classroom to take education out to farmers. He called it a "Jesup wagon" after the New York financier and philanthropist Morris Ketchum Jesup, who provided funding to support the program.[14]
To recruit Carver to Tuskegee, Washington gave him an above average salary and two rooms for his personal use, although both concessions were resented by some other faculty. Because he had earned a master's in a scientific field from a "white" institution, some faculty perceived him as arrogant.[15] Unmarried faculty members normally had to share rooms, with two to a room, in the spartan early days of the institute.
One of Carver's duties was to administer the Agricultural Experiment Station farms. He had to manage the production and sale of farm products to generate revenue for the Institute. He soon proved to be a poor administrator. In 1900, Carver complained that the physical work and the letter-writing required were too much.[16] In 1904, an Institute committee reported that Carver's reports on yields from the poultry yard were exaggerated, and Washington confronted Carver about the issue. Carver replied in writing, "Now to be branded as a liar and party to such hellish deception it is more than I can bear, and if your committee feel that I have willfully lied or [was] party to such lies as were told my resignation is at your disposal."[17] During Washington's last five years at Tuskegee, Carver submitted or threatened his resignation several times: when the administration reorganized the agriculture programs,[18] when he disliked a teaching assignment,[19] to manage an experiment station elsewhere,[20] and when he did not get summer teaching assignments in 1913–14.[21][22] In each case, Washington smoothed things over.
Photograph of George Washington Carver taken by Frances Benjamin Johnston in 1906.
Carver started his academic career as a researcher and teacher. In 1911, Washington wrote a letter to him complaining that Carver had not followed orders to plant particular crops at the experiment station. This revealed Washington's micro-management of Carver's department, which he had headed for more than 10 years by then. Washington at the same time refused Carver's requests for a new laboratory, research supplies for his exclusive use, and respite from teaching classes. Washington praised Carver's abilities in teaching and original research but said about his administrative skills:
When it comes to the organization of classes, the ability required to secure a properly organized and large school or section of a school, you are wanting in ability. When it comes to the matter of practical farm managing which will secure definite, practical, financial results, you are wanting again in ability.
In 1911, Carver complained that his laboratory had not received the equipment which Washington had promised 11 months before. He also complained about Institute committee meetings.[23] Washington praised Carver in his 1911 memoir, My Larger Education: Being Chapters from My Experience.[24] Washington called Carver "one of the most thoroughly scientific men of the Negro race with whom I am acquainted."[25] After Washington died in 1915, his successor made fewer demands on Carver for administrative tasks.
While a professor at Tuskegee, Carver joined the Gamma Sigma chapter of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity. He spoke at the 1930 Conclave that was held at Tuskegee, Alabama, in which he delivered a powerful and emotional speech to the men in attendance.[26]
From 1915 to 1923, Carver concentrated on researching and experimenting with new uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans, pecans, and other crops, as well as having his assistants research and compile existing uses.[27] This work, and especially his speaking to a national conference of the Peanut Growers Association in 1920 and in testimony before Congress in 1921 to support passage of a tariff on imported peanuts, brought him wide publicity and increasing renown. In these years, he became one of the most well-known African Americans of his time.
Rise to fame
"One of America's great scientists." U.S. World War II poster circa 1943
Carver developed techniques to improve soils depleted by repeated plantings of cotton. Together with other agricultural experts, he urged farmers to restore nitrogen to their soils by practicing systematic crop rotation: alternating cotton crops with plantings of sweet potatoes or legumes (such as peanuts, soybeans and cowpeas). These crops both restored nitrogen to the soil and were good for human consumption. Following the crop rotation practice resulted in improved cotton yields and gave farmers alternative cash crops. To train farmers to successfully rotate and cultivate the new crops, Carver developed an agricultural extension program for Alabama that was similar to the one at Iowa State. To encourage better nutrition in the South, he widely distributed recipes using the alternative crops.
In addition, he founded an industrial research laboratory, where he and assistants worked to popularize the new crops by developing hundreds of applications for them. They did original research as well as promoting applications and recipes which they collected from others. Carver distributed his information as agricultural bulletins.
Peanut specimen collected by Carver
Carver's work was known by officials in the national capital before he became a public figure. President Theodore Roosevelt publicly admired his work. Former professors of Carver's from Iowa State University were appointed to positions as Secretary of Agriculture: James Wilson, a former dean and professor of Carver's, served from 1897 to 1913. Henry Cantwell Wallace served from 1921 to 1924. He knew Carver personally because his son Henry A. Wallace and the researcher were friends.[28] The younger Wallace served as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture from 1933 to 1940, and as Franklin Delano Roosevelt's vice president from 1941 to 1945.
The American industrialist, farmer, and inventor William Edenborn of Winn Parish, Louisiana, grew peanuts on his demonstration farm. He consulted with Carver.[29]
In 1916, Carver was made a member of the Royal Society of Arts in England, one of only a handful of Americans at that time to receive this honor. Carver's promotion of peanuts gained him the most notice. In 1919, Carver wrote to a peanut company about the potential he saw for peanut milk. Both he and the peanut industry seemed unaware that in 1917 William Melhuish had secured US 1243855, issued 1917-10-23 for a milk substitute made from peanuts and soybeans.[improper synthesis?]
The United Peanut Associations of America invited Carver to speak at their 1920 convention. He discussed "The Possibilities of the Peanut" and exhibited 145 peanut products. By 1920, the U.S. peanut farmers were being undercut by low prices on imported peanuts from the Republic of China.
In 1921, peanut farmers and industry representatives planned to appear at Congressional hearings to ask for a tariff. Based on the quality of Carver's presentation at their convention, they asked the African-American professor to testify on the tariff issue before the Ways and Means Committee of the United States House of Representatives. Due to segregation, it was highly unusual for an African American to appear as an expert witness at Congress representing European-American industry and farmers. Southern congressmen, reportedly shocked at Carver's arriving to testify, were said to have mocked him.[citation needed] As he talked about the importance of the peanut and its uses for American agriculture, the committee members repeatedly extended the time for his testimony. The Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922 was passed including one on imported peanuts. Carver's testifying to Congress made him widely known as a public figure.
Life while famous
United States Farm Security Administration portrait, March 1942
During the last two decades of his life, Carver seemed to enjoy his celebrity status. He was often on the road promoting Tuskegee University, peanuts, and racial harmony. Although he only published six agricultural bulletins after 1922, he published articles in peanut industry journals and wrote a syndicated newspaper column, "Professor Carver's Advice". Business leaders came to seek his help, and he often responded with free advice. Three American presidents—Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge and Franklin Roosevelt—met with him, and the Crown Prince of Sweden studied with him for three weeks. From 1923 to 1933, Carver toured white Southern colleges for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation.[27]
With his increasing notability, Carver became the subject of biographies and articles. Raleigh H. Merritt contacted him for his biography published in 1929. Merritt wrote:
At present not a great deal has been done to utilize Dr. Carver's discoveries commercially. He says that he is merely scratching the surface of scientific investigations of the possibilities of the peanut and other Southern products.[30]
In 1932, the writer James Saxon Childers wrote that Carver and his peanut products were almost solely responsible for the rise in U.S. peanut production after the boll weevil devastated the American cotton crop beginning about 1892. His article, "A Boy Who Was Traded for a Horse" (1932), in The American Magazine, and its 1937 reprint in Reader's Digest, contributed to this myth about Carver's influence. Other popular media tended to exaggerate Carver's impact on the peanut industry.[31]
From 1933 to 1935, Carver worked to develop peanut oil massages to treat infantile paralysis (polio).[27] Ultimately, researchers found that the massages, not the peanut oil, provided the benefits of maintaining some mobility to paralyzed limbs.
From 1935 to 1937, Carver participated in the USDA Disease Survey. Carver had specialized in plant diseases and mycology for his master's degree.
In 1937, Carver attended two chemurgy conferences, an emerging field in the 1930s, during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, concerned with developing new products from crops.[27] He was invited by Henry Ford to speak at the conference held in Dearborn, Michigan, and they developed a friendship. That year Carver's health declined, and Ford later installed an elevator at the Tuskegee dormitory where Carver lived, so that the elderly man would not have to climb stairs.[6][32]
Carver had been frugal in his life, and in his seventies he established a legacy by creating a museum of his work, as well as the George Washington Carver Foundation at Tuskegee in 1938 to continue agricultural research. He donated nearly US$60,000 (equivalent to $1,043,121 in 2017) in his savings to create the foundation.[32]
Relationships
"Austin Curtis - Scientist successor to Dr. Carver", cartoon by C.H. Alston
Carver never married. At age forty, he began a courtship with Sarah L. Hunt, an elementary school teacher and the sister-in-law of Warren Logan, Treasurer of Tuskegee Institute. This lasted three years until she took a teaching job in California.[33] In her 2015 biography, Christina Vella reviews his relationships and suggests that Carver was bisexual and constrained by mores of his historic period.[34]
When he was seventy, Carver established a friendship and research partnership with the scientist Austin W. Curtis, Jr. This young black man, a graduate of Cornell University, had some teaching experience before coming to Tuskegee. Carver bequeathed to Curtis his royalties from an authorized 1943 biography by Rackham Holt.[35] After Carver died in 1943, Curtis was fired from Tuskegee Institute. He left Alabama and resettled in Detroit. There he manufactured and sold peanut-based personal care products.[36]
Death
Painting by Betsy Graves Reyneau
Upon returning home one day, Carver took a bad fall down a flight of stairs; he was found unconscious by a maid who took him to a hospital. Carver died January 5, 1943, at the age of 78 from complications (anemia) resulting from this fall. He was buried next to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee University. Due to his frugality, Carver's life savings totaled $60,000, all of which he donated in his last years and at his death to the Carver Museum and to the George Washington Carver Foundation.[37]
On his grave was written, He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.
Voice pitch
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Even as an adult Carver spoke with a high pitch. Historian Linda O. McMurry noted that he "was a frail and sickly child" who suffered "from a severe case of whooping cough and frequent bouts of what was called croup."[38] McMurry contested the diagnosis of croup, holding rather that "His stunted growth and apparently impaired vocal chords suggest instead tubercular or pneumococcal infection. Frequent infections of that nature could have caused the growth of polyps on the larynx and may have resulted from a gamma globulin deficiency. ...until his death the high pitch of his voice startled all who met him, and he suffered from frequent chest congestion and loss of voice."[38]
There are some rumors that Carver was castrated. Harley Flack and Edmund Pellegrino's book African-American Perspectives on Biomedical Ethics (1992) reports that Carver was castrated by a physician at age 11 at the request of his white master. A friend of Carver's was told by the autopsy doctors — according to Carver's biographer Peter Burchard, who told this to Iowa Public Radio in 2010 — that Carver had only scar tissue instead of testicles.[39] If it is true that he was castrated before puberty, it would explain his high voice, but it would also suggest that he should not have been able to grow his beard.
Christianity
Carver believed he could have faith both in God and science and integrated them into his life. He testified on many occasions that his faith in Jesus was the only mechanism by which he could effectively pursue and perform the art of science.[40] Carver became a Christian when he was still a young boy, as he wrote in connection to his conversion in 1931:[41]
I was just a mere boy when converted, hardly ten years old. There isn't much of a story to it. God just came into my heart one afternoon while I was alone in the 'loft' of our big barn while I was shelling corn to carry to the mill to be ground into meal.
A dear little white boy, one of our neighbors, about my age came by one Saturday morning, and in talking and playing he told me he was going to Sunday school tomorrow morning. I was eager to know what a Sunday school was. He said they sang hymns and prayed. I asked him what prayer was and what they said. I do not remember what he said; only remember that as soon as he left I climbed up into the 'loft,' knelt down by the barrel of corn and prayed as best I could. I do not remember what I said. I only recall that I felt so good that I prayed several times before I quit.
My brother and myself were the only colored children in that neighborhood and of course, we could not go to church or Sunday school, or school of any kind.
That was my simple conversion, and I have tried to keep the faith.
— G. W. Carver; Letter to Isabelle Coleman; July 24, 1931
He was not expected to live past his twenty-first birthday due to failing health. He lived well past the age of 21, and his belief deepened as a result.[25] Throughout his career, he always found friendship with other Christians. He relied on them especially when criticized by the scientific community and media regarding his research methodology.[42]
Carver viewed faith in Jesus Christ as a means of destroying both barriers of racial disharmony and social stratification.[43] He was as concerned with his students' character development as he was with their intellectual development. He compiled a list of eight cardinal virtues for his students to strive toward:
A monument to Carver at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis
Be clean both inside and out.
Neither look up to the rich nor down on the poor.
Lose, if need be, without squealing.
Win without bragging.
Always be considerate of women, children, and older people.
Be too brave to lie.
Be too generous to cheat.
Take your share of the world and let others take theirs.[44]
Beginning in 1906 at Tuskegee, Carver led a Bible class on Sundays for several students at their request. He regularly portrayed stories by acting them out.[44] He responded to critics with this: "When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world."[45]
Honors
1923, Spingarn Medal from the NAACP, awarded annually for outstanding achievement.[27]
1928, honorary doctorate from Simpson College
1939, the Roosevelt Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Southern Agriculture
1940, Carver established the George Washington Carver Foundation at the Tuskegee Institute.
1941, The George Washington Carver Museum was dedicated at the Tuskegee Institute.
1942, Ford built a replica of Carver's birth cabin at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn as a tribute.
1942, Ford dedicated a laboratory in Dearborn named after Carver.
1943, Liberty ship SS George Washington Carver launched
1950, George Washington Carver State Park named
1951-1954, U.S. Mint features Carver on a 50 cents silver commemorative coin
1965, Ballistic missile submarine USS George Washington Carver (SSBN-656) launched.
1969, Iowa State University constructs Carver Hall in honor of Carver– a graduate of the university.[46]
1943?, the US Congress designated January 5, the anniversary of his death, as George Washington Carver Recognition Day.[47][48]
1999, USDA names a portion of its Beltsville, Maryland campus the George Washington Carver Center.[49]
2007, the Missouri Botanical Gardens has a garden area named in his honor, with a commemorative statue and material about his work
Willowbrook Neighborhood Park in Willowbrook, California was renamed George Washington Carver Park in his honor.[50]
Schools named for Carver include the George Washington Carver Elementary School of the Compton Unified School District in Los Angeles County, California,[51] the George Washington Carver School of Arts and Science of the Sacramento City Unified School District in Sacramento, California,[52] and the Dr. George Washington Carver Elementary School, a Newark public school in Newark, New Jersey.[53]
Taxa named after him include: Colletotrichum carveri and Metasphaeria carveri, both named by Job Bicknell Ellis and Benjamin Matlack Everhart in 1902;[54] Cercospora carveriana, named by Pier Andrea Saccardo and Domenico Saccardo in 1906;[55] Taphrina carveri named by Anna Eliza Jenkins in 1939;[56] and Pestalotia carveri, named by E. F. Guba in 1961.[57]
Legacy
A movement to establish a U.S. national monument to Carver began before his death. Because of World War II, such non-war expenditures had been banned by presidential order. Missouri senator Harry S. Truman sponsored a bill in favor of a monument. In a committee hearing on the bill, one supporter said:
The bill is not simply a momentary pause on the part of busy men engaged in the conduct of the war, to do honor to one of the truly great Americans of this country, but it is in essence a blow against the Axis, it is in essence a war measure in the sense that it will further unleash and release the energies of roughly 15,000,000 Negro people in this country for full support of our war effort.[27]
The bill passed unanimously in both houses.
On July 14, 1943,[58] President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated $30,000 for the George Washington Carver National Monument west-southwest of Diamond, Missouri, the area where Carver had spent time in his childhood. This was the first national monument dedicated to an African American and the first to honor someone other than a president. The 210-acre (0.8 km2) national monument complex includes a bust of Carver, a ¾-mile nature trail, a museum, the 1881 Moses Carver house, and the Carver cemetery. The national monument opened in July 1953.
In December 1947, a fire broke out in the Carver Museum, and much of the collection was damaged. Time magazine reported that all but three of the 48 Carver paintings at the museum were destroyed. His best-known painting, displayed at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, depicts a yucca and cactus. This canvas survived and has undergone conservation. It is displayed together with several of his other paintings.[59]
1948 US postage stamp
Carver was featured on U.S. 1948 commemorative stamps. From 1951 to 1954, he was depicted on a commemorative half dollar coin. A second stamp honoring Carver, of face value 32¢, was issued on 3 February 1998 as part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series. Two ships, the Liberty ship SS George Washington Carver and the nuclear submarine USS George Washington Carver (SSBN-656), were named in his honor.
In 1977, Carver was elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans. In 1990, Carver was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In 1994, Iowa State University awarded Carver a Doctor of Humane Letters. In 2000, Carver was a charter inductee in the USDA Hall of Heroes as the "Father of Chemurgy".[60]
In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed George Washington Carver as one of 100 Greatest African Americans.[61]
In 2005, Carver's research at the Tuskegee Institute was designated a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society.[62] On February 15, 2005, an episode of Modern Marvels included scenes from within Iowa State University's Food Sciences Building and about Carver's work. In 2005, the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Missouri, opened a George Washington Carver garden in his honor, which includes a life-size statue of him.
Many institutions continue to honor George Washington Carver. A garden and statue of him are dedicated in the noted Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis. Dozens of elementary schools and high schools are named after him. National Basketball Association star David Robinson and his wife, Valerie, founded an academy named after Carver; it opened on September 17, 2001, in San Antonio, Texas.[44] The Carver Community Cultural Center, a historic center located in San Antonio, is named for him.
Reputed inventions
Carver was given credit in popular folklore for many inventions that did not come out of his lab. Three patents (one for cosmetics; US 1522176, issued January 6, 1925, and two for paints and stains; US 1541478, issued June 9, 1925 and US 1632365, issued June 14, 1927) were issued to Carver in 1925 to 1927; however, they were not commercially successful.[63] Aside from these patents and some recipes for food, Carver left no records of formulae or procedures for making his products. He did not keep a laboratory notebook. Mackintosh notes that, "Carver did not explicitly claim that he had personally discovered all the peanut attributes and uses he cited, but he said nothing to prevent his audiences from drawing the inference."[64] Carver's research was intended to produce replacements from common crops for commercial products, which were generally beyond the budget of the small one-horse farmer. A misconception grew that his research on products for subsistence farmers were developed by others commercially to change Southern agriculture.[65][66] Carver's work to provide small farmers with resources for more independence from the cash economy foreshadowed the "appropriate technology" work of E. F. Schumacher.
Peanut products
Dennis Keeney, director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, wrote in the Leopold Letter (newsletter):
Carver worked on improving soils, growing crops with low inputs, and using species that fixed nitrogen (hence, the work on the cowpea and the peanut). Carver wrote in 'The Need of Scientific Agriculture in the South': "The virgin fertility of our soils and the vast amount of unskilled labor have been more of a curse than a blessing to agriculture. This exhaustive system for cultivation, the destruction of forest, the rapid and almost constant decomposition of organic matter, have made our agricultural problem one requiring more brains than of the North, East or West."[67]
Carver worked for years to create a company to market his products. The most important was the Carver Penol Company, which sold a mixture of creosote and peanuts as a patent medicine for respiratory diseases such as tuberculosis. Sales were lackluster and the product was ineffective according to the Food and Drug Administration.[68] Other ventures were The Carver Products Company and the Carvoline Company. Carvoline Antiseptic Hair Dressing was a mix of peanut oil and lanolin. Carvoline Rubbing Oil was a peanut oil for massages.
Carver is often mistakenly credited with the invention of peanut butter.[69] By the time Carver published "How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it For Human Consumption" in 1916,[70] many methods of preparation of peanut butter had been developed or patented by various pharmacists, doctors and food scientists working in the US and Canada.[71][72][73] The Aztec were known to have made peanut butter from ground peanuts as early as the 15th century. Canadian pharmacist Marcellus Gilmore Edson was awarded U.S. Patent 306,727 (for its manufacture) in 1884, 12 years before Carver began his work at Tuskegee.[74][75]
Sweet potato products
Carver is also associated with developing sweet potato products. In his 1922 sweet potato bulletin, Carver listed a few dozen recipes, "many of which I have copied verbatim from Bulletin No. 129, U. S. Department of Agriculture".[76] Carver's records included the following sweet potato products: 73 dyes, 17 wood fillers, 14 candies, 5 library pastes, 5 breakfast foods, 4 starches, 4 flours, and 3 molasses.[77] He also had listings for vinegars, dry coffee and instant coffee, candy, after-dinner mints, orange drops, and lemon drops.
Carver bulletins
During his more than four decades at Tuskegee, Carver's official published work consisted mainly of 44 practical bulletins for farmers.[78] His first bulletin in 1898 was on feeding acorns to farm animals. His final bulletin in 1943 was about the peanut. He also published six bulletins on sweet potatoes, five on cotton, and four on cowpeas. Some other individual bulletins dealt with alfalfa, wild plum, tomato, ornamental plants, corn, poultry, dairying, hogs, preserving meats in hot weather, and nature study in schools.
His most popular bulletin, How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption, was first published in 1916[79] and was reprinted many times. It gave a short overview of peanut crop production and contained a list of recipes from other agricultural bulletins, cookbooks, magazines, and newspapers, such as the Peerless Cookbook, Good Housekeeping, and Berry's Fruit Recipes. Carver's was far from the first American agricultural bulletin devoted to peanuts,[80][81][82][83][84] but his bulletins did seem to be more popular and widespread than previous ones.
See also
icon African American portal
Biography portal
icon Science portal
Carver Academy, TexasGeorge Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology, Maryland
List of people on stamps of the United States
African-American history
Notes
Israel, Charlene (February 15, 2011). "George Washington Carver: Master Inventor, Artist". CBN News. Christian Broadcasting Network. Retrieved November 3, 2013.
The Notable Names Database states around 1860 citing a census report from 1870: "1864 is frequently cited as his birth year, but in the 1870 census form filed by Moses and Susan Carver he is listed as being ten years old." "George Washington Carver, NNDB.
"About GWC: A Tour of His Life". George Washington Carver National Monument. National Park Service. Archived from the original on February 1, 2008. George Washington Carver did not know the exact date of his birth, but he thought it was in January 1864 (some evidence indicates July 1861, but not conclusively). He knew it was sometime before slavery was abolished in Missouri, which occurred in January 1865.
Linda O. McMurry (1982). George Washington Carver: Scientist and Symbol. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 196. ISBN 0-19-503205-5.
Mark D. Hersey, My Work Is That of Conservation: An Environmental Biography of George Washington Carver (2011) online
"Black Leonardo Book". Time Magazine. November 24, 1941. Retrieved August 10, 2008.
McMurry (1982), George Washington Carver, pp. 9–10.
Rennert, Richard, ed. (1994), Profiles of Great Black Americans: Pioneers of Discovery, Coretta Scott King (introduction), New York: Chelsea House Publishers, pp. 26–32, ISBN 0-7910-2067-3
Abrams, Dennis. George Washington Carver: Scientist and Educator. Chelsea House Publications. p. 16. ISBN 978-0791097175.
George Washington Carver: Scientist, Scholar, and Educator Archived February 12, 2009, at the Wayback Machine. from the "Blue Skyways" website of the Kansas State Library
Southeast Quarter of Section 4, Township 19 South, Range 26 West of the Sixth Principal Meridian, Ness County, Kansas
College Archives – George Washington Carver, Simpson College website Archived 2008-10-16 at the Wayback Machine.
Geo. W. Carver (1894). "Plants as Modified by Man".
"The first Jesup Wagon", George Washington Carver Museum, Tuskegee University Historic Site, National Park Service website.
McMurry (1982), pp. 45–47.
Louis R. Harlan, Raymond Smock (eds), The Booker T. Washington Papers: 1895-98, University of Illinois Press, 1975, Vol. 5, p. 481.
Harlan, Vol. 8, p. 95.
Harlan, Volume 10, p. 480.
Harlan, Vol. 12, p. 95.
Harlan, Vol. 12, pp. 251–252.
Harlan, Vol. 12, p. 201.
Harlan, Vol. 13, p. 35.
Harlan, Vol. 4, p. 239.
Booker T. Washington, 1856–1915 My Larger Education: Being Chapters from My Experience, 1911. Documenting the American South.
GWC | His Life in his own words
Education & Science - Notable Sigmas, Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. Archived July 23, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.
Special History Study from the National Park Service website
"The legacy of George Washington Carver--Friends & Colleagues (Henry Wallace". iastate.edu. 2007-01-31. Archived from the original on April 15, 2009.
"Greggory E. Davies, William Edenborn of Winn Parish, LA". files.usgwarchives.org. Archived from the original on 16 March 2012. Retrieved 30 October 2010.
Raleigh Howard Merritt. From Captivity to Fame or The Life of George Washington Carver.
"Peanut Man". Time Magazine. 1937-06-14. Retrieved 10 August 2008.
Linda McMurry Edwards, George Washington Carver: The Life of the Great American Agriculturist, Rosen Publishing Group, 2004, pp. 90–92. Retrieved 7 July 2011.
Kremer, Gary R., George Washington Carver: A Biography, Greenwood, 2011, ISBN 0313347964, p. 68
Christina Vella, George Washington Carver, Louisiana State University Press, 2015
Rackham Holt, George Washington Carver: An American Biography, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1943. Quote: "He [Carver] believed that there was something providential in the coming of this young man [Austin], so intensely serious about his work and extremely competent at it, who was at the same time a genial companion; he was proud of him and loved and depended on him as his own son . . . . And the affection was returned in full measure. Mr. Curtis accompanied him everywhere, seeing to his comfort, shielding him from intrusion, and acting as his official mouthpiece."
On Curtis' later life, see "Austin W. Curtis Interviewed by Toby Fishbein in Detroit, Michigan, March 3, 1979": Transcript in Iowa State University Special Collections, George Washington Carver File, Box 2, RS: 21/7/2.
GWC | Tour Of His Life |Page 6
Linda O. McMurry (1981). George Washington Carver: Scientist and Symbol. Oxford University Press. p. 14.
Spivey, Yolanda (15 September 2014). "The C@stration of George Washington Carver". Black Time Travel. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
Man of science-and of God from The New American (January 2004), via TheFreeLibrary.com.
Carver, George Washington; Kremer, Gary R. (ed.) George Washington Carver in his own words. University of Missouri Press. February 1, 1991, p. 128.
Wilson L. Newman correspondence with George Washington Carver, 1926–1943
"Quotes From Dr. Carver Page 2". nps.gov. National Park Service. Archived from the original on July 8, 2009.
History Archived June 7, 2012, at the Wayback Machine. from the Carver Academy website
George Washington Carver Quotes
Carver Hall, Iowa State University, Facilities Planning & Management
"25-2-39. Dr. George Washington Carver Recognition Day". Rilin.state.ri.us. Retrieved March 21, 2014.
George Washington Carver Recognition Day Celebrated
"USDA Names Building Complex to Honor Dr. George Washington Carver". PR Newswire. Retrieved May 3, 2016.
"George Washington Carver Park". Los Angeles County, California Department of Parks and Recreation. Archived from the original on March 11, 2015. Retrieved April 13, 2015.
"Welcome to Carver Elementary School". Compton Unified School District. Retrieved April 13, 2015.
"Who Is George Washington Carver?". Sacramento City Unified School District. Retrieved April 13, 2015.
"Dr. George Washington Carver: Where Achievement is Realistic, Obtainable & Infinite!". Newark Public Schools. Retrieved February 22, 2017.
Ellis, J. B.; Everhart, B. M. (1902). "New Alabama Fungi". The Journal of Mycology. 8 (2): 62–73. JSTOR 3752297 Freely accessible.
Saccardo, P. A.; Saccardo, D. (1906). Sylloge fungorum omnium hucusque cognitorum. 18. Patavius: P. A. Saccardo. p. 607.
Jenkins, Anna E. (1939). "New species of Taphrina on red maple and on silver maple". Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences. 29 (5): 222–230. JSTOR 24529580.
Collins, Daniel J.; Frederick, Lafayette; Warren, Herman; Rossman, Amy; Dominick, Shannon (2014). "Contributions of Dr. George Washington Carver to global food security: Historical reflections of Dr. Carver's Fungal Plant Disease Survey in the southeastern United States". APSnet Features. doi:10.1094/APSFeature-2014-02 Freely accessible.
George Washington Carver National Monument (U.S. National Park Service)
"Change Without Revolution". Time Magazine. January 5, 1948. Retrieved August 10, 2008.
USDA Hall of Heroes Archived 2006-09-25 at the Wayback Machine.
Asante, Molefi Kete (2002). 100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Amherst, New York. Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-57392-963-8.
Ginsberg, Judah (January 27, 2005). "George Washington Carver: Chemist, Teacher, Symbol". American Chemical Society. Retrieved March 2, 2012.
"George Washington Carver". Inventors.about.com. Retrieved July 12, 2013.
Mackintosh, Barry. 1977. "George Washington Carver And The Peanut", American Heritage 28(5): 66–73.
McMurry, L. O. 1981. George Washington Carver: Scientist and Symbol. New York, Oxford University Press.
Smith, Andrew F. 2002. Peanuts: The Illustrious History of the Goober Pea. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Fishbein, Toby. "The Legacy of George Washington Carver", Iowa State University Library.
McMurry (1982). George Washington Carver. pp. 195–96.
National Peanut Board, Who Invented Peanut Butter?, retrieved November 24, 2016.
"George Washington Carver", National Peanut Board.
"US Patent #306727".
"US Patent #604493".
Innovate St. Louis (August 25, 2011). "Innovation in St. Louis History – Innovate St. Louis". Innovatestl.org. Archived from the original on December 27, 2011. Retrieved December 18, 2011.
Mary Bellis, "The History of Peanut Butter". Inventors.about.com (June 21, 2013). Retrieved July 12, 2013.
"History of Peanut Butter" Archived July 27, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.. Peanut-butter.org. Retrieved July 12, 2013.
"How the Farmer Can Save His Sweet Potatoes," Geo. W. Carver from the Texas A&M University website.
Carver Sweet Potato Products from the Tuskegee University website.
List of Bulletins by George Washington Carver Archived August 30, 2006, at the Wayback Machine. from the Tuskegee University website
Carver, George Washington. 1916. "How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption", Tuskegee Institute Experimental Station Bulletin 31.
Handy, R. B. 1895. "Peanuts: Culture and Uses". USDA Farmers' Bulletin 25.
Newman, C. L. 1904. Peanuts. Fayetteville, Arkansas: Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station.
Beattie, W. R. 1909. "Peanuts". USDA Farmers' Bulletin 356.
Ferris, E. B. 1909. "Peanuts". Agricultural College, Mississippi: Mississippi Agricultural Experiment Station.
Beattie, W. R. 1911. "The Peanut". USDA Farmers' Bulletin 431.
IPNI. Carver.
References
Scholarly studies
Hersey, Mark D. My Work Is That of Conservation: An Environmental Biography of George Washington Carver (University of Georgia Press; 2011) 306 pages.
Hersey, Mark. "Hints and Suggestions to Farmers: George Washington Carver and Rural Conservation in the South." Environmental History 11#2 (2006): 239-268.
Mackintosh, Barry. "George Washington Carver: The Making of a Myth." Journal of Southern History 42#4 (1976): 507-528. in JSTOR
Barry Mackintosh, "George Washington Carver and the Peanut: New Light on a Much-loved Myth", American Heritage 28(5): 66–73, 1977.
McMurry, L. O. "Carver, George Washington." American National Biography Online February 2000
McMurry, Linda O. George Washington Carver: scientist and symbol (Oxford University Press, 1982). online; Google copy)
Popular works
Carver, George Washington. "1897 or Thereabouts: George Washington Carver's Own Brief History of His Life." George Washington Carver National Monument.
Collins, David R. George Washington Carver: Man's Slave, God's Scientist, (Mott Media, 1981)
William J. Federer, George Washington Carver: His Life & Faith in His Own Words, AmeriSearch (January 2003) ISBN 0-9653557-6-4
George Washington Carver: In His Own Words (Paperback), ed. G. R. Kremer, University of Missouri Press; 1987, Reprint edition (January 1991) ISBN 0-8262-0785-5 ISBN 978-0-8262-0785-2
H. M. Morris, Men of Science, Men of God (1982)
E. C. Barnett and D. Fisher, Scientists Who Believe (1984)
Further reading
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.
Kremer, Gary R. Race and Meaning: The African American Experience in Missouri, University of Missouri Press, 2014.
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.
Vella, Christina. Carver, Louisiana State University Press, 2015.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to George Washington Carver.
Wikiquote has quotations related to: George Washington Carver
Archival collections
Guide to the George Washington Carver Letter to Dana H. Johnson. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
Finding Aid to the George Washington Carver Collection. Special Collections Department, Iowa State University Library, Ames, Iowa.
William and Annette Curtis collection of George Washington Carver items, MSS 6223 at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University
Other
National Park Service:
Legends of Tuskegee: George Washington Carver from the National Park Service
George Washington Carver National Monument from the National Park Service
Carver Tribute from Tuskegee University
The Legacy of George Washington Carver from Iowa State University
National Historic Chemical Landmark from the American Chemical Society
George Washington Carver Correspondence Collection Manuscript collection in Special Collections, National Agricultural Library.
Biotechnology Organization Award
A film clip 'American Day' Fete Biggest Patriotic Meeting In History, 1941/05/20 (1941) is available at the Internet Archive
George Washington Carver Digital Collection, Iowa State University.
Print publications
George Washington Carver. "How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption", Tuskegee Institute Experimental Station Bulletin 31.
George Washington Carver. "How the Farmer Can Save His Sweet Potatoes and Ways of Preparing Them for the Table", Tuskegee Institute Experimental Station Bulletin 38, 1936.
George Washington Carver. "How to Grow the Tomato and 115 Ways to Prepare it for the Table", Tuskegee Institute Experimental Station Bulletin 36, 1936.
Peter D. Burchard, "George Washington Carver: For His Time and Ours", National Park Service: George Washington Carver National Monument. 2006.
Louis R. Harlan (ed.), The Booker T. Washington Papers, Volume 4, pp. 127–128. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. 1975.
Raleigh H. Merritt, From Captivity to Fame or the Life of George Washington Carver, Boston: Meador Publishing. 1929.
George Washington Carver
Mary Bagley, George Washington Carver: Biography, Inventions & Quotes (2013).
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Authority control
WorldCat Identities Botanist: Carver GND: 118519379 ISNI: 0000 0001 0332 1086 LCCN: n50034776 NARA: 10580524 SNAC: w6sq984q VIAF: 79397254
Categories: 1943 deathsPeople from Newton County, MissouriAmerican botanistsAfrican-American inventorsAmerican inventorsAmerican mycologistsAmerican food scientistsAfrican-American ChristiansAmerican agriculturalistsAmerican bisexual menAgriculture educatorsAlabama RepublicansIowa State University alumniIowa State University facultyPeople from Tuskegee, AlabamaAmerican adopteesPeople from Hanover, MassachusettsSpingarn Medal winnersAfrican-American scientistsAmerican scientistsAfrican-American educatorsAmerican educatorsTuskegee University facultyPeople from Ness County, Kansas1864 birthsHall of Fame for Great Americans inducteesPeople from Indianola, IowaAmerican slavesScientists from MissouriNational Inventors Hall of Fame inductees
George Washington Carver - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_Carver
George Washington Carver (1860s – January 5, 1943), was an American botanist and inventor. He actively promoted alternative crops to cotton and methods to ...
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George Washington Carver Biography - Biography
https://www.biography.com/people/george-washington-carver-9240299
19 Jan 2018 - George Washington Carver (c. 1864 to January 5, 1943) was born into slavery and went on to become a botanist and one of the most ...
Birth Date: c. January, 1864 Education: Iowa State Agricultural College, Mi...
Death Date: January 5, 1943
7 Facts on George Washington Carver - Biography
https://www.biography.com/.../george-washington-carver-facts-national-peanut-mont...
1 Mar 2015 - George Washington Carver is known for his work with peanuts (though he did not invent peanut butter, as some may believe). However, there's ...
George Washington Carver - Black History - HISTORY.com
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Find out more about the history of George Washington Carver, including videos, interesting articles, pictures, historical features and more. Get all the facts on ...
George Washington Carver: Biography, Inventions & Quotes
https://www.livescience.com › History
6 Dec 2013 - George Washington Carver was a prominent American scientist and inventor who developed hundreds of products using peanuts and other ...
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