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Carver, George Washington (1864-1943), American scientist and
educator. Carver was internationally recognized for his research in
agricultural sciences, and he is credited with having revolutionized
agriculture in the Southern United States. As a teacher and as the
head of agricultural research at Tuskegee Normal and Industrial
Institute ,in
Alabama, Carver dedicated his career to finding uses for plant
products and to teaching farmers the advantages of diversifying
their crops.
Carver was born a slave near Diamond, Missouri. Around age ten he
left the farm where he was born and traveled through the Midwest
doing odd jobs to support his education. Carver studied constantly
and attended schools wherever possible, finally graduating from high
school in Minneapolis, Kansas, in 1885. That same year he passed the
entrance examination at Highland College in northeastern Kansas. But
when school officials learned he was black, he was prevented from
attending.
In 1891 Carver was admitted to the Iowa State College of
Agricultural and Mechanical Arts (now Iowa State University) in
Ames. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1894, becoming
the first black to graduate from the college. After graduation,
Carver was appointed to the faculty as an assistant botanist. While
teaching, he pursued his master’s degree, studying fungus diseases
and classification of plants. In 1896 he received his master’s
degree. That year, at the invitation of American educator Booker T. Washington, Carver became
the director of agricultural research at Tuskegee Institute, where
he remained for the rest of his life.
During his tenure at Tuskegee Institute, Carver developed over
300 uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans, and the byproducts
of these crops. From peanuts he synthesized axle grease, soap, ink,
flour, plastics, a coffee substitute, and more than 200 other useful
products. From sweet potatoes he derived 118 products, including
molasses, vinegar, and rubber, and from soybeans he extracted an oil
with many uses. Partly as a result of Carver's research, peanut
cultivation in the Southern states quadrupled from 1899 to 1943. By
planting peanuts and sweet potatoes in addition to cotton, farmers
were able to enrich their soil and were no longer economically
dependent upon the success or failure of only one kind of crop.
Uninterested in business, Carver preferred that others
commercialize the results of his experiments. Of his many
inventions, Carver patented only three. Carver’s primary goal was to
help impoverished blacks. In 1940 he donated his savings to the
establishment of the George Washington Carver Foundation at Tuskegee
Institute to provide scholarships in the natural sciences.
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