George Washington Carver
(1864-1943)
BOTANIST
Educator, Innovator, Leader, environmentalist, philanthropist
Iowa State University, Bachelor of Arts degree
Iowa State University, Master of Science degree in 1896
The first black student at Iowa State, The first black faculty member at Iowa State. member of the Royal Society of Arts 1916. Simpson College and Selma University awarded him honorary doctorates of science in his lifetime. Iowa State later awarded him a doctorate of humane letters posthumously in 1994. Received the first national monument dedicated to an African American and the first to honor someone other than a president
George Washington Carver was born in the year of 1864 his father was Moses Carver a German slaveowner. George’s residence was in Diamond Grove, now Diamond, Newton County, Missouri. the history of his date of birth is not recorded. the information about his parents is that during the American Civil War. His enslaver, 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. His Father Mr. Giles died before George was born.
There was a lot of slave raiding going on during that era because the system was not abolished. George and his 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 trio in Kentucky. Moses Carver hired John Bentley to find them, but he found 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.
Carver applied to several colleges before being accepted at Highland University in Highland, Kansas. When he arrived, they refused to let him attend because of his race. In August 1886, Carver traveled by wagon with J. F. Beeler from Highland to Eden Township in Ness County, Kansas. He homesteaded a claim 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.
In early 1888, Carver obtained a $300 loan at the Bank of Ness City for education. By June he left the community. In 1890, Carver started studying art and piano at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa. 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 (now Iowa State University) in Ames.
When he began there in 1891, he was the first black student at Iowa State. Carver’s Bachelor’s thesis for a degree in Agriculture was “Plants as Modified by Man”, dated 1894. Iowa State University 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 received his Master of Science degree in 1896. Carver taught as the first black faculty member at Iowa State.
Despite occasionally being addressed as “doctor”, Carver never received an official doctorate, and in personal communication with Pammel, he noted that it was a “misnomer”, given to him by others due to his abilities and their assumptions about his education. In 1994 Simpson College and Selma University awarded him honorary doctorates of science in his lifetime. Iowa State later awarded him a doctorate of humane letters posthumously.
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.
While a professor at Tuskegee Institute, Carver developed techniques to improve types of soils depleted by repeated plantings of cotton. He wanted poor farmers to grow other 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.
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”.
note to see actual footage you should view this film: George Washington Carver at Tuskegee Institute is a film taken by African-American Allen Alexander. The film, which depicts George Washington Carver in his apartment, his place of work, and his garden, was taken on color Kodachrome film. The films are held by the National Film Registry as a film that is “cultural, historic, and aesthetic importance to the nation’s film heritage”. According to the National Archives of the United States.
Dr. Carver was very interested in helping poor southern farmers who were farming on low-quality soil depleted of nutrients after decades of growing only cotton and tobacco in the same soil. Dr. Carver and others encouraged farmers to restore nitrogen to their soils through systematic crop rotation – helping the region to recover.
Dr. Carver established an agriculture extension in Alabama and founded an industrial research lab where he worked tirelessly on the development of hundreds of applications for new plants. Carver discovered more than 300 uses for peanuts and hundreds more uses for soybeans, pecans and sweet potatoes.
According to the National Peanut Board, Dr. Carver published the research bulletin, “How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it For Human Consumption.” During that time, the boll weevil had destroyed the cotton crop and many farmers had turned to peanuts as a cash crop. Alabama residents saw cotton oil mills converted to produce peanut oil. This was something that farmers could thrive on – livestock could eat the peanut plant and sharecroppers could feed their families on crops that weren’t sold. Dr. Carver and the peanut helped save the economy of the southern part of the U.S.
Carver continued his research on the peanut. Through the separation of the fats, oils, gums, resins, and sugars, he went on to find many uses for the peanut including milk. According to the National Peanut Board, “food products ranged from peanut lemon punch, chili sauce, caramel, peanut sausage, mayonnaise and coffee. Cosmetics included face powder, shampoo, shaving cream, and hand lotion. Insecticides, glue, charcoal, rubber, nitroglycerine, plastics and axle grease are just a few of the many valuable peanut products discovered by Dr. 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. 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. Henry Cantwell Wallace served from 1921 to 1924. He knew Carver personally because his son Henry A. Wallace and the researcher were friends. 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. 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, sweet potatoes, 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.
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. 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.
George Washington Carver did not get married during his lifetime.
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 $1,247,376 in 2022) in his savings to create the foundation
Upon returning home one day, Carver suffered a bad fall down a flight of stairs; he was found unconscious by a maid who took him to a hospital. Carver died on January 5, 1943, at the age of 79 from complications (anemia) resulting from this fall.
After a lifetime of achievements, recognitions, and awards, Dr. Carver died in 1943 and is buried on the campus at Tuskegee. Upon his death, Franklin D. Roosevelt sent this message, “All mankind are the beneficiaries of his discoveries in the field of agricultural chemistry. The things which he achieved in the face of early handicaps will for all time afford an inspiring example to youth everywhere. “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.”
Today, the Missouri Department of Agriculture is housed in the George Washington Carver Building in Jefferson City, Mo. On the wall in the front lobby, a plaque dedicated to Carver’s life reads, “A proud son of Missouri, a true humanitarian, a trailblazer in agricultural science, technology, and philanthropy. A role model for persistence, determination, imagination, and inspiration in all aspects of our lives.”
AWARDS AND HONORS
1923, Spingarn Medal from the NAACP, awarded annually for outstanding achievement.
1928, an 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
1947, George Washington Carver Area High School, named in his honor is opened by the Chicago Public Schools in the Riverdale/Far South Side area of Chicago, Illinois, United States.
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 university graduate.
1943, the US Congress designated January 5, the anniversary of his death, as George Washington Carver Recognition Day. Allegedly1999, USDA names a portion of its Beltsville, Maryland, campus the George Washington Carver Center.
2002, Iowa Award, the state’s highest citizen award.
2004, George Washington Carver Bridge, Des Moines, Iowa
2007, the Missouri Botanical Gardens has a garden area named in his honor, with a commemorative statue and material about his work
2022, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed legislation naming Feb. 1st every year as George Washington Carver Day in Iowa
Willowbrook Neighborhood Park in Willowbrook, California was renamed George Washington Carver Park in his honor.
Schools named for Carver :
The George Washington Carver Elementary School of the Compton Unified School District in Los Angeles County, California.
The George Washington Carver School of Arts and Science of the Sacramento City Unified School District in Sacramento, California
The Dr. George Washington Carver Elementary School is a Newark public school in Newark, New Jersey.
Taxa named after him include:
Colletotrichum carveri and Metasphaeria carveri were both named by Job Bicknell Ellis and Benjamin Matlack Everhart in 1902.
Cercospora carveriana, named by Pier Andrea Saccardo and Domenico Saccardo in 1906.
Taphrina carveri named by Anna Eliza Jenkins in 1939;[74] and Pestalotia carveri, named by E. F. Guba in 1961.
GEORGE CARVERS 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. The bill passed unanimously in both houses.
On July 14, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated $30,000 to 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 3⁄4-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 3 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
A 1951 Carver-Washington commemorative half dollar
Carver was featured on U.S. 1948 commemorative stamps. From 1951 to 1954, he was depicted on the commemorative Carver-Washington half-dollar coin along with Booker T. Washington. A second stamp honoring Carver, of face value 32¢, was issued on February 3, 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, he 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”.
In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed George Washington Carver as one of 100 Greatest African Americans.
In 2005, Carver’s research at the Tuskegee Institute was designated a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society.[80] 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. 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. The Carver Community Cultural Center, is a historic center located in San Antonio.