Mickey Starling
ECB Publishing, Inc.
George Washington Carver should never have survived his infancy. Born sometime in 1864, he was born into a slave family. Fortunately, his owner, Moses Carver, was against slavery but was desperate for help with the family farm. Carver was known for treating his slaves as members of his family, something he would prove in due time.
While George was an infant, slave raiders kidnapped him, his mother, Mary and his sister. The young family was sold in Kentucky, but the elder Carver was determined to rescue them. He hired a man to locate them. However, he was only successful in finding George, who was traded for a horse. Some reports state the infant was thrown in the general direction of his rescuer, who was fortunate enough to catch him. It was a cold night's ride for young George, who was swaddled inside the coat of the man who returned him safely to Moses Carver.
Moses and his wife raised George and his brother, James, as their own children. James left his studies at an early age to pursue farming. George was sickly, so he was taught how to cook, do housework and maintain a garden. Early on, it was the plants that fascinated George. He became so gifted with formulating natural pesticides and soil conditioners that the local farmers dubbed him “the plant doctor.”
At age 11, Carver left home and began decades of schooling which culminated in earning a Master of Agriculture degree from Iowa State Agricultural School (now Iowa State University). Nothing about Carver's life ever seemed easy. Before earning his degree, he had been accepted at Highland College, in Kansas. He was later rejected when the administration discovered he was black. Oddly, it was a white couple who took him in and encouraged him to continue pursuing his education. Carver was the first African American to earn a Bachelor of Science degree.
The next pivotal moment for Carver came in 1896, when Carver received an offer from Tuskegee University's Booker T. Washington. Carver, who later added Washington's name to his, went on to establish an agricultural school at Tuskegee. His early years at Tuskegee were rocky, often because his teaching duties frequently got in the way of his research. Carver had a passion for helping poor southern farmers succeed. He often helped them by finding ways to cut their expenses. For example, Carver taught farmers to use acorns for pig feed, rather than using commercial feeds. He also instructed them on using swamp muck to enrich croplands, rather than using fertilizer.
Another pressing problem for farmers was soil depletion that was brought on by planting cotton. Carver discovered that peanuts, sweet potatoes or soybeans would replenish the soil and increase future cotton yields. This discovery saved the livelihoods of countless farmers. With the sudden rise in peanut crops, a new problem arose for Carver, namely a peanut surplus. Carver reportedly spent the early pre-dawn hours in prayer, and was said to have prayed for insight into possible uses for the peanut. Those prayers paid off, as Carver would later discover over 300 food, industrial and commercial products from peanuts, including Worcestershire sauce, punches, cooking oils, salad oil, cosmetics, soaps and wood stains. It would take many years for some of these inventions to find wide-spread application.
Carver's peanut fame, which never included the development of peanut butter, landed him before Congress in 1921, speaking on behalf of the peanut industry, which was seeking protective tariffs for their products. After his lengthy description of the many possibilities the peanut possessed, he received a standing ovation and the much-sought tariffs.
Carver spent the last two decades of his life promoting racial unity and nutrition. He had saved much of his income, which was designated for scholarships and other worthy causes after his death. He died at the age of 78, after falling down the steps of his home. He is buried alongside Booker T. Washington on the grounds of Tuskegee Institute. Washington's life was dedicated to helping others through his knowledge of science and his unwavering faith in God.
Much of the information from this article was taken from “George Washington Carver's Fame and Legacy,” on the history.com website.
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