George Washington Carver, the "Peanut Man" and more
The exact date of birth for George Washington Carver is unknown, presumed to be January or June of 1864, just a year before the Civil War (War Between the States) ended. What is known is that he was born into slavery in a one-room shack on a 240-acre farm somewhere near Diamond, Missouri in the southwest corner of the state. He was captured along with his mother and sister by slave raiders and resold into slavery in Kentucky, but his original slaveowner Moses Carver got him back. George's father had died before he was born, and his mother was not recovered by his Missouri slaveowner. A year later, he was freed, but he and his brother remained on the Carver farm.
What is left of Carver's birthplace (nps.gov) He was too frail to work in the fields, though. Moses' wife taught him how to cook, mend clothes, embroider, wash clothes, and do gardening, as well as how to prepare simple herbal medicines. He walked 10 miles to attend a school for blacks at age 11. He stayed in the home of a Black couple Andrew and Mariah Watkins, where he helped around the house. He had always referred to himself as "Carver's George", and Mariah suggested he take that as his family name.
At 13, he moved to Fort Scott, Kansas to attend academy there, and after moving around to other towns, he finally graduated from high school in Minneapolis, Kansas in 1880. At that time, there was confusion in the post office with his name and another George Carver, so he randomly chose the middle initial W to clearly identify himself. It was just a letter, and when someone asked if it was for Washington, he adopted the full name.
For two years beginning in 1886, he homesteaded in Kansas with a small conservatory of plants and flowers and a rock collection. He also raised rice, corn, maize and various fruit trees, forest trees, and shrubbery. Spurred on by Mariah Watkins telling him earlier to "learn all you can, then go back out into the world and give your learning back to the people", George enrolled in Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa in 1888. Although he wanted to study art and music, a teacher there convinced him that his talents were more suited toward studying botany, so me moved to Iowa State University (Ames).
In 1894, Carver became the first Black American to get a Bachelor of Science degree. He had studied fungal infections of soybean plants, and his teachers encourage him to stay on for a master's degree in 1896. His reputation was known as an excellent researcher in identifying and treating plant diseases.
Another Black man, Booker T. Washington, had been born into slavery in 1856. Although he never graduated from college, he made a name for himself at Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia. The founder was a white Hawaiian missionary's son named Samuel Chapman Armstrong, who had voluntarily commanded all-Black regiments in the Civil War. Armstrong fervently believed that the fate of freedmen depended on getting a practical and utilitarian education which also gave them character and morality. So, his all-Black Institute suited Booker T. Washington, and after his graduation, he appointed Booker as principal of the newly established (1881) Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (later Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University) in Alabama. Booker bought a plantation where students worked and studied, and he wanted to set up an agricultural department and research facility. Since he wanted only fellow Blacks to teach, and George Washington Carver was the only one in the country with an advanced degree in that field, he asked him to join in 1896.
Carver wasn't well liked by other teachers at first, because of his high salary and because Booker allowed him a second dormitory room to store his plant collection. He was administrator of the Agricultural Experiment Station farms, where he managed the production and sale of its farm products to generate income for the school. But he was not good at that. He was also expected to teach, be a member of several committees, and ensure the school’s toilets and sanitary facilities worked properly. He didn't like teaching or any of the other duties, and he argued for years over many of these things with Washington. Instead, he wanted to do research to help poor farmers in the South.
Carver, second from right, at Tuskegee (1902)
Despite being at odds with Washington, he was praised by him as "one of the most thoroughly scientific men of the Negro race with whom I am acquainted". When Washington died in 1915, his replacement removed many administrative responsibilities from Carver and let him focus on what he was good at.
He had already taught poor farmers to save money by feeding acorns to hogs instead of commercial feed. Carver also showed them how to improve soil with swamp muck instead of fertilizers. Cotton was the staple crop of the South, but Carver's studies on soil science showed how it depleted valuable nutrients from the soil. To replenish those nutrients, especially nitrogen, he suggested rotating with sweet potatoes, soybeans, or peanuts, and these worked well to improve subsequent cotton yields.
In 1906, Carver used donations from Morris Jesup, a New York banker, to invent the Jesup Agricultural Wagon, or "movable school". He designed the equipment and lessons to educate farmers and sharecroppers how to grow crops, such as sweet potatoes, peanuts, soybeans, and pecans. It contained farming equipment, soil samples, plants, recipes, a revolving churn, butter mold, cultivator, planters, a cotton chopper, plows, different types of fertilizers, seeds, food stuffs, a milk tester, and a cream separator, as well as a number of charts and demonstration materials to be used as teaching tools.
Carver's "Farmers' College on Wheels" would first visit farms to demonstrate modern plowing
practices or cutting edge technology in animal husbandry or plant varieties, fertilizer applications,
and soil testing. Farmers' wives were also given lessons in raising poultry, cooking, preserving and canning, home maintenance, and health. After that, he would park the wagon in the center of town to answer questions. People raved over this innovation in farming education, and an average of 2,000 people per month were reached in the first year. Eventually, white plantation owners asked him to come. The Jesup wagon is still being used today in various forms.
Despite Carver's success in improving cotton yields with his concept of crop rotation, there was an unexpected problem. People had little use for peanuts, soybeans, and sweet potatoes. So, he developed edible products like flour and vinegar as well as other things such as stains, dyes, paints, and writing ink from sweet potatoes. His major success, and what he seems to be remembered for most of all, is his
325 uses for peanuts. These ranged from food byproducts to industrial and commercial products.
- milk
- Worcestershire sauce
- chili sauce
- punches
- cooking oils
- salad oil
- paper
- cosmetics
- shaving cream
- glue
- soaps
- wood stains
Oddly enough, the list does not include peanut butter! That honor goes to Canadian chemist
Marcellus Gilmore Edson, who patented peanut paste in 1884 (although
Aztecs and Incas had been roasting and mashing peanuts centuries earlier). Carver also investigated peanut-based medicines, such as antiseptics, laxatives, and goiter medications. Later, by 1940, peanuts ranked as one of the six main crops in the country and became the second-most popular cash crop in the South after cotton.
For some reason, Carver thought peanut oil would be helpful in combatting polio, which was rampant in the 1930s. He advocated for its use in massages on polio patients. Patients said it helped, and even President Franklin Roosevelt gave it a try, but there was no scientific basis for the results. People later attributed them to the massages alone.
Carver applying peanut oil massage (from video on history.com) Despite all of these products and their uses, Carver filed for only 3 patents. His reason was simple:
"One reason I never patent my products is that if I did, it would take so much time I would get nothing else done. But mainly I don't want any discoveries to benefit specific favored persons. I think they should be available to all peoples."
Even though he had become famous for his agricultural successes, with many bulletins written on farming methods, cooking, and nutrition, he wore only shabby tattered clothing. This didn't help his
presentation at the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee who were seeking tariff protections on peanuts, but overall his talk did win them over.
Click on image for bigger view.
In 1937, he met Henry Ford at a meeting of applied chemistry and industrial products. They hit it off, and Carver gave him ideas of creating a binder for car paint, enabling more than just 2 colors to be used. They also discussed uses for crops to make ethanol fuel. In the 1940s, with Carver's ideas, Ford also made a plastic car body out of soybeans and a synthetic rubber from goldenrod. Ford later built a school for Blacks and named it after Carver. Ford also donated an entire laboratory to Carver for his research.
Ford and Carver at the Tuskegee Institute
Other notable figures that played roles in Carvers life included the following:
- Thomas Edison, who tried to lure Carver away from the Tuskegee Institute to work with him
- Gandhi, who asked for nutritional advice for Indian agriculture
- Joseph Stalin, who asked Carver to help with agrarian reforms
Carver has been honored many times over, starting with the
George Washington Carver National Monument. His image has also been on two U.S. stamps (1948, 1998), and together with Booker T. Washington on the half dollar coin (1951-54).
Stamps and coins with Carver's image
George Washington Carver died on January 5, 1943 at 79 from complications of a fall down a flight of stairs. He was buried next to Booker T. Washington at the Tuskegee Institute.
Carver, 1938
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