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GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER 
"Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses."
The exact date of George Washington Carver's birth is unknown, however, it is believed to be sometime around 1864. He was born the child of slave parents on the Moses Carver plantation in Diamond Grove, Missouri. His father died around the time of his birth, and while he was still an infant, Carver and his mother were taken by "slave raiders". Carver was returned to the plantation, reputedly in exchange for a $300 racehorse, however, his mother was never heard from again. He was raised by the plantation owners. Because he was too young and weak to work in the fields, he would help with the household chores and gardening. He developed a keen interest in horticulture and became known as the "plant doctor," helping neighbours with ailing plants. He learned to read and write at home and had a strong thirst for knowledge which eventually led him to Indianola, Iowa, in 1890, where he enrolled at Simpson College to study piano and painting. One of the art instructors at the college, Etta Budd recognized his horticultural talents and convinced him to pursue a career in agriculture. In 1891, George Washington Carver became the first black student to enroll at Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, where Etta Budd's father Joseph was head of the Department of Horticulture. The school is now known as Iowa State University. He completed his Bachelor's degree in botany and agriculture in 1894 and because of his excellence as a botanist and horticulturist, he was persuaded to stay on as a graduate student. He was appointed to the faculty and became Iowa State University's first African-American faculty member. He continued his bacteriological laboratory work in systematic botany, published several articles and gained national respect. In 1896, he completed his master's degree and left Iowa to join the faculty of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University) as the director of the Department of Agricultural Research, a tenure that would last for nearly 50 years. When he first arrived at Tuskegee, the agriculture department consisted of a cow, a barn and some chickens. With the aid of some of the students, he constructed a labratory and set about teaching the science of agriculture. Until this point, because of it's associations with slavery and sharecropping, students had very little interest in farming, but Carver's methods were seen to dignify the profession. He also had a strong desire to help the local black community and he created an outreach program in which he went out into the local rural farming community and taught farming methods that would help to increase crop production. At Tuskegee, he gained an international reputation for his research.  More famous results of his work included 325 different products that could be created from peanuts, 118 products from sweet potatoes and 75 from pecans. This research helped local farmers see that other crops could be grown as an alternative to cotton, as well as teaching them methods of soil improvement.
Because of the international aclaim that his work brought him, he was offered many opportunities to work at better-equipped and wealthier institutions, but he chose to remain in the South where he could best serve his own people. During his life, Carver created 500 agriculturally based inventions and he received many honors, including the dedication of the George Washington Carver Museum at Tuskegee in 1941, the Roosevelt Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Southern Agriculture in 1942, a national monument in Diamond Grove, Missouri. He was also elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans in 1977 and inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1990. George Washington Carver died on January 5,1943. Links To Other George Washington Carver Internet Resources: Encarta Africana - Carver, George Washington. The African America Registry - George Washington Carver, agri-science legend. Creative Quotations - George Washington Carver. Africa Within - George Washington Carver. Wikipedia - George Washington Carver. SIGN UP TO OUR EMAIL NEWSLETTER If you would like us to keep you updated with changes and improvements to thatsalabama.com, please enter your email address here: If you would like to support thatsalabama.com with a donation via paypal, please click on this button: |
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