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George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver (c. 1864 – January 5, 1943) was a botanical researcher and agronomy educator who worked in agricultural extension at the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, teaching former slaves farming techniques for self-sufficiency.
To bring education to farmers, Carver designed a mobile school. It was called a Jesup Wagon after the New York financier, Morris Ketchum Jesup,
who provided funding. In 1921, Carver spoke in favor of a peanut tariff before the House Ways and Means Committee. Given racial segregation and racial discrimination of the time, it was unusual for an African-American to be called as an expert. Carver's well-received testimony earned him national attention, and he became an unofficial spokesman for the peanut industry. Carver wrote 44 practical agricultural bulletins for farmers.
In the post-Civil-War South, an agricultural
monoculture of cotton had depleted the soil, and
in the early 1900s, the boll weevil destroyed
much of the cotton crop. Much of Carver's fame
was based on his research and promotion of
alternative crops to cotton, such as peanuts and
sweet potatoes. He wanted poor farmers to grow
alternative crops as both a source of their own
food and a cash crop. His most popular bulletin
contained 105 existing food recipes that used
peanuts. His most famous method of promoting the
peanut involved his creation of about 100
existing industrial products from peanuts,
including cosmetics, dyes, paints, plastics,
gasoline and nitroglycerin. His industrial
products from peanuts excited the public
imagination but none was a successful commercial
product. There are many myths about Carver,
especially the myth that his industrial products
from peanuts played a major role in
revolutionizing Southern agriculture.
Carver's most important accomplishments were in areas other than industrial products from peanuts, including agricultural extension education, improvement of racial relations, mentoring children, poetry, painting, religion, advocacy of sustainable agriculture and appreciation of plants and nature. He served as a valuable role model for African-Americans and an example of the importance of hard work, a positive attitude and a good education. His humility, humanitarianism, good nature, frugality and lack of economic materialism have also been widely admired.
One of his most important roles was that the fame of his achievements and many talents undermined the widespread stereotype of the time that the black race was intellectually inferior to the white race. In 1941, "Time" magazine dubbed him a "Black Leonardo," a reference to the white polymath Leonardo da
Vinci.
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