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Agricultural ScientistGeorge Washington Carver was born in slavery in Diamond Grove, Missouri, and soon lost his father, who died in a wagon accident. One night before his first birthday, George and his mother were taken from their cabin by a band of slave raiders, who planned to sell them to another plantation far away. The abductors tied their captives and on horseback led them over the Ozarks toward Arkansas.

To get them back, their original master, Moses Carver posted a reward. Although he was quite poor, he offered a tract of land for return of the mother, a horse for the child. George’s mother was probably sold to another master, but the infant, because he was sickly, was abandoned on a roadside. A passerby found the baby and returned him to Moses, who, as promised, turned over the horse as reward.

The childless Carvers were kind people who gave George and his brother their last name and raised them almost as their own sons. George became an avid student with a thirsting curiosity about plants. He wondered why flowers had different colors and why leaves had many patterns. He loved to explore the gentle miracle of life and growth in the soil. By the time he was 13, he had become an experienced farm hand, but he wanted to continue in school.

Since there were no high schools locally, he hitchhiked to Kansas to enroll in a school there. After school, he worded at farm chores for his board.

After graduation, George was determined to go on to college. Turned down by many schools because of his color, he was finally admitted as the first Negro student of Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa. Because of his interest in botany, he later transferred to Iowa Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) and worked as a janitor while earning his degree in agricultural science. In 1896, George received his mater’s degree from the same school and was named the first Negro member of the faculty. He had majored in botany and, as assistant instructor in that department, had full use of the greenhouse.

The Carver skill with growing things became well known and job offers began to come from a number of Southern Negro colleges. The offer George accepted was from Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee Institute. The position was head of the agricultural research and teacher of natural sciences.

Tuskegee provided young Carver with his own laboratory. The work he did in that laboratory during the rest of his life developed new kinds of agriculture that would enrich the harvests of mankind everywhere.

Carver’s discoveries are almost innumerable. The driving force behind them was his determination to shift Southern farming away from "King" cotton. He knew that cotton was a risky crop, not as profitable as it once had been, and that it drained vitality from the soil. Carver began to experiment with other crops that might grow well in Southern soil. He focused upon the peanut and the sweet potato.

A religious man, Carver once described in a lecture how he prayed for direction. He said he asked God about the entire universe and was told he asked too much. He asked about man’s destiny. Again, he got the same reply. Finally, he asked about the peanut. This time, he said, the revelations came.

All told, Dr. Carver used the peanut to develop more than 300 products. Incredibly, they include milk, cream, butter, cheese, condiments, coffee, plastics, paper, paint, stains, insulating boards, flour, linoleum, ink, cooking oil and, of course, peanut butter.

From the sweet potato he developed 118 products, including starch, tapioca, imitation ginger and coconut, syrup, breakfast food, instant coffee, molasses, rope, shoe-black and library paste.

Other Carver developments were synthetic marble from sawdust, plastics from wood shavings and writing paper from wisteria vines.

Throughout his life, Dr. Carver remained dedicated to his work and shunned the limelight. He refused to patent any of his discoveries, saying, "God gave them to me, how can I sell them to someone else?" He cared little about wealth and never accepted salary raises at Tuskegee.

George Washington Carver held honorary degrees, spoke before Congressional leaders in Washington, was honored by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and was a friend of the famous.

Ten years after his death, the United States government acquired the Missouri farm which was Carver’s birthplace and dedicated it as a national shrine. The Carver epitaph reads: "He could have added fortune to fame, but, caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world."

E-mail: ehaynie@swbell.net