George Washington Carver: life and scientific contributions

¶ … life of American scientist and educator George Washington Carver. Specifically it will discuss his accomplishments in science, and how his work continues to affect science today. George Washington Carver is one of America's most famous black scientists, and his life was dedicated to discovery, innovation, and teaching others. His life inspired many others, and his innovations continue to influence science even today.

George Washington Carver is a very significant American for many reasons. However, because he was born a slave, some of the early information about his life is simply unavailable. Most biographers think he was born in late 1860 or early 1861 near Diamond Grove, Missouri, and he was the son of slaves. We do know he died on January 5, 1943, at Tuskegee, Alabama. One biographer notes, "He and his mother were kidnapped in a bushwhacker raid. Carver was rescued (in exchange for a racehorse), but he never saw his mother again. His father died before he was born" (Gilmore). After that, his former master took him to his farm in Missouri, where he raised him until Carver was around 12 years old.

During his time on the farm, he taught himself to read, and he discovered he loved learning, too. Because of this, he left the farm and traveled over 100 miles to the nearest elementary school that admitted black students. Then he went all the way to Kansas to attend high school. After he graduated, he hoped to attend college, and applied at Highland University, a small Kansas school. The administration admitted him without an interview, but would not let him attend when they discovered he was black. Finally, he gained admittance to Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, but it was not until he was 30, in 1890, where he was the first black student to graduate from the school. Biographer Gilmore continues, "He later obtained a Master's Degree in agriculture from Iowa State University. He excelled in his classes and research, and in 1896 Booker T. Washington asked him to come to Tuskegee Institute to lead Tuskegee's new Department of Agriculture" (Gilmore). It was at Tuskegee that he first began his studies in biology that would lead to his research in a variety of agricultural subjects, including peanuts, pecans, and sweet potatoes, among others.

He wanted to combat waste in agriculture, especially in the poor rural South, and his research often concentrated on ways to use items that many people thought were unusable. Another biographer writes, "He was a humanitarian whose primary goal was, as he put it, 'to help the farmer and fill the poor man's empty dinner pail'" (Author not Available 4). Most of the cash crops in the South were cotton and tobacco, which depleted the soil. Carver encouraged farmers to plant peanuts to help enrich the depleted soil, but they did not know what to do with the peanuts after they grew them. Carver went to work in his laboratory to find uses, and find them he did. Gilmore writes, "Carver discovered more than 300 peanut-related products, including milk, cream, cheese, buttermilk, instant coffee, face powder, ink, dyes, vinegar, soap, wood stains and creosote" (Gilmore). He went on to discover a wide variety of products that used sweet potatoes and other items grown in the South, which helped literally recreate agriculture in the early 20th century.

One of the ways Carver's works continue to influence agriculture today is in the use of plant and crop rotation, which is one of the most common methods of rejuvenating the soil today, and Carver discovered it. Another biographer continues, "Carver understood that cotton had depleted the soil of the nitrogen that plants need in order to grow, and he knew that legumes, such as peanuts and peas, had a symbiotic relationship with bacteria that could take inert nitrogen molecules from the atmosphere and convert them into a form plants can use" (Author not Available 5). He also championed sustainable agriculture, something that has become increasingly popular in farms around the world today, because it helps farms become more profitable and environmentally sound at the same time.