FREE ESSAY ON GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER

GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER

George Washington Carver
American educator and an outstanding innovator in the agricultural sciences. Carver was
born of slave parents near Diamond, Missouri. He left the farm where he was born when he
was about ten years old and eventually settled in Minneapolis, Kansas, where he worked
his way through high school.
Following his graduation in 1894 from Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts
(now Iowa State University), Carver joined the college faculty and continued his studies,
specializing in bacteriological laboratory work in systematic botany. In 1896 he became
director of the Department of Agricultural Research at Tuskegee Normal and Industrial
Institute (now Tuskegee University), where he began an exhaustive series of experiments
with peanuts. Carver developed several hundred industrial uses for peanuts, sweet
potatoes, and soybeans and developed a new type of cotton known as Carver's hybrid. His
discoveries induced southern farmers to raise other crops in addition to cotton. He also
taught methods of soil improvement.
In recognition of his accomplishments, Carver was awarded the Spingarn Medal in 1923 by
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1935 he was appointed
collaborator in the Division of Plant Mycology and Disease Survey of the Bureau of Plant
Industry of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 1940 he donated all his savings to the
establishment of the George Washington Carver Foundation at Tuskegee for research in
natural science. Carver died at Tuskegee, on January 5, 1943. His birthplace was
established as the George Washington Carver National Monument in 1943.