FREE ESSAY ON GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER

GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER

 'It is not the style of clothes one wears, neither the kind of automobile one drives, nor
the amount of money one has in the bank, that counts. These mean nothing. It is simply
service that measures success.'--George Washington Carver. George Washington Carver paved
the way for agriculturists to come. He always went for the best throughout his whole
life. He didn't just keep the best for himself; he gave it away freely for the benefit of
mankind. Not only did he achieve his goal as the world's greatest agriculturist, but also
he achieved the equality and respect of all. George Washington Carver was born near
Diamond Grove, Missouri in 1864. He was born on a farm owned by Moses and Susan Carver.
He was born a sick, weak baby and was unable to work on the farm. His weak condition
started when a raiding party kidnapped him with his mom. He was returned to the Carver's
farm with whooping cough. His mother had disappeared and the identity of his father was
unknown, so the Carver's were left to care for him and his brother James. Here on the
farm is where George first fell in love with plants and Mother Nature. He had his own
little garden in the nearby woods where he would talk to the plants. He soon earned the
nickname, The Plant Doctor, and was producing his own medicines right on the farm.
George's formal education started when he was twelve. He had, however, tried to get into
schools in the past but was denied on the basis of race. No black school was available
locally so he was forced to move. He said Good-bye to his adopted parents, Susan and
Moses, and headed to Newton County in southwest Missouri. Here is where the path of his
education began. He studied in a one-room schoolhouse and worked on a farm to pay for it.
He ended up, shortly after, moving with another family to Fort Scott in Kansas. In
Kansas, he worked as a baker in a kitchen while he attended the High School. He paid for
his schooling with the money he earned from winning bake-off contests. From there he
moved all over bouncing from school to school. College entrance was a struggle again
because of racial barriers.2 At the age of thirty he gained acceptance to Simpson College
in Indianola, Iowa. He was the first black student accepted to this college. Here he
studied piano and art. With his ambition to pursue a science major, he transformed to
Iowa Agricultural College (Iowa State) in 1891. He received his Bachelors of Science in
1894 and his Masters in bacterial botany and agriculture in 1897. He learned about fungi
and the disease it causes. During his research he became known to agricultural centers
all over the country. He went on to become the first black faculty member at Iowa State.
He taught classes about soil conservation and chemurgy. In 1896, Booker T. Washington,
founder of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute for Negroes, convinced Carver to
go south and serve as the Tuskegee school director of agriculture. Here he would remain
for the rest of his life. Here, in Alabama, he did experiments with peanuts, sweet
potatoes, pecans, peas, and soybeans. He soon developed his crop rotation method where he
alternated the soil depleting cotton crops with these soil-enriching crops. Since America
depended mostly on southern agriculture at this time, his achievement was very important
and valuable to southern farmers. Since a combination of cotton, tobacco, and the Civil
War had depleted the soil of rich nutrients, Carver convinced all of the southern farmers
to adopt his technique. This helped the south to recover and produce not only more, but
bigger crops. He continued constantly working with peanuts, sweet potatoes, and pecans
trying to produce new products. He developed more than 300 products from the peanut
(including Peanut Butter), 175 from the sweet potato, and 60 from the pecan. He extracted
blue, purple, and red pigments from the clay soil of Alabama. He researched the
manufacture of synthetic marble from green wood shavings, rope from cornstalk fibers, and
veneers from the palmetto root. During WWI, he worked to replace the textile dyes that
were being imported from Europe. He ended up producing and replacing over 500 different
shades. In 1927, he invented a process for producing paints and stains from soybeans.
Three different patents were issued: US 1,522,176 Cosmetics and Producing the Same. Jan.
6,1925 George Washington Carver. Tuskegee, Alabama. US 1,541,478 Paint and Stain and
Producing the Same. June 9, 1925 George Washington Carver. Tuskegee, Alabama US 1,632,365
Producing Paints and Stains June 14, 1927 George Washington Carver. Tuskegee, Alabama.3
He did not patent or sell hundreds of his other inventions and products but gave them
away for the world to benefit from them. His most famous peanut product was peanut
butter. He received his doctorate from Simpson College in 1928. He became a member of the
Royal Society of Arts in London, England. He also received, by the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Spingarn Medal. He became part of the
U.S. Department of agriculture in 1935. In 1939, he was awarded the Roosevelt Medal for
restoring southern agriculture. George Washington Carver died at the age of 79
(1864-1943) in 1943 from anemia. He donated his whole life savings to Tuskegee University
for further study in agriculture. For his great accomplishments he was honored with many
things. In 1951, a national monument near his home was formed and named after him. This
was the first national monument to be named after an African American. He was given a
commemorative stamp and was induced into the NY University of Hall of Fame. He was the
second African American to make it into the hall of fame. George Washington Carver, in
the end, achieved his goal as the greatest agriculturists and so much more. Everything
that he invented, he invented for the benefit of mankind. He even gave away well over
half of his invented products. But most important, he changed the south from being a
one-crop land of cotton, to multi-crop farmlands, and gave the farmers hundreds of
profitable uses for their new crops.4 Truly an American hero of agriculturists, he paved
and planted the road for future one's to come.
Bibliography
Compton's Encyclopedia