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George Washington Carver was born in around 1864 to enslaved parents Mary and Giles in what is
now known as Diamond, Missouri. A week after his birth, George was kidnapped along with his sister
and mother by raiders from Arkansas.
The three were sold in Kentucky, and out of all of them, infant George was the only one successfully
located and recovered by an agent his owner, Moses Carver, had sent out to find them.
Once slavery was abolished, Moses Carver and his wife Susan decided to raise George and his older
brother James as their own. Susan Carver taught George to read and write. Since there was no local
school that allowed African Americans, George traveled 10 miles to attend a school for black children.
It was around this time that the boy began to officially identify himself as George “Carver.”
Carver attended a series of schools before receiving his diploma at Minneapolis High School in
Minneapolis, Kansas.
George was accepted to Highland College in Kansas, but was rejected once the college
administrators were made aware of his race. Carver then homesteaded a claim where he conducted
biological experiments and compiled a geological collection.
In 1890, Carver studied art and music as Simpson College in Iowa, where a teacher took notice of his
natural talent for painting and drawing botanical samples (flowers, plants). He was encouraged to
move to Ames and study botany at Iowa State Agricultural College, and in 1891, Carver became the
first black student at the institution.
After Carver’s graduation, Booker T. Washington hired Carver to head the Agriculture Department of
Tuskegee Institute in 1896. Carver taught methods of crop rotation, and urged farmers to replenish
their soils by alternating cotton crops with plantings of sweet potatoes and legumes such as peanuts
and soybeans.
In 1920, Carver delivered a speech before the Peanut Growers Association about the potential of
peanuts, and showcased over a hundred peanut products. The following year, he testified before
Congress in support of a tariff on imported peanuts, and Congress passed the tariff in 1922.
Carver’s prominence as a scientific genius made him one of the most renowned African American
intellectuals of his time, even before his testimony. President Theodore Roosevelt admired his work
and sought his advice on agricultural matters in the US, and back in 1916, he was made a member of
the British Royal Society of Arts—an honor not commonly awarded to Americans.
Carver used his celebrity to promote Tuskegee, peanuts, and the possibilities for racial harmony in
America.
George Washington Carver died on January 5, 1943, after a bad fall down a flight of stairs.
Carver appeared on U.S. commemorative postal stamps in 1948 and 1998, as well as a half-dollar
coin minted between 1951 and 1954. Numerous schools bear his name, along with two United States
military vessels.
In 2005, the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis opened a George Washington Carver Garden
which includes a life-size statue of the garden’s namesake.
These honors are proof of Carver’s living legacy as an icon of African American achievement, as well
as American ingenuity in general. His life is a testament of the power of education, even for those
born into difficult situations.
“Education is the key to unlock the golden doors of freedom.”—George Washington Carver
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