George Washington Carver, was an African American agricultural scientist. He was also an inventor. He played a large role in american agriculture. He was one of the most well known black scientists of the early 20th century. Carver was orphaned and a slave in the civil war. After the Emancipation Proclamation, the man who had owned him, offered him to stay with them and raised him as a member of the family. Carver went to school in Kansas, far from home, where he was fostered by another family. He had to attend a school that allowed African Americans. Afterwards, he had attended Simpson college in Iowa, for music and art. As he was talented in drawing plants, his professor had encouraged him to pursue agricultural studies. As such, he then went to study botany in Iowa State. He was the first African American to be in the program. His success led him to do a masters and become the first African American faculty member there.
In 1896, he left to establish himself at the Tuskegee Institute, where the first principal had invited him to be the head of the agricultural department. There he taught crop rotation and alternatives such as peanuts, sweet potatoes and soybeans improving their soils for cotton cultivation. He had also designed a mobile classroom to teach farmers. Carver had also developed several products from the harvest that he had taught them, developing around 300 products from peanuts such as paste, flour, lotions and wood stains. His work largely helped develop the peanut market.
In 1921, he stood before congress, representing several important men in the peanut industry, asking for a tariff, imposing a tax on Chinese peanuts, talking about improving the peanut production in America . At the time, many men (mainly from the south) were furious as it was not common to have a person of colour give a presentation. Carver held strong and congress passed a pro-business tariff known as the Fordney-McCumber Tariff in 1922. Standing against congress made Carver a public figure. He then proceeded to help several leaders such as Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge and Franklin Roosevelt.
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 