George Washington Carver was born in Diamond Grove, Missouri some time during the Civil War. He was born a slave to Moses and Sue Carver. Moses was a good owner. He treated his slaves like they were people, not animals. Throughout most of Carver’s childhood he was sick; consequently, Moses allowed Carver to stay inside and do work around the house. Working around the house gave Carver the opportunity to explore the land. Carver became intimate with nature.

Carver heard of Lincoln School in Ft. Scott, Kansas and wanted to move there. He begged Moses to let him go. Finally, Moses allowed him to go but would not pay his way through the school. So, Carver moved to Ft. Scott where the Watkins family adopted him. They gave him a place to live and helped him through school. Mrs. Watkins also taught him medicinal lessons from plants.

Carver loved Ft. Scott, but there was one incident that happened that changed Carver forever. One day while Carver was walking home from school he observed two law enforcement officers apprehending a Negro man outside of the jail. The two officers brutally beat the man, then poured coal oil all over him and proceeded to light him on fire. This incident scared Carver, and he fled the city moving to Olathe, Kansas. Here he lived and worked for Christopher and Lucy Seymour. Carver attended school for one semester. He then applied for Highland University and was accepted. Carver, being very excited about his acceptance, returned to Diamond Grove to visit his family. That would be the last time he ever went home.

When Carver left home, he went for an interview at Highland University; although he had previously been accepted, they rejected him because he was a black man.

Carver then moved to Ness County, Kansas where he owned a ranch; but he sold the ranch and moved to Wintersett, Iowa after not living long in Ness County.

In Wintersett, he lived with the Milhollands. They gave him much needed encouragement to go to school. He went to Indianola and applied at Simpson College. At Simpson College he studied painting and drawing. His painting teacher, Etta Budd, noticed his talent for painting plants and outdoors objects, and she recommended that he study botany. She encouraged this scientific field because she felt it was more practical, for a black man, than art.

Carver took Budd’s advice and applied and was accepted to Iowa State. In 1894 Carver received his bachelor’s degree in botany. Two years later he received a master’s in botany.

At age thirty-six, a man by the name of Booker T. Washington asked Carver to come to Tuskegee, Alabama to start an agriculture school. There he spent the rest of his life. Carver spent forty-seven years teaching at the Tuskegee Institute, a college for young black people.

When Carver arrived in Tuskegee, he noticed that the land in Alabama was washed and dried out because the cotton had sucked out all of its nutrients. This is when Carver developed the idea of crop rotation. He discovered that if farmers rotate the crops every season, each crop would put the nutrients back into the soil that the next crop would need. Rotation also kept the soil from drying out and washing away. Crop rotation is the concept that Carver taught the farmers in the community.

With Carver’s teachings, farmers began crop rotation, use of natural fertilizers, and deep planting. In addition, he also wrote forty-four bulletins for farm families. The bulletins included the latest techniques, preservation methods, and recipe variations.

Carver was also responsible for inventing some new synthetics such as marble, plywood, and stone veneers. He also invented the die still used today in the Crayola Crayons.

Carver’s inventions made him famous. Thomas Edison invited Carver to go work with him for 175,000 dollars per year. Joseph Stalin asked Carver to go to Russia and reorganize Russia’s cotton culture. Carver graciously turned them both down to stay in Tuskegee. Carver stayed for a small salary of only one thousand five hundred dollars a year. He would have that salary until he died. He was offered raises every year, but he refused to take them. Towards the end of his life Carver donated his life savings of thirty-three thousand dollars for the building of the Carver Scientist Foundation at Tuskegee.

On July 2, 1942 Carver and Henry Ford released information to the public about Carver’s discoveries. Carver was also involved in making the first car with the majority of the parts made from soybean oil. Soon after their announcement, the first car was mass-produced by Henry Ford.

On January 5, 1943, at the age of over eighty, Carver passed away. He was remembered as a man with a gentle, humble personality. He was also known as a religious man. He always said that God just showed him the materials. He gave credit for his accomplishments to God. Often times he would go outdoors and just listen and play with the plants just so he could listen to what God had to tell him. "God speaks to us through nature," Carver said. Many people say that God gave him the ability to see past this world into another.

Carver always tried to teach his students eight morals in life. They were:

Be clean both inside and out.

Neither look up to the rich nor down to the poor.

You lose, if need be, with out squealing.

Win without bragging

Always be considerate of women, children, and your elders.

Always be too brave to lie.

Always be too generous to cheat.

Always take your share of the world and let others have theirs.

For more information about the Dr. George Washington Carver and the museum, call 1-417-325-4151, or write to 5646 Carver, Diamond Grove MO.

Written by Greg Mowdy-Spring 2001