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george washington carver (dict)
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George Washington CarverGeorge Washington Carver (January 1, 1864 - January 5, 1943) was an American botanist who introduced crop rotation to southern U.S. agriculture and developed hundreds of uses for the peanut and other plants. Early Years Carver was born into slavery in the early 1860s, near Diamond Grove Missouri. His owner was a German immigrant named Moses Carver, who also owned his mother and brother. His father died in an accident when he was very young. When George was an infant, he and his mother were kidnapped by thieves who hoped to sell them elsewhere, a common practice. Carver tracked them down. When he was found, George was near death (his mother was lost). This episode caused a bout of respiratory disease that left him with a permanently weakened constitution. Because of this, he was unable to work as a hand and spent his time wandering the fields, drawn to the varieties of wild plants. He became so knowledgeable that he was known by the Carvers' neighbors as "the plant doctor". One day he was called to a neighbor's house to help with a plant in need. When he had fixed the problem, he was told to go into the kitchen to collect his reward. When he entered the kitchen, he saw no one. He did, however, see something that changed his life. He saw beautiful paintings of flowers on the walls of the room. From that moment on, he knew that he was going to be an artist as well as a botanist. After slavery was abolished, Carver and his wife raised George and his brother as their own, and encouraged the boy to continue his intellectual pursuits. When George was 12, he decided to strike out on his own, much to the Carvers' distress. He had set out to get an education, and his first destination was a school in a different town. When he reached the town, and to his dismay, the school had been closed for the night. As he had nowhere to stay, he slept in a nearby barn. By his own account, the next morning he met a kindly woman from whom he wished to rent a room. When he identified himself "Carver's George", as he had done his whole life, she replied that from now on, his name was "George Carver". They then struck a deal: He would be paid money for cooking for the family and he could go to school. He lived under the steps of the family porch until his money was sufficient to buy a shack. He was eventually forced to leave town because of a lynching of a black person. He promptly left, but still carried scars from this incident for the rest of his life. He earned his high-school diploma at Minneapolis High School in Kansas. He was accepted to Simpson College in 1887, and then transferred to Iowa State University (then Iowa State Agricultural College) where he earned bachelor's (1894) and master's (1896) degrees. In order to avoid confusion with another George Carver in his classes, he began to use the name George Washington Carver. While in college, he showed a strong aptitude for singing and art, as well as for science, and could possibly have chosen a career in any of the three fields. Later years In 1896 Carver came to the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in Alabama at the request of Booker T. Washington and specialized in botany. He became the director of agricultural research. Taking an interest in the plight of poor Southern farmers working with soil depleted by repeated crops of cotton, Carver advocated employing the nitrogen cycle by alternating cotton crops with legume planting, such as peanuts, to restore nitrogen to the soil. Thus, the cotton crop was improved and new cash crops added. He developed an agricultural extension system in Alabama to train farmers in raising these crops and an industrial research laboratory to develop uses for them. In order to make these new crops profitable, Carver devised numerous new uses for the new crops, including more than 300 uses for the peanut ranging from glue to printer's ink; however, contrary to popular belief, this list does not include peanut butter. He made similar investigations into uses for plants such as sweet potatoes and pecans. He once went to the United States Congress with a request to explain his ideas. They said that he had only ten minutes, as he was an African American. Carver started his report, and by the time those ten minutes were up, Carver had intrigued the men so much that the head congressman said, "Go on, brother. Your time is unlimited". Carver had great success in life, and was once even honoured by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR had donated $30,000 to a national monument to recognise George Washington Carver's many great contributions to the country and the world. Death and afterwards George Washington Carver died January 5, 1943. He had decided to not take the elevator this time, and fell down the stairs of the building. While he was unconscious, he was found by a maid, who took him to a hospital. Unfortunately, he died a few days later. See also Agricultural science: Boll Weevil, Crop rotation, Nitrogen cycle, Nitrogen fixation, Peanut, Peanut butter People: Booker T. Washington, Schools: Iowa State University, Simpson College, Tuskegee University Lists: List of African Americans, List of botanists, List of inventors, List of people from Alabama, List of people from Missouri, List of people on stamps of the United States Other: Spingarn Medal, USS George Washington Carver, USS George Washington Carver (SSBN-656) Carver, George Washington Carver, George Washington Carver, George Washington Carver, George Washington Carver, George Washington Carver, George Washington
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