biography
| name: |
Carver, George Washington
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1861–1943)
|
| biography:
| Agricultural chemist, educator, and botanist, born near Diamond Grove, Missouri, USA. Born to slave parents, he began his education at age 14 and earned a BS and MS in agriculture (1894, 1896) from Iowa State College. He directed the agricultural research department at Tuskegee Institute, Alabama (1896–1943), teaching and pioneering an extension programme of ‘movable schools’ to train black farmers in agriculture and home economics. Aiming to revitalize and conserve depleted soil, he influenced the southern shift from single-crop to diversified agriculture by developing numerous products made from peanuts, sweet potatoes, and other crops, many of them commercially viable. He developed a hybrid cotton and was a noted collector of fungi. Working with very limited resources outside the white scientific establishment, he published little more than his 44 Tuskegee Experiment Station bulletins (1898–1942) and, wishing his work to be widely available, obtained only three patents; nevertheless he became a researcher of international stature. He chose not to challenge the system of segregation that existed during his lifetime, but became an outstanding example of what African-Americans could accomplish. |
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