George Washington Carver#References

File: Moses Carver Farm (7100120493).jpg (built in 1881), near the place where George Carver lived as a youth]]

Carver was born into slavery, in Diamond Grove, (now Diamond, Newton County, Missouri), near Crystal Palace, sometime in the early 1860s. The date of his birth is uncertain and was not known to Carver because it was before slavery was abolished in Missouri, which occurred in January 1865, during the American Civil War. His enslaver, Moses Carver, descended from a family of immigrants of German or English descent,{{Cite web|url=http://npshistory.com/publications/gwca/hrs.pdf|title=HE SHALL DIRECT THY PATHS : THE EARLY LIFE OF GEORGE W. CARVER|last=Gart|first=Jason|date=2014|publisher=National Park Service|accessdate=19 February 2023}} "Some writers have indicated that the Carvers emigrated from Germany, while others have argued that they were of English descent.", page 1. had purchased George's parents, Mary and Giles, from William P. McGinnis on October 9, 1855, for $700 (~${{Format price|{{Inflation|index=US-GDP|value=700|start_year=1855}}}} in {{Inflation/year|US-GDP}}).McMurry (1982), George Washington Carver, pp. 9–10.

Giles died before George was born and when he was a week old, he, his sister, and his mother were kidnapped by night raiders from Arkansas. George's brother, James, was rushed to safety from the kidnappers. The kidnappers sold the trio in Kentucky. Moses Carver hired John Bentley to find them, but he found only the infant George. Moses negotiated with the raiders to gain the boy's return and rewarded Bentley. After slavery was abolished, Moses Carver and his wife, Susan, raised George and his older brother, James, as their own children. They encouraged George to continue his intellectual pursuits, and "Aunt Susan" taught him the basics of reading and writing.{{citation |editor1-first=Richard |editor1-last=Rennert |others=Coretta Scott King (introduction) |title=Profiles of Great Black Americans: Pioneers of Discovery |year=1994 |publisher=Chelsea House Publishers |location=New York |isbn=978-0791020678 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/pioneersofdiscov00renn/page/26 26–32] |url=https://archive.org/details/pioneersofdiscov00renn/page/26}}

Black people were not allowed at the public school in Diamond Grove. George decided to go to a school for black children 10 miles (16 km) south, in Neosho. When he reached the town, he found the school closed for the night. He slept in a nearby barn. By his own account, the next morning he met a kind woman, Mariah Watkins, from whom he wished to rent a room. When he identified himself as "Carver's George", as he had done his whole life, she replied that from now on his name was "George Carver". George liked Mariah Watkins and her words, "You must learn all you can, then go back out into the world and give your learning back to the people", made a great impression on him.{{cite book|last1=Abrams|first1=Dennis|title=George Washington Carver: Scientist and Educator|publisher=Chelsea House Publications|isbn=978-0791097175|pages=[https://archive.org/details/georgewashington00abra/page/16 16]|year=2008|url=https://archive.org/details/georgewashington00abra/page/16}}

At age 13, because he wanted to attend the academy there, he moved to the home of another foster family, in Fort Scott, Kansas.{{Cite web |date=2022-02-11 |title=Black History Month: When George Washington Carver came to Olathe |url=https://www.jocogov.org/newsroom/black-history-month-when-george-washington-carver-came-olathe |access-date=2024-05-18 |website=Johnson County Kansas |language=en}} After witnessing the killing of a black man by a group of white people, Carver left the city. He attended a series of schools before earning his diploma at Minneapolis High School in Minneapolis, Kansas.{{Cite web |title=Lucy Seymour |url=https://www.nps.gov/gwca/learn/education/upload/Grade-4-Bio-Cards_Lucy-Seymour.pdf |access-date=2024-05-18 |website=National Park Service}}

During his time spent in Minneapolis, there was another George Carver in town, which caused confusion over receiving mail. Carver chose a middle initial at random and began requesting letters to him be addressed to George W. Carver. Someone once asked if the "W" stood for Washington, and Carver grinned and said, "Why not?" However, he never used Washington as his middle name, and signed his name as either George W. Carver or simply George Carver.Elliot, Lawrence, Beyond Fame or Fortune (Book Section), Reader's Digest, May 1965, p. 272.

File:Carver1web.jpg

Carver applied to several colleges before being accepted at Highland University in Highland, Kansas. When he arrived, they refused to let him attend because of his race.{{Cite book| publisher = Compass Point Books| location = Minneapolis, MN| isbn = 978-0756518820| last = Burgan| first = Michael| title = George Washington Carver: Scientist, Inventor, and Teacher| date = 2007| page = [https://archive.org/details/georgewashington0000burg/page/37 37]| url = https://archive.org/details/georgewashington0000burg/page/37}}{{Cite book| publisher = ABC-CLIO |location=Santa Barbara, CA| isbn = 978-0313347962| last = Kremer| first = Gary R.| title = George Washington Carver: A Biography| date = 2011|page=21}} In August 1886, Carver traveled by wagon with J. F. Beeler from Highland to Eden Township in Ness County, Kansas.[http://skyways.lib.ks.us/counties/NS/gwcarver.html George Washington Carver: Scientist, Scholar, and Educator] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090212103355/http://skyways.lib.ks.us/counties/NS/gwcarver.html |date=February 12, 2009}} from the "Blue Skyways" website of the Kansas State Library. He homesteaded a claimSoutheast Quarter of Section 4, Township 19 South, Range 26 West of the Sixth Principal Meridian, Ness County, Kansas. near Beeler, where he maintained a small conservatory of plants and flowers and a geological collection. He manually plowed {{convert|17|acre|m2}} of the claim, planting rice, corn, Indian corn and garden produce, as well as various fruit trees, forest trees, and shrubbery. He also earned money by odd jobs in town and worked as a ranch hand.

In early 1888, Carver obtained a $300 (~${{Format price|{{Inflation|index=US|value=300|start_year=1888}}}} in {{Inflation/year|US}}) loan at the Bank of Ness City for education. By June he left the area. In 1890, Carver started studying art and piano at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa.{{cite web |title=George Washington Carver

|url=https://simpson.edu/dunn-library/archives-special-collections/george-washington-carver |access-date=February 1, 2021

|publisher=Simpson College |work=Dunn Library Archives & Special Collections

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081016085253/http://www.simpson.edu/library/research/carver.html |archive-date=October 16, 2008 |url-status=live}}

His art teacher, Etta Budd, recognized Carver's talent for painting flowers and plants; she encouraged him to study botany at Iowa State Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) in Ames.

When he began there in 1891, he was the first black student at Iowa State.{{Cite web|url=https://digitalcollections.lib.iastate.edu/george-washington-carver/biography|title=George Washington Carver Bio|website=Digital Collections, Iowa State University|language=en-us|access-date=November 19, 2018|archive-date=February 5, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180205021632/http://digitalcollections.lib.iastate.edu/george-washington-carver/biography|url-status=live}} Carver's bachelor's thesis for a degree in Agriculture was "Plants as Modified by Man", dated 1894.{{cite web |url=http://cdm16001.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15031coll7/id/287/ |author=Geo. W. Carver |title=Plants as Modified by Man. |year=1894 |access-date=February 18, 2015 |archive-date=February 18, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150218094553/http://cdm16001.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15031coll7/id/287/ |url-status=live}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.admissions.iastate.edu/distinguished_alumni.php|title=Distinguished Alumni|website=Iowa State University, Office of Admissions|language=en|access-date=November 19, 2018|archive-date=July 1, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200701203848/https://www.admissions.iastate.edu/distinguished_alumni.php|url-status=live}} Iowa State University professors Joseph Budd and Louis Pammel convinced Carver to continue there for his master's degree. Carver did research at the Iowa Agricultural and Home Economics Experiment Station under Pammel during the next two years. His work at the experiment station in plant pathology and mycology first gained him national recognition and respect as a botanist. Carver received his Master of Science degree in 1896. Carver taught as the first African American faculty member at Iowa State.{{Cite web |title=History and Traditions - Iowa State University |url=https://www.iastate.edu/life-at-iowa-state/history-and-traditions |access-date=2024-05-18 |website=www.iastate.edu |language=en}}

Despite occasionally being addressed as "doctor", Carver never received an official doctorate, and in a personal communication with Pammel, he noted that it was a "misnomer", given to him by others due to his abilities and their assumptions about his education.{{cite book |last1=Kremer |first1=Gary |title=George Washington Carver: A Biography |date=2011 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |location=Santa Barbara, CA |page=115}} Though he did not have an earned doctorate, both Simpson College and Selma University awarded him honorary doctorates of science in his lifetime.{{cite book |last1=Abrams |first1=Dennis |last2=Adair |first2=Gene |title=George Washington Carver: Scientist and Educator |date=2008 |publisher=Infobase Publishing |page=104}} In addition, Iowa State awarded him a posthumous doctor of humane letters degree in 1994.{{cite book |editor1-last=Kremer |editor1-first=Gary |title=George Washington Carver: In His Own Words, Second Edition |date=2017 |publisher=University of Missouri Press |location=Columbia, MO}}

File:George Washington Carver, ca. 1902.jpg in this {{circa|1902}} photograph taken by Frances Benjamin Johnston.]]{{Redirect|George Washington Carver at Tuskegee Institute|3=George Washington Carver at Tuskegee Institute (film)|the film}}

In 1896, Booker T. Washington, the first principal and president of the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), invited Carver to head its Agriculture Department. Carver taught there for 47 years, developing the department into a strong research center and working with two additional college presidents during his tenure. He taught methods of crop rotation, introduced several alternative cash crops for farmers that would also improve the soil of areas heavily cultivated in cotton, initiated research into crop products (chemurgy), and taught generations of black students farming techniques for self-sufficiency.{{Cite web |title=George Washington Carver (U.S. National Park Service) |url=https://www.nps.gov/people/george-washington-carver.htm |access-date=2024-05-18 |website=www.nps.gov |language=en}}

Carver designed a mobile classroom to take education out to farmers. He called it a "Jesup wagon" after the New York financier and philanthropist Morris Ketchum Jesup, who provided funding to support the program.[http://www.cr.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/tuskegee/gwcwagon.htm "The first Jesup Wagon"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130128200833/http://www.cr.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/tuskegee/gwcwagon.htm |date=January 28, 2013}}, George Washington Carver Museum, Tuskegee University Historic Site, National Park Service website.

To recruit Carver to Tuskegee, Washington gave him an above average salary and two rooms for his personal use, although both concessions were resented by some other faculty. Because he had earned a master's in a scientific field from a "white" institution, some faculty perceived him as arrogant.McMurry (1982), pp. 45–47. Unmarried faculty members normally had to share rooms, with two to a room, in the spartan early days of the institute.

One of Carver's duties was to administer the Agricultural Experiment Station farms. He had to manage the production and sale of farm products to generate revenue for the institute. He soon proved to be a poor administrator and clashed with other faculty members, especially George Ruffin Bridgeforth.{{Cite book |last=McMurry |first=Linda O. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hlMkIgwg9KEC |title=George Washington Carver: Scientist and Symbol |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1981 |isbn=978-0-19-503205-5 |location=New York |pages=59–161 |language=en-US}} In 1900, Carver complained that the physical work and the letter-writing required were too much.Louis R. Harlan, Raymond Smock (eds), [https://books.google.com/books?id=L8AjNZnO1ZMC&q=Harlan,+GW+Carver The Booker T. Washington Papers: 1895–98] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160509182648/https://books.google.com/books?id=L8AjNZnO1ZMC&dq=Harlan,+GW+Carver&source=gbs_navlinks_s |date=May 9, 2016}}, University of Illinois Press, 1975, Vol. 5, p. 481.

In 1904, an Institute committee reported that Carver's reports on yields from the poultry yard were exaggerated, and Washington confronted Carver about the issue. Carver replied in writing, "Now to be branded as a liar and party to such hellish deception it is more than I can bear, and if your committee feel that I have willfully lied or [was] party to such lies as were told my resignation is at your disposal."Harlan, Vol. 8, p. 95. During Washington's last five years at Tuskegee, Carver submitted or threatened his resignation several times: when the administration reorganized the agriculture programs,Harlan, Volume 10, p. 480. when he disliked a teaching assignment,Harlan, Vol. 12, p. 95. to manage an experiment station elsewhere,Harlan, Vol. 12, pp. 251–252. and when he did not get summer teaching assignments in 1913–14.Harlan, Vol. 12, p. 201.Harlan, Vol. 13, p. 35. In each case, Washington smoothed things over.

File:George Washington Carver by Frances Benjamin Johnston.jpg, 1906]]

Carver started his academic career as a researcher and teacher. In 1911, Washington wrote a letter to him complaining that Carver had not followed orders to plant particular crops at the experiment station. This revealed Washington's micro-management of Carver's department, which he had headed for more than 10 years by then. Washington at the same time refused Carver's requests for a new laboratory, research supplies for his exclusive use, and respite from teaching classes. Washington praised Carver's abilities in teaching and original research but said this about his administrative skills:

When it comes to the organization of classes, the ability required to secure a properly organized and large school or section of a school, you are wanting in ability. When it comes to the matter of practical farm managing which will secure definite, practical, financial results, you are wanting again in ability.

In 1911, Carver complained that his laboratory had not received the equipment which Washington had promised 11 months before. He also complained about Institute committee meetings.Harlan, Vol. 4, p. 239. Washington praised Carver in his 1911 memoir, My Larger Education: Being Chapters from My Experience.[http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/washeducation/menu.html Booker T. Washington, 1856–1915 My Larger Education: Being Chapters from My Experience] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070213060503/http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/washeducation/menu.html |date=February 13, 2007}}, 1911. Documenting the American South. Washington called Carver "one of the most thoroughly scientific men of the Negro race with whom I am acquainted".{{Cite web |url=http://www.nps.gov/archive/gwca/expanded/auto_bio.htm |title=GWC {{!}} His Life in his own words |access-date=February 7, 2007 |archive-date=February 14, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070214092321/http://www.nps.gov/archive/gwca/expanded/auto_bio.htm |url-status=dead}} After Washington died in 1915, his successor made fewer demands on Carver for administrative tasks.

From 1915 to 1923, Carver concentrated on researching and experimenting with new uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans, pecans, and other crops, as well as having his assistants research and compile existing uses.[http://www.nps.gov/applications/parks/gwca/ppdocuments/Special%20History%20Study.pdf Special History Study] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060616092214/http://www.nps.gov/applications/parks/gwca/ppdocuments/Special%20History%20Study.pdf |date=June 16, 2006}} from the National Park Service website. This work, and especially his speaking to a national conference of the Peanut Growers Association in 1920 and in testimony before Congress in 1921 to support passage of a tariff on imported peanuts, brought him wide publicity and increasing renown. In these years, he became one of the most well-known African Americans of his time.

File:GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER - ONE OF AMERICA'S GREAT SCIENTISTS - NARA - 535694.jpg, this one referencing the World War II effort (circa 1943)]]

Carver developed techniques to improve soils depleted by repeated plantings of cotton. Together with other agricultural experts, he urged farmers to restore nitrogen to their soils by practicing systematic crop rotation: alternating cotton crops with plantings of sweet potatoes or legumes, such as peanuts, soybeans and cowpeas. These crops both restored nitrogen to the soil and were good for human consumption.

Following the crop rotation practice resulted in improved cotton yields and gave farmers alternative cash crops. To train farmers to successfully rotate and cultivate the new crops, Carver developed an agricultural extension program for Alabama that was similar to the one at Iowa State. To encourage better nutrition in the South, he widely distributed recipes using the alternative crops.

He founded an industrial research laboratory, where he and assistants worked to popularize the new crops by developing hundreds of applications for them. They did original research as well as promoting applications and recipes, which they collected from others. Carver distributed his information as agricultural bulletins.

Carver's work was known by officials in the national capital before he became a public figure. President Theodore Roosevelt publicly admired his work. Former professors of Carver's from Iowa State University were appointed to positions as Secretary of Agriculture: James Wilson, a former dean and professor of Carver's, served from 1897 to 1913. Henry Cantwell Wallace served from 1921 to 1924. He knew Carver personally because his son Henry A. Wallace and the researcher were friends.{{cite web |url=http://www.lib.iastate.edu/spcl/gwc/friends/friends8.html |title=The legacy of George Washington Carver – Friends & Colleagues (Henry Wallace |date=January 31, 2007 |website=iastate.edu |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090415211140/http://www.lib.iastate.edu/spcl/gwc/friends/friends8.html |archive-date=April 15, 2009}} The younger Wallace served as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture from 1933 to 1940, and as Franklin Delano Roosevelt's vice president from 1941 to 1945.

The American industrialist, farmer, and inventor William C. Edenborn of Winn Parish, Louisiana, grew peanuts on his demonstration farm. He consulted with Carver.{{cite web|url=http://files.usgwarchives.org/la/winn/bios/edenborn.txt |title=Greggory E. Davies, William Edenborn of Winn Parish, LA |publisher=files.usgwarchives.org |access-date=October 30, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120316221924/http://files.usgwarchives.org/la/winn/bios/edenborn.txt |archive-date=March 16, 2012}}

In 1916, Carver was made a member of the Royal Society of Arts in England, one of only a handful of Americans at that time to receive this honor. Carver's promotion of peanuts gained him the most notice.

By 1920, the U.S. peanut farmers were being undercut by low prices on imported peanuts from the Republic of China.{{cite book |last=Skrabec |first=Quentin R. Jr. |date=2013 |title=The Green Vision of Henry Ford and George Washington Carver |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=32Fa9lCDjSwC&pg=PA95 |location=Jefferson, NC |publisher=McFarland & Company |page=94 |isbn=978-0-7864-6982-6 |via=Google Books |ref={{sfnRef|Skrabec}}}} In 1921, peanut farmers and industry representatives planned to appear at Congressional hearings to ask for a tariff.{{sfn|Skrabec|page=95}} Based on the quality of Carver's presentation at their convention, they asked the African-American professor to testify on the tariff issue before the Ways and Means Committee of the United States House of Representatives.{{sfn|Skrabec|page=95}} Due to segregation, it was highly unusual for an African American to appear as an expert witness, but Carver appeared and unpacked numerous exhibits and samples to make his case for greater food and industrial uses for the peanut.{{sfn|Skrabec|page=95}} Southern congressmen mocked him, but as he talked about the importance of the peanut and its uses for American agriculture and manufacturing, committee members repeatedly extended the time for his testimony.{{sfn|Skrabec|pages=95–96}} The Fordney–McCumber Tariff was enacted in 1922, and included a duty on imported peanuts.{{sfn|Skrabec|page=96}} Carver's testimony, including samples of peanut milk, peanut flour, industrial dyes made from peanuts, and other peanut-based products, made him widely known as a public figure.{{sfn|Skrabec|page=96}}

File:George Washington Carver-crop.jpg portrait, March 1942]]

File:George Washington Carver-peanut specimen.jpeg

During the last two decades of his life, Carver seemed to enjoy his celebrity status. He was often on the road promoting Tuskegee University, peanuts, sweet potatoes, and racial harmony. Although he only published six agricultural bulletins after 1922, he published articles in peanut industry journals and wrote a syndicated newspaper column, "Professor Carver's Advice". Business leaders came to seek his help, and he often responded with free advice. Three American presidents—Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge and Franklin Roosevelt—met with him, and the Crown Prince of Sweden studied with him for three weeks. From 1923 to 1933, Carver toured white Southern colleges for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation.

With his increasing notability, Carver became the subject of biographies and articles. Raleigh H. Merritt contacted him for his biography published in 1929. Merritt wrote:

At present not a great deal has been done to utilize Dr. Carver's discoveries commercially. He says that he is merely scratching the surface of scientific investigations of the possibilities of the peanut and other Southern products.Raleigh Howard Merritt. [http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/merritt/merritt.html From Captivity to Fame or The Life of George Washington Carver.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070211131001/http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/merritt/merritt.html |date=2007-02-11}}

In 1932, the writer James Saxon Childers wrote that Carver and his peanut products were almost solely responsible for the rise in U.S. peanut production after the boll weevil devastated the American cotton crop beginning about 1892. His article, "A Boy Who Was Traded for a Horse" (1932), in The American Magazine, and its 1937 reprint in Reader's Digest, contributed to this myth about Carver's influence. Other popular media tended to exaggerate Carver's impact on the peanut industry.{{cite magazine

|title=Peanut Man

|date=June 14, 1937

|magazine=Time

|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,757923-1,00.html

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930041946/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,757923-1,00.html

|url-status=dead

|archive-date=September 30, 2007

|access-date=August 10, 2008

}}

From 1933 to 1935, Carver worked to develop peanut oil massages to treat infantile paralysis (polio). Ultimately, researchers found that the massages, not the peanut oil, provided the benefits of maintaining some mobility to paralyzed limbs.

From 1935 to 1937, Carver participated in the USDA Disease Survey. Carver had specialized in plant diseases and mycology for his master's degree.

In 1937, Carver attended two chemurgy conferences, an emerging field in the 1930s, during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, concerned with developing new products from crops. He was invited by Henry Ford to speak at the conference held in Dearborn, Michigan, and they developed a friendship. That year Carver's health declined, and Ford later installed an elevator at the Tuskegee dormitory where Carver lived, so that the elderly man would not have to climb stairs.Linda McMurry Edwards, [https://books.google.com/books?id=DYAl4rJpewoC George Washington Carver: The Life of the Great American Agriculturist] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160429230718/https://books.google.com/books?id=DYAl4rJpewoC&source=gbs_navlinks_s |date=April 29, 2016}}, Rosen Publishing Group, 2004, pp. 90–92. Retrieved July 7, 2011.

Carver had been frugal in his life, and in his seventies he established a legacy by creating a museum of his work, as well as the George Washington Carver Foundation at Tuskegee in 1938 to continue agricultural research. He donated nearly {{US$|60000|1938}} in his savings to create the foundation.

Carver headed the modern organic movement in the southern agricultural system.{{Cite journal|last=Hersey|first=Mark|date=April 1, 2006|title=Hints and Suggestions to Farmers: George Washington Carver and Rural Conservation in the South|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/envhis/11.2.239|journal=Environmental History|volume=11|issue=2|pages=239–268|doi=10.1093/envhis/11.2.239|issn=1084-5453|access-date=November 29, 2021|archive-date=March 11, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220311031505/https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1093/envhis/11.2.239|url-status=live|url-access=subscription}} Carver's background for his interest in organic farming sprouted from his father being killed during the Civil War, and when his mother was kidnapped by Confederate slave raiders. Now an orphan, Carver found comfort in botany when he was just 11 years old in Kansas. Carver learned about herbal medicine, natural pesticides, and natural fertilizers that yielded plentiful crops from his caretaker. When crops and house plants were dying, he would use his knowledge and go and nurse them back to health. As a teenager, he was termed the "plant doctor".

When his study about infection in soybean reached Booker T. Washington, he invited him to come and teach at the Tuskegee Agricultural school.

Although the emancipation allowed Black families 40 acres and a mule, President Johnson revoked this and gave the land to white plantation owners instead. This prompted Black farmers to exchange what was once their land, and in turn, a small part of the land's harvest. This led to sharecropping.{{Cite book|last=Coxe.|first=Toogood, Anna|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/5006777|title=George Washington Carver National Monument, Diamond, Missouri : historic resource study and administrative history|date=1973|publisher=Denver Service Center, Historic Preservation Team, National Park Service|oclc=5006777|access-date=November 29, 2021|archive-date=March 11, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220311031459/https://www.worldcat.org/title/george-washington-carver-national-monument-diamond-missouri-historic-resource-study-and-administrative-history/oclc/5006777|url-status=live}} Carver soon realized that farmers were not obtaining enough food to survive, and how the industrialization of cotton had contaminated the soil.{{Citation|last=Wedin|first=Carolyn|title=Carver, George Washington|date=February 9, 2009|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acref/9780195301731.013.45361|work=African American Studies Center|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/acref/9780195301731.013.45361|isbn=978-0-19-530173-1|access-date=November 29, 2021|archive-date=March 11, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220311031445/https://oxfordaasc.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195301731.001.0001/acref-9780195301731-e-45361|url-status=live|url-access=subscription}}

Carver wanted to find a way to organically transform Alabama's failing soil. He found that alternating nitrogen-rich crops would let the soil get back to its natural state. Keeping crops like sweet potatoes, peanuts, and cowpeas would produce more food surplus and different types of food for farmers. Carver worked to pioneer organic fertilizers like swamp muck and compost for the farmers to use. These fertilizers were more sustainable to the planet and helped farmers to spend less money on fertilizers since they were recycling products.

Carver pushed for woodland preservation, to help improve the quality of the topsoil. He urged farmers to feed their hogs acorns. The acorns contained natural pesticides and feeding them acorns was cheaper for the farms too.{{Cite book|last=D.|first=Hersey, Mark|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/734062445|title=My work is that of conservation : an environmental biography of George Washington Carver|date=2011|publisher=Univ. of Georgia Press|isbn=978-0-8203-3088-4|oclc=734062445|access-date=November 29, 2021|archive-date=March 11, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220311031444/https://www.worldcat.org/title/my-work-is-that-of-conservation-an-environmental-biography-of-george-washington-carver/oclc/734062445|url-status=live}} Carver's efforts towards the holistic and organic approach are still in practice today. In his research, Carver discovered Permaculture. Permaculture could be used to produce carbon from the atmosphere, produce a higher quantity of crops, and let crops flourish despite global warming.

File:AUSTIN CURTIS - SCIENTIST SUCCESSOR TO DR. CARVER - NARA - 535696.jpg

Carver never married. At age 40, he began a courtship with Sarah L. Hunt, an elementary school teacher and the sister-in-law of Warren Logan, Treasurer of Tuskegee Institute. This lasted three years until she took a teaching job in California.Kremer, Gary R., George Washington Carver: A Biography, Greenwood, 2011, {{ISBN|0313347964}}, p. 68. In her 2015 biography, Christina Vella reviews his relationships and suggests that Carver was bisexual and constrained by mores of his historic period.Christina Vella, [https://books.google.com/books?id=CXs-CgAAQBAJ George Washington Carver: A Life] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211215120050/https://books.google.com/books/about/George_Washington_Carver.html?id=CXs-CgAAQBAJ |date=December 15, 2021}}, Southern Biography Series, Louisiana State University Press, 2015.

When he was 70, Carver established a friendship and research partnership with the scientist Austin W. Curtis Jr. This young black man, a graduate of Cornell University, had some teaching experience before coming to Tuskegee. Carver bequeathed to Curtis his royalties from an authorized 1943 biography by Rackham Holt.Rackham Holt, George Washington Carver: An American Biography, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1943. Quote: "He [Carver] believed that there was something providential in the coming of this young man [Austin], so intensely serious about his work and extremely competent at it, who was at the same time a genial companion; he was proud of him and loved and depended on him as his own son ... And the affection was returned in full measure. Mr. Curtis accompanied him everywhere, seeing to his comfort, shielding him from intrusion, and acting as his official mouthpiece." After Carver died in 1943, Curtis was fired from Tuskegee Institute. He left Alabama and resettled in Detroit. There he manufactured and sold peanut-based personal care products.On Curtis' later life, see "Austin W. Curtis Interviewed by Toby Fishbein in Detroit, Michigan, March 3, 1979": Transcript in Iowa State University Special Collections, George Washington Carver File, Box 2, RS: 21/7/2.

Upon returning home one day, Carver suffered a bad fall down a flight of stairs; he was found unconscious by a maid who took him to a hospital. Carver died January 5, 1943, at the age of 78 or 79 from complications (anemia) resulting from this fall.(Obituary)[https://www.rarenewspapers.com/view/696439 NEW YORK TIMES]; "Dr. Carver is Dead; Negro Scientist" January 6, 1943 His death came when he was sitting up in bed while painting a Christmas card which said, "Peace on earth and goodwill to all men." Carver biographer Prema Ramakrishnan said of him that "His death was characteristic of him and his entire life’s work."{{cite book |last=Ramakrishnan |first=Prema |title=A guiding Light |url=https://archive.org/details/TheGuidingLight-GeorgeWashingtonCarver-English/mode/2up?q=died}}{{cite book |last=Perry |first= John |title=George Washington Carver |date= August 2011 |publisher=Christian + ORM |isbn=978-1-59555-4048 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MruJfhRisygC&q=christmas}} He was buried next to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee University. Due to his frugality, Carver's life savings totaled $60,000, all of which he donated in his last years and at his death to the Carver Museum and to the George Washington Carver Foundation.{{Cite web |url=http://www.nps.gov/archive/gwca/expanded/gwc_tour_06.htm |title=GWC {{!}} Tour Of His Life {{!}}Page 6 |access-date=April 17, 2008 |archive-date=March 29, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090329065039/http://www.nps.gov/archive/gwca/expanded/gwc_tour_06.htm |url-status=dead}}

On his grave was written, "He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world."{{Cite web |title=George Washington Carver |url=https://www.samford.edu/alabama-mens-hall-of-fame/inductees/Carver.html#:~:text=Carver%20was%20buried%20in%20Tuskegee,Famous%20Americans%20Series%20in%201948 |website=www.samford.edu |access-date=January 18, 2021 |archive-date=December 15, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211215120052/https://www.samford.edu/alabama-mens-hall-of-fame/inductees/Carver.html#:~:text=Carver%20was%20buried%20in%20Tuskegee,Famous%20Americans%20Series%20in%201948 |url-status=live}}

Carver believed he could have faith both in God and science and integrated them into his life. He testified on many occasions that his faith in Jesus was the only mechanism by which he could effectively pursue and perform the art of science.[http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Man+of+science--and+of+God%3A+George+Washington+Carver+believed+that...-a0112794990 Man of science-and of God] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171028094347/https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Man+of+science--and+of+God%3a+George+Washington+Carver+believed+that...-a0112794990 |date=October 28, 2017}} from The New American (January 2004), via TheFreeLibrary.com. Carver became a Christian when he was still a young boy, as he wrote in connection to his conversion in 1931:Carver, George Washington; Kremer, Gary R. (ed.) [https://books.google.com/books?id=JcncXGNSJQQC George Washington Carver in his own words] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160515044328/https://books.google.com/books?id=JcncXGNSJQQC&printsec=frontcover |date=May 15, 2016}}. University of Missouri Press. February 1, 1991, p. 128.

{{blockquote|I was just a mere boy when converted, hardly ten years old. There isn't much of a story to it. God just came into my heart one afternoon while I was alone in the 'loft' of our big barn while I was shelling corn to carry to the mill to be ground into meal.

A dear little white boy, one of our neighbors, about my age came by one Saturday morning, and in talking and playing he told me he was going to Sunday school tomorrow morning. I was eager to know what a Sunday school was. He said they sang hymns and prayed. I asked him what prayer was and what they said. I do not remember what he said; only remember that as soon as he left I climbed up into the 'loft,' knelt down by the barrel of corn and prayed as best I could. I do not remember what I said. I only recall that I felt so good that I prayed several times before I quit.

My brother and myself were the only colored children in that neighborhood and of course, we could not go to church or Sunday school, or school of any kind.

That was my simple conversion, and I have tried to keep the faith.|G. W. Carver; Letter to Isabelle Coleman; July 24, 1931}}

He was not expected to live past his 21st birthday due to failing health. He lived well past the age of 21, and his belief deepened as a result. Throughout his career, he always found friendship with other Christians. He relied on them especially when criticized by the scientific community and media regarding his research methodology.{{Cite web |url=http://www2.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/n/Newman,Wilson_L.html |title=Wilson L. Newman correspondence with George Washington Carver, 1926–1943 |access-date=August 3, 2014 |archive-date=August 8, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140808054413/http://www2.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/n/Newman,Wilson_L.html |url-status=live}}{{Full citation needed|date=September 2024}}

Carver viewed faith in Jesus Christ as a means of destroying both barriers of racial disharmony and social stratification.{{cite web |url=http://www.nps.gov/archive/gwca/expanded/quotes_2.htm |title=Quotes From Dr. Carver Page 2 |website=nps.gov |publisher=National Park Service |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090708005845/http://www.nps.gov/archive/gwca/expanded/quotes_2.htm |archive-date=July 8, 2009}} He was as concerned with his students' character development as he was with their intellectual development. He compiled a list of "eight cardinal virtues" whose possession defines "a lady or a gentleman":

File:George Washington Carver-Bush Gardens Monument.jpg

• Be clean both inside and out.
• Who neither looks up to the rich nor down on the poor.
• Who loses, if needs be, without squealing.
• Who wins without bragging.
• Who is always considerate of women, children and old people.
• Who is too brave to lie.
• Who is too generous to cheat.
• Who take his share of the world and lets other people have theirs.Letter to a student, January 9, 1922, quoted in

George Washington Carver, Gary R. Kremer, George Washington Carver: In His Own Words, 1987, {{isbn|0826207855}}, p. 85.

Beginning in 1906 at Tuskegee, Carver led a Bible class on Sundays for several students at their request. He regularly portrayed stories by acting them out.[http://www.thecarveracademy.org/page.cfm?p=10 History] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120607210643/http://www.thecarveracademy.org/page.cfm?p=10|date=June 7, 2012}} from the Carver Academy website.

Even as an adult Carver spoke with a high pitch. Historian Linda O. McMurry noted that he "was a frail and sickly child" who suffered "from a severe case of whooping cough and frequent bouts of what was called croup". McMurry contested the diagnosis of croup, holding rather that "His stunted growth and apparently impaired vocal cords suggest instead tubercular or pneumococcal infection. Frequent infections of that nature could have caused the growth of polyps on the larynx and may have resulted from a gamma globulin deficiency. ... until his death the high pitch of his voice startled all who met him, and he suffered from frequent chest congestion and loss of voice."{{cite book|title=George Washington Carver: Scientist and Symbol | first=Linda O. | last=McMurry | publisher=Oxford University Press|page=14| year=1981}}

File:George W Carver - NARA - 559197.jpg]]

• 1923, Spingarn Medal from the NAACP, awarded annually for outstanding achievement.
• 1928, honorary doctorate from Simpson College
• 1939, the Roosevelt Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Southern Agriculture
• 1940, Carver established the George Washington Carver Foundation at the Tuskegee Institute.
• 1941, The George Washington Carver Museum was dedicated at the Tuskegee Institute.
• 1942, Ford built a replica of Carver's birth cabin at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn as a tribute.
• 1942, Ford dedicated a laboratory in Dearborn named after Carver.
• 1943, Liberty ship {{SS|George Washington Carver}} launched
• 1947, George Washington Carver Area High School, named in his honor is opened by the Chicago Public Schools in the Riverdale/Far South Side area of Chicago, Illinois, United States.
• 1950, George Washington Carver State Park named
• 1951–1954, U.S. Mint features Carver on a 50 cents silver commemorative coin
• 1965, Ballistic missile submarine {{USS|George Washington Carver|SSBN-656}} launched.
• 1969, Iowa State University constructs Carver Hall in honor of Carver—a graduate of the university.{{Cite web |url=http://www.fpm.iastate.edu/maps/buildings/building.asp?id=20 |title=Carver Hall, Iowa State University, Facilities Planning & Management |access-date=March 21, 2014 |archive-date=March 21, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140321110942/http://www.fpm.iastate.edu/maps/buildings/building.asp?id=20 |url-status=live}}
• 1943?, the US Congress designated January 5, the anniversary of his death, as George Washington Carver Recognition Day.{{cite web |url=http://www.rilin.state.ri.us/statutes/title25/25-2/25-2-39.HTM |title=25-2-39. Dr. George Washington Carver Recognition Day |publisher=Rilin.state.ri.us |access-date=March 21, 2014 |archive-date=November 6, 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051106152843/http://www.rilin.state.ri.us/Statutes/TITLE25/25-2/25-2-39.HTM |url-status=live}}{{Cite web |url=http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/george-washington-carver-recognition-day-celebrated |title=George Washington Carver Recognition Day Celebrated |access-date=February 22, 2015 |archive-date=February 23, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150223001809/http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/george-washington-carver-recognition-day-celebrated |url-status=live}}
• 1999, USDA names a portion of its Beltsville, Maryland, campus the George Washington Carver Center.{{cite web|url=http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/usda-names-building-complex-to-honor-dr-george-washington-carver-scientists-legacy-of-innovation-continues-at-tuskegee-university-76425417.html|title=USDA Names Building Complex to Honor Dr. George Washington Carver|publisher=PR Newswire|access-date=May 3, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160602062829/http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/usda-names-building-complex-to-honor-dr-george-washington-carver-scientists-legacy-of-innovation-continues-at-tuskegee-university-76425417.html|archive-date=June 2, 2016|url-status=dead}}
• 2002, Iowa Award, the state's highest citizen award.{{Cite book |url=http://publications.iowa.gov/16716/1/Redbook-2013-2014%20%2885GA%29.pdf |title=Iowa Official Register (2013–2014) |publisher=Iowa General Assembly |year=2014 |pages=437 |access-date=November 21, 2020 |archive-date=July 5, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210705194015/http://publications.iowa.gov/16716/1/Redbook-2013-2014%20(85GA).pdf |url-status=live}}
• 2004, George Washington Carver Bridge, Des Moines, Iowa
• 2007, the Missouri Botanical Gardens has a garden area named in his honor, with a commemorative statue and material about his work
• 2022, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed legislation naming Feb. 1st every year as George Washington Carver Day in Iowa
• Willowbrook Neighborhood Park in Willowbrook, California was renamed George Washington Carver Park in his honor.{{cite web |title=George Washington Carver Park |publisher=Los Angeles County, California Department of Parks and Recreation |url=http://parks.lacounty.gov/wps/portal/dpr/Parks/George_Washington_Carver_Park |access-date=April 13, 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150311144211/http://parks.lacounty.gov/wps/portal/dpr/Parks/George_Washington_Carver_Park |archive-date=March 11, 2015}}
• Schools named for Carver include the George Washington Carver Elementary School of the Compton Unified School District in Los Angeles County, California,{{cite web | title = Welcome to Carver Elementary School | publisher = Compton Unified School District | url = http://gwces-compton-ca.schoolloop.com | access-date = April 13, 2015 | archive-date = April 15, 2015 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150415225820/http://gwces-compton-ca.schoolloop.com/ | url-status = live}} the George Washington Carver School of Arts and Science of the Sacramento City Unified School District in Sacramento, California,{{cite web | title = Who Is George Washington Carver? | publisher = Sacramento City Unified School District | url = http://carverartsandscience.org/who_is_carver.php | access-date = April 13, 2015 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150330072739/http://www.carverartsandscience.org/who_is_carver.php | archive-date = March 30, 2015 | url-status = dead}} and the Dr. George Washington Carver Elementary School, a Newark public school in Newark, New Jersey.{{cite web | title = Dr. George Washington Carver: Where Achievement is Realistic, Obtainable & Infinite! | publisher = Newark Public Schools | url = http://www.nps.k12.nj.us/car/ | access-date = February 22, 2017 | archive-date = February 23, 2017 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170223130121/http://www.nps.k12.nj.us/car/ | url-status = live}}
• Taxa named after him include: Colletotrichum carveri and Metasphaeria carveri, both named by Job Bicknell Ellis and Benjamin Matlack Everhart in 1902;{{cite journal|last1=Ellis|first1=J. B.|last2=Everhart|first2=B. M.|title=New Alabama Fungi|journal=The Journal of Mycology|date=1902|volume=8|issue=2|pages=62–73|doi=10.2307/3752297|jstor-access=free|jstor=3752297}} Cercospora carveriana, named by Pier Andrea Saccardo and Domenico Saccardo in 1906;{{cite book|last1=Saccardo|first1=P. A.|last2=Saccardo|first2=D.|title=Sylloge fungorum omnium hucusque cognitorum|date=1906|publisher=P. A. Saccardo|location=Patavius|page=607|url=https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/32884368|volume=18|access-date=November 6, 2017|archive-date=November 7, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171107175245/https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/32884368|url-status=live}} Taphrina carveri named by Anna Eliza Jenkins in 1939;{{cite journal|last1=Jenkins|first1=Anna E.|title=New species of Taphrina on red maple and on silver maple|journal=Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences|date=1939|volume=29|issue=5|pages=222–230|jstor=24529580|url=https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/39699626|access-date=November 6, 2017|archive-date=November 7, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171107181025/https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/39699626|url-status=live}} and Pestalotia carveri, named by E. F. Guba in 1961.{{cite journal|last1=Collins|first1=Daniel J.|last2=Frederick|first2=Lafayette|last3=Warren|first3=Herman|last4=Rossman|first4=Amy|last5=Dominick|first5=Shannon|title=Contributions of Dr. George Washington Carver to global food security: Historical reflections of Dr. Carver's Fungal Plant Disease Survey in the southeastern United States|journal=APSnet Features|date=2014|doi=10.1094/APSFeature-2014-02|doi-broken-date=November 15, 2024 |doi-access=}}

File:George Washington Carver, 3c, 1948 issue.jpg issued on Carver's birthday, five years after his death.]]

File:1951 Carver-Washington half dollar commemorative, obverse.jpg]]

File:2024 Missouri American Innovation Dollar.jpg]]

A movement to establish a U.S. national monument to Carver began before his death. Because of World War II, such non-war expenditures had been banned by presidential order. Missouri senator Harry S. Truman sponsored a bill in favor of a monument. In a committee hearing on the bill, one supporter said:

The bill is not simply a momentary pause on the part of busy men engaged in the conduct of the war, to do honor to one of the truly great Americans of this country, but it is in essence a blow against the Axis, it is in essence a war measure in the sense that it will further unleash and release the energies of roughly 15,000,000 Negro people in this country for full support of our war effort.

The bill passed unanimously in both houses.

On July 14, 1943,{{Cite web |url=https://www.nps.gov/gwca/index.htm |title=George Washington Carver National Monument (U.S. National Park Service) |access-date=July 12, 2005 |archive-date=December 13, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201213014204/https://www.nps.gov/gwca/index.htm |url-status=live}} President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated $30,000 (~${{Format price|{{Inflation|index=US-GDP|value=30000|start_year=1943}}}} in {{Inflation/year|US-GDP}}) for the George Washington Carver National Monument west-southwest of Diamond, Missouri, the area where Carver had spent time in his childhood. This was the first national monument dedicated to an African American and the first to honor someone other than a president. The {{convert|210|acre|km2|1|adj=on}} national monument complex includes a bust of Carver, a {{fraction|3|4}}-mile nature trail, a museum, the 1881 Moses Carver house, and the Carver cemetery. The national monument opened in July 1953.

In December 1947, a fire broke out in the Carver Museum, and much of the collection was damaged. Time magazine reported that all but 3 of the 48 Carver paintings at the museum were destroyed. His best-known painting, displayed at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, depicts a yucca and cactus. This canvas survived and has undergone conservation. It is displayed together with several of his other paintings.{{cite magazine

|title=Change Without Revolution

|date=January 5, 1948

|magazine=Time

|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,794072,00.html

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071021050800/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,794072,00.html

|url-status=dead

|archive-date=October 21, 2007

|access-date=August 10, 2008

}}

Carver was featured on U.S. 1948 commemorative stamps. From 1951 to 1954, he was depicted on the commemorative Carver-Washington half dollar coin along with Booker T. Washington. A second stamp honoring Carver, of face value 32¢, was issued on February 3, 1998, as part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series. Two ships, the Liberty ship SS George Washington Carver and the nuclear submarine USS George Washington Carver (SSBN-656), were named in his honor.

In 1977, Carver was elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans. In 1990, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In 1994, Iowa State University awarded Carver a Doctor of Humane Letters. In 2000, Carver was a charter inductee in the USDA Hall of Heroes as the "Father of Chemurgy".{{Cite web|url=http://www.usda.gov/da/hallofheroes/|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060925105945/http://www.usda.gov/da/hallofheroes/|url-status=dead|title=USDA Hall of Heroes|archivedate=September 25, 2006}}

Many institutions continue to honor George Washington Carver. Dozens of elementary schools and high schools are named after him. National Basketball Association star David Robinson and his wife, Valerie, founded an academy named after Carver; it opened on September 17, 2001, in San Antonio, Texas. The Carver Community Cultural Center, a historic center located in San Antonio, is named for him.

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed George Washington Carver as one of 100 Greatest African Americans.Asante, Molefi Kete (2002). 100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Amherst, New York. Prometheus Books. {{ISBN|1573929638}}.

In 2005, Carver's research at the Tuskegee Institute was designated a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society.{{cite web|url=http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_SUPERARTICLE&node_id=604&use_sec=false&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=e6752a14-c3b5-425d-bd7b-9f46c4691b13|title=George Washington Carver: Chemist, Teacher, Symbol|first=Judah|last=Ginsberg|date=January 27, 2005|publisher=American Chemical Society|access-date=March 2, 2012|archive-date=November 7, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121107072612/http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true|url-status=live}} On February 15, 2005, an episode of Modern Marvels included scenes from within Iowa State University's Food Sciences Building and about Carver's work. In 2005, the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Missouri, opened a George Washington Carver garden in his honor, which includes a life-size statue of him.

A color film of Carver shot around 1937 by African American surgeon C. Allen Alexander was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2019. The 12 minutes of footage were taken at the Tuskegee Institute, and includes Carver in his apartment, office and laboratory, as well as scenes of him tending flowers and displaying his paintings.{{Cite web |title=Women Rule 2019 National Film Registry |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-19-116/women-rule-2019-national-film-registry/2019-12-11/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191211155249/https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-19-116/women-rule-2019-national-film-registry/2019-12-11/ |archive-date=December 11, 2019 |access-date=October 5, 2020 |publisher=Library of Congress |location=Washington, D.C.}}

Carver has been given credit in popular folklore for many inventions that did not come out of his lab. Three patents (one for cosmetics; {{cite patent |country=US |number= 1522176 |gdate=January 6, 1925}}, and two for paints and stains; {{cite patent |country=US |number= 1541478 |gdate=June 9, 1925}}, and {{cite patent |country=US |number= 1632365 |gdate=June 14, 1927}}) were issued to Carver in 1925 to 1927; however, they were not commercially successful.[http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventors/a/GWC.htm "George Washington Carver"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220311031443/https://www.thoughtco.com/george-washington-carver-biography-1991496 |date=March 11, 2022}}. Inventors.about.com. Retrieved July 12, 2013.

Aside from these patents and some recipes for food, Carver left no records of formulae or procedures for making his products. He did not keep a laboratory notebook.

Mackintosh notes that, "Carver did not explicitly claim that he had personally discovered all the peanut attributes and uses he cited, but he said nothing to prevent his audiences from drawing the inference."Mackintosh, Barry. 1977. [https://web.archive.org/web/20070219221800/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1977/5/1977_5_66.shtml "George Washington Carver and the Peanut"], American Heritage. 28(5): 66–73.

Carver's research was intended to produce replacements from common crops for commercial products, which were generally beyond the budget of the small one-horse farmer. A misconception grew that his research on products for subsistence farmers were developed by others commercially to change Southern agriculture.McMurry, L. O. 1981. George Washington Carver: Scientist and Symbol. New York, Oxford University Press.Smith, Andrew F. 2002. Peanuts: The Illustrious History of the Goober Pea. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Carver's work to provide small farmers with resources for more independence from the cash economy foreshadowed the "appropriate technology" work of E. F. Schumacher.

Dennis Keeney, director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, wrote in the Leopold Letter (newsletter):

Carver worked on improving soils, growing crops with low inputs, and using species that fixed nitrogen (hence, the work on the cowpea and the peanut). Carver wrote in 'The Need of Scientific Agriculture in the South': "The virgin fertility of our soils and the vast amount of unskilled labor have been more of a curse than a blessing to agriculture. This exhaustive system for cultivation, the destruction of forest, the rapid and almost constant decomposition of organic matter, have made our agricultural problem one requiring more brains than of the North, East or West.Fishbein, Toby. [http://digitalcollections.lib.iastate.edu/george-washington-carver/biography "The Legacy of George Washington Carver"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180205021632/http://digitalcollections.lib.iastate.edu/george-washington-carver/biography |date=2018-02-05}}, Iowa State University Library.

Carver worked for years to create a company to market his products. The most important was the Carver Penol Company, which sold a mixture of creosote and peanuts as a patent medicine for respiratory diseases such as tuberculosis. Sales were lackluster and the product was ineffective according to the Food and Drug Administration.{{cite book|author=McMurry|title=George Washington Carver|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hlMkIgwg9KEC&pg=PA195|date=1982|pages=195–96|publisher=Oup USA |isbn=9780195032055|access-date=March 4, 2016|archive-date=August 1, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801221328/https://books.google.com/books?id=hlMkIgwg9KEC&pg=PA195|url-status=live}} Other ventures were The Carver Products Company and the Carvoline Company. Carvoline Antiseptic Hair Dressing was a mix of peanut oil and lanolin. Carvoline Rubbing Oil was a peanut oil for massages.

Carver is often mistakenly credited with the invention of peanut butter.{{Citation |author=National Peanut Board |author-link=National Peanut Board |title=Who Invented Peanut Butter? |url=http://nationalpeanutboard.org/peanut-info/who-invented-peanut-butter.htm |access-date=November 24, 2016 |postscript=. |archive-date=November 25, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161125044806/http://nationalpeanutboard.org/peanut-info/who-invented-peanut-butter.htm |url-status=live}} By the time Carver published "How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it For Human Consumption" in 1916,[http://nationalpeanutboard.org/the-facts/george-washington-carver/ "George Washington Carver"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151101124402/http://nationalpeanutboard.org/the-facts/george-washington-carver/ |date=November 1, 2015}}, National Peanut Board. many methods of preparation of peanut butter had been developed or patented by various pharmacists, doctors and food scientists working in the US and Canada.{{cite web|url = http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=00306727&homeurl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO2%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526p%3D1%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearch-bool.html%2526r%3D1%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526co1%3DAND%2526d%3DPALL%2526s1%3D0306727.PN.%2526OS%3DPN%2F0306727%2526RS%3DPN%2F0306727&PageNum=&Rtype=&SectionNum=&idkey=NONE&Input=View+first+page|title = US Patent #306727|access-date = October 20, 2015|archive-date = April 5, 2017|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170405145402/http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=00306727&homeurl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO2%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526p%3D1%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearch-bool.html%2526r%3D1%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526co1%3DAND%2526d%3DPALL%2526s1%3D0306727.PN.%2526OS%3DPN%2F0306727%2526RS%3DPN%2F0306727&PageNum=&Rtype=&SectionNum=&idkey=NONE&Input=View+first+page|url-status = live}}{{cite web|url = http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=00604493&PageNum=1&IDKey=611D5B869ACB&HomeUrl=http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1%2526Sect2=HITOFF%2526p=1%2526u=%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearch-bool.html%2526r=1%2526f=G%2526l=50%2526d=PALL%2526S1=0604493.PN.%2526OS=PN/0604493%2526RS=PN/0604493|title = US Patent #604493|access-date = March 11, 2022|archive-date = April 5, 2017|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170405172017/http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=00604493&PageNum=1&IDKey=611D5B869ACB&HomeUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect2%3DPTO1%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526p%3D1%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearch-bool.html%2526r%3D1%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526d%3DPALL%2526S1%3D0604493.PN.%2526OS%3DPN%2F0604493%2526RS%3DPN%2F0604493|url-status = live}}{{cite web |author=Innovate St. Louis |url=http://www.innovatestl.org/stlouishistory.html |title=Innovation in St. Louis History – Innovate St. Louis |publisher=Innovatestl.org |date=August 25, 2011 |access-date=December 18, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111227090829/http://www.innovatestl.org/stlouishistory.html |archive-date=December 27, 2011}} The Aztecs were known to have made peanut butter from ground peanuts as early as the 15th century. Canadian pharmacist Marcellus Gilmore Edson was awarded {{US patent|306727}} (for its manufacture) in 1884, 12 years before Carver began his work at Tuskegee.Mary Bellis, [https://archive.today/20120629114522/http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blpeanutbutter.htm "The History of Peanut Butter"]. Inventors.about.com (June 21, 2013). Retrieved July 12, 2013.[http://peanut-butter.org/peanut-butter/History+of+Peanut+Butter "History of Peanut Butter"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727170350/http://peanut-butter.org/peanut-butter/History+of+Peanut+Butter |date=July 27, 2011}}. Peanut-butter.org. Retrieved July 12, 2013.

Carver is also associated with developing sweet potato products. In his 1922 sweet potato bulletin, Carver listed a few dozen recipes, "many of which I have copied verbatim from Bulletin No. 129, U. S. Department of Agriculture".[http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/vegetable/carver-sweetpotatoes/ "How the Farmer Can Save His Sweet Potatoes"], Geo. W. Carver {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130605075919/http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/vegetable/carver-sweetpotatoes/ |date=June 5, 2013}} from the Texas A&M University website. Carver's records included the following sweet potato products: 73 dyes, 17 wood fillers, 14 candies, 5 library pastes, 5 breakfast foods, 4 starches, 4 flours, and 3 molasses.[http://www.tuskegee.edu/Global/story.asp?S=1107086 Carver Sweet Potato Products] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060904080244/http://www.tuskegee.edu/Global/story.asp?S=1107086 |date=September 4, 2006}} from the Tuskegee University website. He also had listings for vinegars, dry coffee and instant coffee, candy, after-dinner mints, orange drops, and lemon drops.

During his more than four decades at Tuskegee, Carver's official published work consisted mainly of 44 practical bulletins for farmers.[http://www.tuskegee.edu/Global/story.asp?S=1107189&nav=menu200_2 List of Bulletins by George Washington Carver] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060830120300/http://www.tuskegee.edu/Global/story.asp?S=1107189&nav=menu200_2 |date=August 30, 2006}} from the Tuskegee University website. His first bulletin in 1898 was on feeding acorns to farm animals. His final bulletin in 1943 was about the peanut. He also published six bulletins on sweet potatoes, five on cotton, and four on cowpeas. Some other individual bulletins dealt with alfalfa, wild plum, tomato, ornamental plants, corn, poultry, dairying, hogs, preserving meats in hot weather, and nature study in schools.

His most popular bulletin, How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption, was first published in 1916Carver, George Washington. 1916. [http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/fruit-nut/carver-peanut/ "How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121213082146/http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/fruit-nut/carver-peanut/ |date=December 13, 2012}}, Tuskegee Institute Experimental Station Bulletin 31. and has been reprinted numerous times. It provides a short overview of peanut crop production and contains a list of recipes from other agricultural bulletins, cookbooks, magazines, and newspapers, such as the Peerless Cookbook, Good Housekeeping, and Berry's Fruit Recipes. While Carver's was not the first American agricultural bulletin devoted to peanuts,Handy, R. B. 1895. "Peanuts: Culture and Uses". USDA Farmers' Bulletin 25.Newman, C. L. 1904. Peanuts. Fayetteville, Arkansas: Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station.Beattie, W. R. 1909. "Peanuts". USDA Farmers' Bulletin 356.Ferris, E. B. 1909. "Peanuts". Agricultural College, Mississippi: Mississippi Agricultural Experiment Station.Beattie, W. R. 1911. "The Peanut". USDA Farmers' Bulletin 431. his bulletins seem to have been more popular and widespread than those that preceded his.

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{{Reflist|30em}}

• Hersey, Mark D. My Work Is That of Conservation: An Environmental Biography of George Washington Carver (University of Georgia Press; 2011) 306 pages.
• Hersey, Mark. "Hints and Suggestions to Farmers: George Washington Carver and Rural Conservation in the South". Environmental History 11#2 (2006): 239–268.
• Mackintosh, Barry. "George Washington Carver: The Making of a Myth". Journal of Southern History 42#4 (1976): 507–528. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2208004 in JSTOR]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070219221800/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1977/5/1977_5_66.shtml Barry Mackintosh, "George Washington Carver and the Peanut: New Light on a Much-loved Myth"], American Heritage 28(5): 66–73, 1977.
• McMurry, L. O. "Carver, George Washington". American National Biography Online February 2000
• McMurry, Linda O. George Washington Carver: Scientist and Symbol (Oxford University Press, 1982). [https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=106358296 online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110628211903/http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=106358296 |date=June 28, 2011 }}; [https://books.google.com/books?id=ISBN0195032055 Google copy]{{Dead link|date=May 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }})

• Carver, George Washington. "1897 or Thereabouts: George Washington Carver's Own Brief History of His Life". George Washington Carver National Monument.
• Collins, David R. George Washington Carver: Man's Slave, God's Scientist, (Mott Media, 1981)
• William J. Federer, George Washington Carver: His Life & Faith in His Own Words, AmeriSearch (2003) {{ISBN|0965355764}}
• Kremer, G. R. ed. George Washington Carver: In His Own Words, University of Missouri Press; 1987, Reprint edition (1991) {{ISBN|978-0826207852}}
• H. M. Morris, Men of Science, Men of God (1982)
• E. C. Barnett and D. Fisher, Scientists Who Believe (1984)

• Gray, James Marion. George Washington Carver. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Silver Burdett Press, 1991.
• Holt, Rackham. George Washington Carver: An American Biography, rev. ed. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963.
• Kremer, Gary R. Race and Meaning: The African American Experience in Missouri, University of Missouri Press, 2014.
• McKissack, Pat, and Fredrick McKissack. George Washington Carver: The Peanut Scientist, rev. ed. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, 2002.
• Moore, Eva. The Story of George Washington Carver, New York: Scholastic, 1995.
• Vella, Christina. Carver, Louisiana State University Press, 2015.

{{Commons category|George Washington Carver}}

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Archival collections

• [http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt4x0nc787/ Guide to the George Washington Carver Letter to Dana H. Johnson.] Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
• [https://n2t.net/ark:/87292/w95z28 Finding Aid to the George Washington Carver Collection]. Special Collections Department, Iowa State University Library, Ames, Iowa.
• [http://archives.lib.byu.edu/repositories/14/archival_objects/682 William and Annette Curtis collection of George Washington Carver items, MSS 6223] at [https://sites.lib.byu.edu/sc/ L. Tom Perry Special Collections], Brigham Young University

Other

• National Park Service:

::[http://www.cr.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/Tuskegee/gwcoverview.htm Legends of Tuskegee: George Washington Carver] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150413035310/http://www.cr.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/Tuskegee/gwcoverview.htm |date=April 13, 2015}} from the National Park Service

::[https://web.archive.org/web/20061014032000/http://www.nps.gov/archive/gwca/expanded/main.htm George Washington Carver National Monument] from the National Park Service

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20081228085906/http://www.tuskegee.edu/global/story.asp?s=1107203&ClientType=Print Carver Tribute] from Tuskegee University
• [https://wayback.archive-it.org/855/20110505232216/http://www.lib.iastate.edu/spcl/gwc/bio.html The Legacy of George Washington Carver] from Iowa State University
• [http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_SUPERARTICLE&node_id=604&use_sec=false&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=f5b76d8f-a818-4c7f-b5b8-dd8400b93a30 National Historic Chemical Landmark] from the American Chemical Society
• [http://www.nal.usda.gov/speccoll/collectionsguide/collection2.php?search=carver%2C+george+washington%2C+correspondence+ George Washington Carver Correspondence Collection] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150906020527/http://www.nal.usda.gov/speccoll/collectionsguide/collection2.php?search=carver%2C+george+washington%2C+correspondence+ |date=September 6, 2015 }} Manuscript collection in Special Collections, National Agricultural Library.
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110716133536/http://statues.com/mrc/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=125&Itemid=141 Biotechnology Organization Award]
• {{Internet Archive film clip|id=1941-05-20_American_Day|description='American Day' Fete Biggest Patriotic Meeting In History, 1941/05/20 (1941)}}
• [https://n2t.net/ark:/87292/w9901zf8r George Washington Carver Digital Collection], Iowa State University.
• {{Librivox author |id=14272}}
• "[https://archive.org/details/DestinationFreedom/DF_48-10-17_ep017-The_Boy_Who_Was_Traded_for_a_Horse.mp3 The Boy Who Was Traded for a Horse]", a 1948 radio drama presentation from Destination Freedom, written by Richard Durham
• Moving Images Related to George Washington Carver, 1937 color film of George Washington Carver at Tuskegee Institute. Inducted into the National Film Registry in 2019.

Print publications

• George Washington Carver. [http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/fruit-nut/carver-peanut/ "How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121213082146/http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/fruit-nut/carver-peanut/ |date=December 13, 2012 }}, Tuskegee Institute Experimental Station Bulletin 31.
• George Washington Carver. [http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/vegetable/additional-resources/carver-sweetpotatoes/ "How the Farmer Can Save His Sweet Potatoes and Ways of Preparing Them for the Table"], Tuskegee Institute Experimental Station Bulletin 38, 1936.
• George Washington Carver. [http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/vegetable/carver-tomato/ "How to Grow the Tomato and 115 Ways to Prepare it for the Table"], Tuskegee Institute Experimental Station Bulletin 36, 1936.
• Peter D. Burchard, [https://web.archive.org/web/20060616092214/http://www.nps.gov/applications/parks/gwca/ppdocuments/Special%20History%20Study.pdf "George Washington Carver: For His Time and Ours"], National Park Service: George Washington Carver National Monument. 2006.
• Louis R. Harlan (ed.), [http://www.historycooperative.org/btw/Vol.4/html/127.html The Booker T. Washington Papers], Volume 4, pp. 127–128. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. 1975.
• Raleigh H. Merritt, [http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/merritt/merritt.html From Captivity to Fame or the Life of George Washington Carver], Boston: Meador Publishing. 1929.
• [http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1064 George Washington Carver] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100613224131/http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1064 |date=June 13, 2010 }}
• Mary Bagley, [http://www.livescience.com/41780-george-washington-carver.html George Washington Carver: Biography, Inventions & Quotes] (2013).

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