George Washington Carver

Carver’s namesake and abiding inspiration is George Washington Carver.

George Washington Carver was likely born in 1864. His exact birth date is unknown because he was born a slave on the farm of Moses Carver in Diamond, Missouri.

When George was only a few weeks old, Confederate raiders invaded the farm, kidnapping George, his mother, and his sister. They were sold in Kentucky, and only George was found by an agent of Moses Carver and returned to Missouri.

Moses Carver and his wife raised George and taught him to read. George remained on the Carver plantation until he was about 10 or 12 years old when he left to acquire an education.

At Iowa State, George Carver was the first African American student to earn his Bachelor of Science in 1894. His professors were so impressed by his work on the fungal infections common to soybean plants that he was asked to remain as part of the faculty to work on his master’s degree (awarded in 1896).

Working as director of the Iowa State Experimental Station, Carver discovered two types of fungi, which were subsequently named for him. Carver also began experiments in crop rotation, using soy plantings to replace nitrogen in depleted soil. Before long, Carver became well known as a leading agricultural scientist.

In April 1896, Carver received a letter from Booker T. Washington of Tuskegee Institute, one of the first African American colleges in the United States.

“I cannot offer you money, position, or fame,” read this letter. “The first two you have. The last from the position you now occupy you will no doubt achieve. These things I now ask you to give up. I offer you in their place: work – hard work, the task of bringing people from degradation, poverty, and waste to full manhood. Your department exists only on paper and your laboratory will have to be in your head.”

Washington’s offer was $125.00 per month (a substantial cut from Carver’s Iowa State salary) and the luxury of two rooms for living quarters (most Tuskegee faculty members had just one). It was an offer that George Carver accepted immediately and the place where he worked for the remainder of his life.

During WWII, one of our government's efforts to make sure that there was enough food for everyone — civilian and military alike — was the campaign for Victory Gardens, one of the countless contributions Carver gave to society.

Carver left his life savings, more than $60,000, to found the George Washington Carver Institute for Agriculture at Tuskegee.

In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated funds to erect a monument at Diamond, Missouri, in his honor.

Commemorative postage stamps were issued in 1948 and again in 1998. A George Washington Carver half-dollar coin was minted between 1951 and 1954.

There are two U.S. military vessels named in his honor. Congress has designated January 5 as George Washington Carver Recognition Day.

Carver only patented three of his inventions. In his words, “It is not the style of clothes one wears, neither the kind of automobile one drives nor the amount of money one has in the bank that counts. These mean nothing. It is simply service that measures success.”