George Washington Carver

By: Lexi C.

The Early Years

• Born around 1860. No one knows exactly when.

• Lived in Diamond Grove, Missouri.• Worked on a farm belonging to

Moses Carver with his brother James.• Liked to study and draw plants and

flowers.• Nick named “The Plant Doctor”.

School

• He started going to school at twelve.• He loved it there and tried to learn as

much as he could.• He graduated from Minneapolis High

School in Kansas.• His brother James quit school to

become a house painter.

College

• Getting into college was hard because he was black.

• At age thirty he got into Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa.

• That school only offered art and he wanted to learn about the sciences.

• He went to Iowa agriculture College and graduated from there in 1897.

Tuskegee

• Booker T. Washington offered Carver the job of Director of Agriculture at Tuskegee University in 1896.

• The faculty was jealous of his higher status.

• Washington and Carver didn’t get along together very well.

• Washington died in 1915.

Southern Agriculture

• Carver rose to fame when he showed farmers in the South how to use his new farming methods.

• His theory was that by planting soil-enriching crops (like peanuts) it would help with the soil problems.

• This really worked and helped the agriculture in the South tremendously.

Peanut Industry

• Because the peanuts helped the soil so much there became a surplus amount of them.

• Carver created a lot of by-products of peanuts such as:

• Beverages• Cosmetics• Dyes• Paints• Stains

Later Life

• One day when returning home he fell down a flight of stairs.

• He was taken to a hospital and later died of anemia caused from the fall.

• He was buried right next to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee University.

• On his grave it’s written, “He could’ve added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.”