CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY MONTH
AFRICAN-AMERICAN INVENTORS
George Washington Carver – (1860s – January 5, 1943), was an American botanist and inventor. He became well-known to the public due to his active promotion of alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion.
While a professor at Tuskegee Insitutute, Carver developed techniques to improve soils depleted by repeated plantings of cotton. He wanted poor farmers to grow alternative crops, such as peanuts and sweet potatoes, as a source of their own food and to improve their quality of life. The most popular of his 44 practical bulletins for farmers contained 105 food recipes using peanuts. Although he spent years developing and promoting numerous products made from peanuts; none became commercially successful.