Source: Biography.com

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George Washington Carver was a prominent African-American scientist and inventor. Carver is best known for the many uses he devised for the peanut.

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George Washington Carver (c. 1864 to January 5, 1943) was born into slavery and went on to become a botanist and one of the most prominent scientists and inventors of his time as well as a teacher at the Tuskegee Institute. Carver devised over 100 products using one major crop — the peanut — including dyes, plastics and gasoline.

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George Washington Carver’s Inventions

Carver's work at the helm of the Tuskegee Institute’s agricultural department included groundbreaking research on plant biology, much of which focused on the development of new uses for crops including peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans and pecans. Carver invented hundreds of products, including more than 300 from peanuts (milk, plastics, paints, dyes, cosmetics, medicinal oils, soap, ink, wood stains) and 118 from sweet potatoes (molasses, postage stamp glue, flour, vinegar and synthetic rubber) and even a type of gasoline. At the time, cotton production was on the decline in the South; overproduction of a single crop had left many fields exhausted and barren. Carver suggested planting peanuts and soybeans, both of which could restore nitrogen to the soil, along with sweet potatoes. While these crops grew well in southern climates, there was little demand. Carver’s inventions and research solved this problem and helped struggling sharecroppers in the South, many of them former slaves now faced with necessary cultivation.

 

Peanuts and Peanut Butter

Contrary to popular belief, George Washington Carver did not invent peanut butter. However he did do a lot of research into new and alternate uses for peanuts. He even became known as “the Peanut Man” after delivering a speech before the Peanut Growers Association in 1920 attesting to the wide potential of peanuts. The following year, Carver testified before Congress in support of a tariff on imported peanuts, which Congress passed in 1922.