{"id":2425,"date":"2023-05-20T00:15:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-20T00:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theradicalagenda.com\/home\/?p=2425"},"modified":"2026-07-19T01:27:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T01:27:33","slug":"george-washington-carver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theradicalagenda.com\/home\/george-washington-carver\/","title":{"rendered":"George Washington Carver"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

George Washington Carver Early Years<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

George Carver was born enslaved sometime in 1861 (his exact birth date is unknown). As a very young child, he was kidnapped with his mother to be sold to another enslaver. His original enslaver, Moses Carver, tracked him down and brought him back to his home, but they were never able to locate his mother. He was freed by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and he and his older brother continued to live with his former enslavers until he left to go to school at age eleven. While in school, he lived with an African-American couple and helped with the chores in exchange for room and board. There he learned herbalism from the wife, who was a midwife.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

George graduated from high school and went to what is now Iowa State University for his Bachelors and Masters degrees. He was the first African-American to earn a Bachelor\u2019s of Science degree at his university.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

George Washington Carver, Professor<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After graduation, he accepted a position as the Director of Department of Agriculture at Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. It was after working with Tuskegee\u2019s President, Booker T. Washington, that Carver added Washington to his name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Tuskegee, Carver led research projects specifically studying the principles of regenerative agriculture. His primary focus was to educate poor Black sharecroppers in healing the soil (repeated cotton crops had left the soil depleted) and improving their crops by practicing crop rotation and planting nitrogen-rich foods like peanuts and sweet potatoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though he is generally associated with peanut butter, Carver\u2019s inventions with peanuts and sweet potatoes were mostly to find other uses for the sudden influx in those crops as many farmers were growing them to heal their soil. He developed products like oil, rubber, glue, and writing ink, but never patented them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Jesup Wagon<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Forever dedicated to education, Carver created the Jesup Wagon, an agriculture education on wheels, which he used to travel to farmers to educate them on crop rotation and soil biodiversity. A version of the Jesup Wagon is still used today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

George Washington Carver died on January 5, 1943. His birthplace in Diamond, Missouri, was designated as a National Monument in 1943 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note: The Radical Agenda believes in supporting independent bookstores over big box stores, so we share book links using Bookshop.org. Click on the picture to order your copy of the books that catch your eye, and thank you for supporting small businesses around the country!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here for the full book list for easy ordering<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Little Naturalists: George Washington Carver Loved Plants by Kate Coombs, art by Seth Lucas <\/h3>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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A Picture Book of George Washington Carver by David A. Adler, illustrated by Dan Brown<\/h3>\n<\/div>
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The Secret Garden of George Washington Carver by Gene Barretta, illustrated by Frank Morrison <\/h3>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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A Weed is a Flower: The Life of George Washington Carver, written and illustrated by Aliki<\/h3>\n<\/div>
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The Man Who Talks with the Flowers: The Intimate Life Story of Dr. George Washington Carver by Glenn Clark<\/h3>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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My Work is That of Conservation: An Environmental Biography of George Washington Carver by Mark D. Hersey<\/h3>\n<\/div>
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<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George Washington Carver Early Years George Carver was born enslaved sometime in 1861 (his exact birth date is unknown). As a very young child, he was kidnapped with his mother to be sold to another enslaver. His original enslaver, Moses Carver, tracked him down and brought him back to his home, but they were never…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biographies","category-books-about-black-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theradicalagenda.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theradicalagenda.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theradicalagenda.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theradicalagenda.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theradicalagenda.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2425"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theradicalagenda.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2432,"href":"https:\/\/theradicalagenda.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2425\/revisions\/2432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theradicalagenda.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theradicalagenda.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theradicalagenda.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}