or weeks now I’ve been asking my (mostly white, mostly well-educated) friends what they know about George Washington Carver. Nearly every re- sponse has focused on the phrase, “The Peanut Guy.” As you probably know, my friends are right. If there is one thing you can say about George Washington Carver, it is that he is The Peanut Guy. In fact, in his 45-year tenure at Tuskegee Institute, he single-handedly came up with well over 200 uses for the peanut. But George Carver was much more than The Peanut Guy. With a curious mix of nature, nurture, and old-fashioned good luck, he was not only an exceptional scientist and teacher; he was an exceptional human being.
Before We Begin, a Note on the Main Sources
Before I tell you just how exceptional, I feel I must offer a caveat. Throughout this article, it is not my intention to soften the effects of slavery (of course!) or racism. How- ever, I will be offering perspectives based on my readings about George Washington Carver. One of the biogra- phies I read— George Washington Carver: An American Biography by Rackham Holt—was written near the end of Carver’s life and published (1944) shortly after his death. This book is a beautiful, often poetic, account, and I cannot recommend it highly enough (especially for fans of biography/memoir, fans of history, fans of gardening/ agriculture, and fans of humanity). The second book I read—George Washington Carver: The Man Who Overcame by Lawrence Elliot (1966)—was somewhat less compelling. (I went into the book knowing it would not so much offer Carver’s own reflections but rather a more removed, objective perspec- tive.) But by the time I read it, I was a huge Carver fan, and I wanted to know all I could find out. The contrasts between the authorized version (herein referred to as “Holt”) and this version (“Elliot”), were telling. Just a taste of this contrast is revealed by a comparison of the two subtitles: Holt’s “An American Biography” reflects Carvers humility and down-to-earth perspective on his life and his work. Elliot’s “The Man Who Overcame” reflects a bit more grandiosity—war- ranted in my opinion, but not something that (I believe) Carver would embrace.
Now, on to the story . . .
As Luck Would Have It
Carver’s life began with a sizeable portion of bad luck. He was born in 1861 (some more recent accounts say 1864) near Diamond Grove (now Diamond), Missouri in a slave cabin owned by Moses Carver and his wife Sue. From the start, he was a weak and sickly baby, and (insult to injury) when he was still virtually a newborn, he and his mother were stolen by night raiders during the Mis- souri/Kansas border wars. Moses Carver sent a man to find them, and that man returned with only baby George, near death, wrapped in rawhide. Perhaps his mother, “Carver’s Mary” died from rough treatment so early after giving birth to baby George, or perhaps she was simply sold away, but the sad fact is that his mother was gone from him forever. Because his father had died on a neigh- boring plantation before his birth, Carver was an orphan from the start.
Moses Carver had a fairly small operation— basically a subsistence farm—but he still needed help to run it, and that help came from slaves. Moses owned George’s mother, Mary (and her children), and for a time he had owned George’s father. But Moses was never in full support of slavery, and he was apparently glad when it ended. (Both biographies assert that he sent the scout to find Mary and George not to reclaim his property, but out of concern for their well-being.) Sue and Moses were both greatly pleased when sick baby George was returned to them.
According to my sources, two years after Carv- er’s birth the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, but little changed in young George’s life or in the life of his brother, Jim. Moses and Sue Carver raised both boys as if they were their own children. The Carvers were well- respected people (even though, in a community of Chris- tians, they did not attend church), and they took excellent care of the boys as they grew. George, who never became particularly strong, stayed in the house with “Aunt Sue,” where he learned several homemaking skills—sewing, cooking, and the like—that would serve him throughout his life.
“I Want to Know”
Far from shunning household labor as “women’s work,” young George cherished his growing skills and knowl- edge. In fact, while still a child, George was heard to say that when he grew up, he would start a school to teach
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