GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER
Born into slavery and adopted by his former slave owners after abolition, George Washington Carver was a keen plant lover. Neighbours would call him the ‘plant doctor’ as he helped revive their dying plants. After being persuaded to study agriculture by a teacher, he became the first Black person to graduate from Iowa State College, and then its first Black member of staff.
In 1896, he was headhunted to lead the Agriculture Department at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Here he conducted research into soil and crops in an attempt to improve the lives of impoverished farmers. Stuck with land full of dead soil after years of cotton farming that had starved the land of its nutrients, Carver taught them how to crop rotate with produce that would help replenish the soil. Produce such as sweet potatoes and peanuts added vital nutrients, leading to more profitable cotton growth for the farmers.
At the time, there was very little use for these kinds of crops, so Carver set to work on ways to utilise them, inventing hundreds of plant-based products from what were considered ‘undesirable crops’. These included things like flour, paint and cosmetic products. Over time, sweet potatoes and peanuts became a staple of the South, and it is said that without Carver’s inventions, peanut butter may never have been created.
Although he never made any conclusive statements about his sexuality, it is widely believed that Carver had relationships with some of his male students, and chose to live out the last years of life with his assistant, Austin Curtis Jr. The pair were often seen walking around campus arm in arm checking on their experiments.