George Washington Carver

George Washington Carver was estimated to be born on July 12, 1861. No one ever knew because he was born a slave. No one ever kept track of a slaves' birthdate.

George always had a great interest in plants. He found a school for African Americans when he was estimated to be fourteen years old.

George went to Tuskegee, Alabama for work. All the farmers had planted was cotton. The plants looked weak. That was a sign that they needed more nitrogen. He found out that things like peanuts and sweet potatoes took nitrogen out of the air and would feed it back to the soil. He tried to pursuade them to plant peanuts. He even found one hundred four ways to cook the peanut but the farmers still didn't listen.

He pursuaded them by making a five course meal out of peanuts for nine busness men. Once they found out that they had only eaten peanuts, about every farmer had gotten rid of the cotten and planted mostly peanuts but some planted sweet potatoes. They grew so many that they could only market a fourth of them. So one day a farmer asked him what he should do with all the extra crops.

The next day He shut himself in his labratory and started to make some products from the sweet potato and peanut. By the end of his life he created over one-hundred uses for the sweet potato and over three-hundred uses for the peanut. He died on January 5th, 1943. He lived a very full life.