George Washington Carver's Inventions

When you can do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world. - George Washington Carver

In 1864, July 12, George Washington was born to a slave couple near Diamond, Missouri. Apparently, Moses Carver, a German American immigrant, purchased Mary and Giles, George's parents, on October 9, 1855 from William P. McGinnis. One night raiders kidnapped him along with his mother and sister. Moses Carver rescued George and brought him home. Moses and his wife raised George Washington as their own child. They allowed him to use the surname "Carver". Hence he became George Washington Carver.

He had to travel around 10 miles south of Diamond Grove to reach his school. He attended a one-room schoolhouse, the only school where blacks were accepted. George received his high school diploma from Minneapolis High School.

In 1887, he joined Simpson College in Indianola. In 1891, he became the first African-American student to be granted admission to Iowa State Agricultural College. He received his bachelor's degree in agriculture in 1894 and his postgraduate degree in 1896.

Some of the George Washington Carver's Inventions

Booker T. Washington offered George Washington Carver a faculty position in Normal and Industrial Institute for Negroes,Tuskegee, in 1897. While at Tuskegee, Carver studied the problems faced by farmers who grew cotton and developed a method for conserving nutrients in soil. This method was known as crop rotation method. This is one of the many important inventions of George Washington Carver. He insisted on planting crops such as peanuts, sweet potato and pecans to enrich the soil after every cotton harvest.

Carver was instrumental in creating new markets for farmers by discovering three hundred uses for peanuts and hundreds of uses for pecans, sweet potatoes and soybeans. The crop rotation method is considered as the most significant achievement because during the 19th century, American economy was an agrarian economy.

George Washington Carver invented dyes of 500 different shades from agricultural crops. Initially, textile dyes were imported from Europe. He conducted intense research and developed many industrial products from agricultural crops.

In 1927, G.W. Carver invented the process of producing paints and stains from soybeans. He was given three patent rights for this process. A point worth the mention here is that George Washington Carver never patented or received profits for most of his inventions and discoveries. This what he would say about his inventions:

God gave them to me, How can I sell them to someone else?.

George Washington Carver worked along with Henry Ford to develop synthesized rubber from soybean.

He invented the "Cook Stove Chemistry". This was formulated to improve the diet of the families who were not in a position to afford meat and was low in protein and vitamins. He encouraged the consumption of cow peas and peanuts as alternative sources of protein. He was lovingly called "Plant doctor" and his nickname was "peanut".

Despite his inventions, Carver had patent rights for just three products. A few of the products he developed from peanuts were peanut butter (most favored bread-spread among sandwich lovers), shaving cream, wood stain, leather and cloth dye, laxative, hair tonic and so on. Some of the food products that he had invented from peanuts include salad oil, instant coffee, mayonnaise and so on. He invented flour, sugar, yeast, wood stains, medicines, cattle feed and many more items from sweet potatoes.

In 1940, he contributed his entire savings towards the establishment of Carver Research Foundation at Tuskegee. In 1977, Carver was elected to the " Hall of Fame for Americans." In 1990, he became the first African-American to find a place in the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio. In 1943, at the age of 79, George Washington Carver left this world for his heavenly abode.