According to the chart, what were the two improvements that clay intended his tariffs to support?

George Washington Carver believed he had a God-given mission to use his training as an agricultural chemist to help improve the lot of poor black and white Southern farmers. He did this by teaching farmers about fertilization and crop rotation and by developing hundreds of new products from common agricultural products. In addition to his work as a scientist, Carver served the cause of science, in the words of his chief biographer, "magnificently as an interpreter and humanizer, providing an essential link between researchers and laymen and enabling many to reap the benefits of others' work by helping them to apply it to their own circumstances."16

Late in Carver's life he became a devotee of the chemurgy ("chem" from chemistry; urgy, Greek for work) movement. The term was used to describe scientists, agriculturalists, and industrialists who were determined to put chemistry to work to find nonfood uses for agricultural surpluses. One of the prime backers of chemurgy was Henry Ford, who Carver variously addressed in letters as "My beloved friend" and "The greatest of all my inspiring friends."17 Ford visited Tuskegee in 1938, and Carver was Ford's guest in 1940 at the automaker's Georgia estate.

But Carver did not need the imprimatur of Henry Ford or the formal title of a movement to explain his role as a scientist, for in truth Carver dedicated his entire scientific work to the goals later advocated by the chemurgy movement. Carver's laboratory at Tuskegee, almost from the beginning of his tenure at the Institute, developed hundreds of new uses for agricultural products. The need for this resulted in part from Carver's initial success in increasing agricultural productivity on the cotton-depleted, tired, old soils of the South. On the ten-acre experimental station at Tuskegee Carver was able, by using good cultivation practices and rotating soil-enriching plants like cowpeas and beans, to increase dramatically soil productivity.

For example, on a one-half acre plot Carver increased the yield of sweet potatoes in a few years from 40 bushels to 266 bushels. He dramatically showed that when he took land on which cotton had been planted, a crop which robs soil of nutrients, and planted nitrogen-fixing legumes, like peas and beans, he was able to increase yields significantly when the land reverted to cotton a few years later. Carver accomplished this without the use of commercial fertilizers, an expense beyond the reach of most poor Southern farmers, many of whom were sharecroppers or tenant farmers. Carver was aware that "every operation" he performed had to be within the reach of a "poor tenant farmer with a one-horse equipment."18

Carver's successes with planting legumes of course led to his encouraging Southern farmers to turn to these crops. This became even more urgent with the devastation in the early 20th century of the cotton crop due to the boll weevil. But if Southern farmers were to be convinced to grow crops other than cotton (or other traditional staples such as tobacco and rice), there had to be a market for peas, sweet potatoes, soybeans, and the like. This need pushed Carver into the laboratory to work on finding alternative uses for these products. From sweet potatoes, for example, came a raft of new products: flours, starches, sugar, a faux coconut, vinegar, synthetic ginger, chocolate and such non-foods as stains, dyes, paints, writing ink, etc.

But it was the lowly peanut which made Carver famous. The peanut attracted his attention because it is easy to cultivate, it enriches the soil, and it is a ready source of protein, an especially important consideration since poor black farmers could not afford meat. From the peanut Carver developed a host of new products: most notably milk, but also butter, meal, Worcestershire sauce, various punches, cooking oils, salad oil, milk and medicines as well as cosmetics such as hand lotions, face creams, and powder. All together, he discovered more than 300 food, industrial, and commercial products from the peanut. Carver's research on foodstuffs derived not only from his belief that he had to find new uses for agricultural products to encourage farmers to grow them, but also because he saw many of these new products as nutritious additions to the diet of poor southerners. Similarly, he experimented with paints that could be made from Alabama clay since he knew that poor farmers could not afford commercial applications.

But inventing new products and demonstrating how to increase yields were only part of Carver's accomplishments. Intrinsic to his image of himself as a scientist - and as someone destined to assist impoverished blacks to improve their lot - was his role as a disseminator and an interpreter of scientific information. This was a role Carver assumed early on in his tenure at Tuskegee. One example of this was the Jessup wagon which grew out of the need to reach rural dwellers. Teaching modern farming practices and demonstrating new seeds to black belt farmers proved difficult, despite the best efforts of the Agricultural Extension Station and various conferences, fairs, and the like sponsored by Tuskegee.

Out of this frustration came the idea that if farmers would not or could not come to a school, then the school should go to them. Already, agriculturalists in Europe were experimenting with movable schools. In 1904 Iowa State organized "Seed Corn Gospel Trains," which carried lecturers and demonstration materials to farmers gathered at railroad stations. That same year Washington suggested that Carver outfit a wagon as a "traveling agricultural school."19 Carver called the idea "most excellent" and funding to equip and operate such a wagon was obtained from New York banker and philanthropist Morris K. Jessup, hence the name of the wagon, and from the John F. Slater Fund.

Tuskegee's traveling school opened for business on May 24, 1906. Carver never operated the wagon, but he drafted plans for it, selected the equipment, drew charts demonstrating farm operations, and suggested lectures on self-sufficient farming, fertilization, and the best crops to grow in various soils. The wagon was so successful that within a few months it was made part of the outreach program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture with Thomas Campbell, who had been a Tuskegee student, as operator under Carver's tutelage. The Jessup wagon greatly widened Tuskegee's reach, as Campbell's travels took him farther and farther away from the Institute. Rather than lecture farmers about proper agricultural techniques, Campbell would select a typical farm in a particular region, show the owner proper procedures for increasing yields, and guarantee the owner against losses. The success of these "cooperators" in increasing production then spurred their neighbors to adopt scientific farming methods.

Carver reached an even wider audience through the bulletins he issued as director of the Agricultural Experiment Station at Tuskegee. Publishing bulletins was one of the major functions of experimental stations; the bulletins generally reported the findings of station experiments and were usually aimed at agricultural researchers, not farmers. Carver intended his bulletins to bridge that gap; as such, he reported on the results of his experiments, but he also wanted the publications to serve as manuals for farmers. Initially, Carver set a goal of issuing four bulletins a year. He averaged less than half of that, and the number diminished over time, mostly because Carver's experimental station was a one-man operation, and that one man had many other responsibilities. In addition, the station was continually starved for funding.

Washington constantly pressed Carver to issue more bulletins, but in truth the scientist was laboring against impossible odds.20 He did all the research himself and prepared the manuscripts, including writing, editing, and typing them. He had no stenographer at the beginning and never had a printing press. So, Carver had to have his bulletins printed at the school's printing office, which frequently had no money. Since most of the bulletins were provided free of charge, Carver often had to beg for money to pay production costs.

Still, between 1898 and 1943, the year of his death, Carver issued forty-four bulletins, ranging from Experiments with Sweet Potatoes to How to Build up Worn Out Soils to Fertilizer Experiments in Cotton. Some were decidedly practical: How to Cook Peas and Three Delicious Meals Every Day for the Farmer are examples. Virtually all of the bulletins exhibited what Carver called his threefold approach: to supply simple cultivation information for farmers, a little science for teachers, and some recipes for housewives. Carver believed this approach spurred demand; in fact, demand for the bulletins was great, quickly exhausting the supply of two to five thousand copies that were usually printed. Success bred further problems since getting money for reprints was even harder than for the first printing.

But the widest audience Carver reached came in the forum that cemented his fame as "The Peanut Man:" his appearance in 1921 before the House Ways and Means Committee as an expert witness on behalf of the peanut industry which was seeking tariff protection. Carver's testimony did not begin well. He showed up in his usual manner: clean but rather shabbily dressed. Then he fumbled around as he laid out samples of peanut products on the table. He quickly used up his allotted ten minutes, but his time was repeatedly extended, as he showed and described the vast number of items that could be made from peanuts. He so captivated committee members that he received a standing ovation. More importantly, he convinced the committee that peanuts should be protected, helping to secure a high protective tariff for them. As his biographer wrote, "In less than an hour Carver had won a tariff for the peanut industry and national fame for himself."21

Carver was so enamored with the potential powers of the peanut that he became convinced the legume had miraculous curative powers. Carver had been introduced to the belief that natural products could cure a variety of diseases as a child while living with Mariah Watkins in Neosho, Missouri. Linked to his belief in the wonders of natural products and herbal remedies was his conviction that massages were beneficial, a belief which stemmed from his days as masseur to the Iowa State football team.

At Tuskegee Carver treated his friends to massages with peanut oil. By the 1930s he became convinced peanut oil could ameliorate the devastating paralysis that accompanied polio. He was certain that peanut oil applied during a massage not only saturated the skin and flesh but actually entered the blood stream and helped restore life to limbs withered by the effects of polio. In 1933 the Associated Press carried a story about Carver's alleged successes with peanut oil massages and, for a time, Tuskegee began to look like Lourdes as paralyzed pilgrims flocked to the Alabama school.

It is not clear just how effective Carver's massages were in treating polio. It is true that many of those treated testified that he had helped them regain at least some use of paralyzed limbs. Certainly, his claims about peanut oil massages do suggest a bit of the charlatan, but it should be pointed out that he never took payment for his treatments and that polio was a crippling disease that each summer seemed to affect more and more people. The fear of polio did not end until the development of an effective vaccine in the 1950s.

Back to top