As one of the most recognized names in agricultural research, George Washington Carver overcame numerous obstacles to achieve a graduate education and gain international fame as an educator, inventor, and scientist. In 1896 he became the head a new school of agriculture at Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. He spent the next 25 years seeking solutions to the hardships that debt and overdependence on cotton cultivation caused black sharecroppers and tenant farmers. For most of his career, Carver labored in relative obscurity until his 1921 testimony at the U.S. House of Representatives in favor of peanut tariffs launched his public persona as the “Peanut Man.” By the time of his death on January 5, 1943, Carver was a world-renowned figure. His work improved the lives of hundreds of black Alabamians and was instrumental in pioneering ecologically sound and sustainable technology. Carver is buried in the Tuskegee University Campus Cemetery.

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Encyclopedia of Alabama