Peanut butter is a food paste or spread made from ground, dry-roastedpeanuts. It often contains additional ingredients that modify the taste or texture, such as salt, sweeteners, or emulsifiers. Peanut butter is popular in many countries. The United States is a leading exporter of peanut butter and itself consumes $800 million of peanut butter annually.
Marcellus Gilmore Edson (1849 – 1940) of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, obtained a patent for a method of producing peanut butter from roasted peanuts using heated surfaces in 1884. Edson's cooled product had "a consistency like that of butter, lard, or ointment" according to his patent application which described a process of milling roasted peanuts
until the peanuts reached "a fluid or semi-fluid state". He mixed sugar
into the paste to harden its consistency. A businessman from St. Louis
named George Bayle produced and sold peanut butter in the form of a
snack food in 1894.
John Harvey Kellogg, known for his line of prepared breakfast cereals,
was issued a patent for a "Process of Producing Alimentary Products" in
1898, and used peanuts, although he boiled the peanuts rather than
roasting them.
Kellogg's Western Health Reform Institute served peanut butter to
patients because they needed a food that contained a lot of protein, yet
which could be eaten without chewing.
At first, peanut butter was a food for wealthy people, as it became
popular initially as a product served at expensive health care
institutes.
A Meal Ready to Eat or "MRE kit" which contains peanut butter packets.
Early peanut-butter-making machines were developed by Joseph Lambert,
who had worked at John Harvey Kellogg's Battle Creek Sanitarium, and
Dr. Ambrose Straub who obtained a patent for a peanut-butter-making
machine in 1903.
"In 1922, chemist Joseph Rosefield invented a process for making smooth
peanut butter that kept the oil from separating by using partially hydrogenated oil"; Rosefield "...licensed his invention to the company that created Peter Pan peanut butter" in 1928 and in "...1932 he began producing his own peanut butter under the name Skippy".
Under the Skippy brand, Rosefield developed a new method of churning
creamy peanut butter, giving it a smoother consistency. He also mixed
fragments of peanut into peanut butter, creating the first
"chunky"-style peanut butter. In 1955, Procter & Gamble launched a peanut butter named Jif, which was sweeter than other brands, due to the use of "sugar and molasses" in its recipe.
As the US National Peanut Board confirms, "Contrary to popular belief, George Washington Carver did not invent peanut butter."
Carver was given credit in popular folklore for many inventions that
did not come out of his lab. By the time Carver published his document
about peanuts, entitled "How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of
Preparing it For Human Consumption" in 1916,
many methods of preparation of peanut butter had been developed or
patented by various pharmacists, doctors, and food scientists working in
the US and Canada. January 24 is National Peanut Butter Day in the United States.
Types
A jar of commercial "creamy" peanut butter.
The two main types of peanut butter are crunchy (or chunky) and smooth (or creamy).
In crunchy peanut butter, some coarsely-ground peanut fragments are
included to give extra texture. The peanuts in smooth peanut butter are
ground uniformly, creating a creamy texture.
In the US, food regulations require that any product labelled "peanut butter" must contain at least 90% peanuts;
the remaining <10 a="" an="" and="" as="" butter="" can="" class="mw-redirect" consists="" contain="" emulsifier="" from="" hardened="" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_sweetener" in="" labelled="" no="" of="" oil="" or="" peanut="" prevents="" product="" salt="" separating="" sweetener="" the="" title="Artificial sweetener" us="" usually="" vegetable="" which="">artificial sweeteners
A tractor being used to complete the first stage of the peanut harvesting process
Due to weather conditions, peanuts are usually planted in spring. The peanut
comes from a yellow flower which bends over and infiltrates the soil
after blooming and wilting, and the peanut starts to grow in the soil.
Peanuts are harvested from late August to October, while the weather is
clear.
This weather allows for dry soil so that when picked, the soil does not
stick to the stems and pods. The peanuts are then removed from vines and transported to a peanut shelling machine for mechanical drying. After cropping, the peanuts are delivered to warehouses for cleaning, where they are stored unshelled in silos.
Shelling
Shelling must be conducted carefully lest the seeds be damaged during
the removal of the shell. The moisture of the unshelled peanuts is
controlled to avoid excessive frangibility of the shells and kernels,
which in turn, reduces the amount of dust present in the plant.
After, the peanuts are sent to a series of rollers set specifically for
the batch of peanuts, where they are cracked. After cracking, the
peanuts go through a screening process where they are inspected for contaminants.
Roasting
The dry roasting
process employs either the batch or continuous method. In the batch
method, peanuts are heated in large quantities in a revolving oven at about 800 °F (427 °C). Next, the peanuts in each batch are uniformly held and roasted in the oven at 320 °F (160 °C) for about 40 to 60 minutes. This method is good to use when the peanuts differ in moisture content.
In the continuous method, a hot air roaster is employed. The peanuts
pass through the roaster whilst being rocked to permit even roasting. A
photometer indicates the completion of dry roasting. This method is favored by large manufacturers since it can lower the rate of spoilage and requires less labor.
Cooling
After dry roasting, peanuts are removed from the oven as quickly as possible and directly placed in a blower-cooler cylinder. There are suction fans in the metal cylinder that can pull a large volume of air through, so the peanuts can be cooled more efficiently. The peanuts will not be dried out because cooling can help retain some oil and moisture. The cooling process is completed when the temperature in the cylinder reaches 86 °F (30 °C).
Blanching
After the kernels have been cooled down, the peanuts will undergo either heat blanching or water blanching to remove the remaining seed coats. Compared to heat blanching, water blanching is a new process. Water blanching first appeared in 1949.
Heat blanching
Peanuts are heated by hot air at 280 °F (138 °C) for not more than 20
minutes in order to soften and split the skins. After that, the peanuts
are exposed to continuous steam
in a blanching machine. The skins are then removed using either
bristles or soft rubber belts. After that, these skins are separated and
blown into waste bags. Meanwhile, the hearts of peanuts are segregated
through inspection.
Water blanching
After the kernels are arranged in troughs, the skin of the kernel is
cracked on opposite sides by rolling it through sharp stationary blades.
While the skins are removed, the kernels are brought through a
one-minute hot water bath and placed on a swinging pad with canvas on
top. The swinging action of the pad rubs off the skins. Afterward, the
blanched kernels are dried for at least six hours by hot air at 120 °F
(49 °C).
After blanching, the peanuts are screened and inspected to
eliminate the burnt and rotten peanuts. A blower is also used to remove
light peanuts and discolored peanuts are removed using a color sorting
machine.
Grinding
After blanching the peanuts are sent to grinding to be manufactured
into peanut butter. The peanuts are then sent through two sizes of
grinders. The first grinder produces a medium grind, and the second
produces a fine grind. At this point, salt, sugar and a vegetable oil stabilizer are added to the fine grind to produce the peanut butter. This adds flavor and allows the peanut butter to stay as a homogenous mixture. Chopped peanuts may also be added at this stage to produce “chunky” peanut butter.
Packaging
Before packaging, the peanut butter must first be cooled in order to be sealed in jars. The mixture is pumped into a heat exchanger in order to cool it to about 120 °F (49 °C). Once cool, the peanut butter is pumped into jars and vacuum sealed. This vacuum sealing
rids the container of oxygen so that oxidation cannot occur, preserving
the food. The jars are then labelled and set aside until
crystallization occurs. The peanut butter is then packaged into cartons
distributed to retailers, where they are stored at room temperature and sold to consumers.
A 2012 article stated that "China and India are the first and second largest producers, respectively", of peanuts.
The United States of America "...is the third largest producer of
peanuts (Georgia and Texas are the two major peanut-producing states)" and "more than half of the American peanut crop goes into making peanut butter."
For people with a peanut allergy, peanut butter can cause a variety of possible allergic reactions, including life-threatening anaphylaxis. This potential effect has led to banning peanut butter, among other common foods, in some schools.
Symptoms
Shortness of breath
Wheezing
Tightening of the throat
Itching
Skin reactions such as hives and swelling
Digestive problems
Other uses
Peanut butter cookies, a popular type of cookie made from peanut butter and other ingredients
Peanut butter's flavor combines well with other flavors, such as
oatmeal, cheese, cured meats, savory sauces, and various types of breads
and crackers. The creamy or crunchy, fatty, salty taste pairs very
well with complementary soft and sweet ingredients like fruit preserves,
bananas, apples, and honey. The taste can also be enhanced by similarly
salty things like bacon, especially if the peanut butter has added sweetness.
One snack for children is called "Ants on a Log", with a celery
stick acting as the "log". The groove in the celery stick is filled with
peanut butter and raisins arranged in a row along the top are "ants".
Plumpy'nut
is a peanut butter-based food used to fight malnutrition in
famine-stricken countries. A single pack contains 500 calories, can be
stored unrefrigerated for 2 years, and requires no cooking or
preparation.
As animal food
Peanut butter inside a hollow chew toy is a method to occupy a dog with a favored treat. A common outdoor bird feeder is a coating of peanut butter on a pine cone with an overlying layer of birdseed.
Other names
A slang term for peanut butter in World War II was "monkey butter". In the Netherlands peanut butter is called pindakaas (literally "peanut cheese") rather than pindaboter ("peanut butter") because the word butter
was a legally protected term for products that contain actual butter,
prompting Calvé, the company which first marketed it in the country in
1948, to use kaas instead.
In the US, food regulations require that "peanut butter" must contain
at least 90% peanuts, otherwise it must be called "peanut spread".
George Washington Carver (1860s – January 5, 1943) was an American agricultural scientist and inventor. He actively promoted alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion. He was the most prominent black scientist of the early 20th century.
While a professor at Tuskegee Institute,
Carver developed techniques to improve soils depleted by repeated
plantings of cotton. He wanted poor farmers to grow alternative crops
such as peanuts and sweet potatoes
as a source of their own food and to improve their quality of life. The
most popular of his 44 practical bulletins for farmers contained 105
food recipes using peanuts. Although he spent years developing and
promoting numerous products made from peanuts, none became commercially
successful.
Apart from his work to improve the lives of farmers, Carver was also a leader in promoting environmentalism. He received numerous honors for his work, including the Spingarn Medal of the NAACP.
In an era of high racial polarization, his fame reached beyond the
black community. He was widely recognized and praised in the white
community for his many achievements and talents. In 1941, Time magazine dubbed Carver a "Black Leonardo".
Early years
The farm house of Moses Carver (built in 1881), near the place where George Carver lived as a youth
Carver was born into slavery in Diamond Grove, Newton County, near Crystal Place, now known as Diamond, Missouri,
some time in the early-mid 1860s. The exact date of his birth is
uncertain and was not known to Carver. However, it was before slavery
was abolished in Missouri in January 1865 after the American Civil War. His master, Moses Carver, was a German American immigrant who had purchased George's parents, Mary and Giles, from William P. McGinnis on October 9, 1855, for $700.
When George was only a week old, he, a sister, and his mother were kidnapped by night raiders from Arkansas. George's brother, James, was rushed to safety from the kidnappers. The kidnappers sold the slaves in Kentucky.
Moses Carver hired John Bentley to find them, but he located only the
infant George. Moses negotiated with the raiders to gain the boy's
return, and rewarded Bentley. After slavery was abolished, Moses Carver
and his wife Susan raised George and his older brother James as their
own children. They encouraged George to continue his intellectual
pursuits, and "Aunt Susan" taught him the basics of reading and writing.
Black people
were not allowed at the public school in Diamond Grove. George decided
to go to a school for black children 10 miles (16 km) south in Neosho.
When he reached the town, he found the school closed for the night. He
slept in a nearby barn. By his own account, the next morning he met a
kind woman, Mariah Watkins, from whom he wished to rent a room. When he
identified himself as "Carver's George," as he had done his whole life,
she replied that from now on his name was "George Carver". George liked
Mariah Watkins, and her words, "You must learn all you can, then go back
out into the world and give your learning back to the people", made a
great impression on him.
At the age of 13, due to his desire to attend the academy there, he relocated to the home of another foster family in Fort Scott, Kansas.
After witnessing a black man killed by a group of whites, Carver left
the city. He attended a series of schools before earning his diploma at Minneapolis High School in Minneapolis, Kansas.
College education
At work in his laboratory
Carver applied to several colleges before being accepted at Highland University in Highland, Kansas. When he arrived, however, they refused to let him attend because of his race. In August 1886, Carver traveled by wagon with J. F. Beeler from Highland to Eden Township in Ness County, Kansas. He homesteaded a claim near Beeler,
where he maintained a small conservatory of plants and flowers and a
geological collection. He manually plowed 17 acres (69,000 m2) of the claim, planting rice, corn, Indian corn
and garden produce, as well as various fruit trees, forest trees, and
shrubbery. He also earned money by odd jobs in town and worked as a ranch hand.
In early 1888, Carver obtained a $300 loan at the Bank of Ness City for education. By June he left the area. In 1890, Carver started studying art and piano at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa. His art teacher, Etta Budd, recognized Carver's talent for painting flowers and plants; she encouraged him to study botany at Iowa State Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) in Ames.
When he began there in 1891, he was the first black student at Iowa State. Carver's Bachelor's thesis for a degree in Agriculture was "Plants as Modified by Man", dated 1894. Iowa State University professors Joseph Budd and Louis Pammel convinced Carver to continue there for his master's degree. Carver did research at the Iowa Experiment Station under Pammel during the next two years. His work at the experiment station in plant pathology and mycology first gained him national recognition and respect as a botanist. Carver received his master of science degree in 1896. Carver taught as the first black faculty member at Iowa State.
Despite occasionally being addressed as "doctor," Carver never received an official doctorate,
and in a personal communication with Louis H. Pammel, he noted that it
was a "misnomer", given to him by others due to his abilities and their
assumptions about his education. With that said, both Simpson College and Selma University awarded him honorarydoctorates of science in his lifetime. Iowa State later awarded him a doctorate of humane letters posthumously in 1994.
In 1896, Booker T. Washington, the first principal and president of the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University),
invited Carver to head its Agriculture Department. Carver taught there
for 47 years, developing the department into a strong research center
and working with two additional college presidents during his tenure. He
taught methods of crop rotation, introduced several alternative cash
crops for farmers that would also improve the soil of areas heavily
cultivated in cotton, initiated research into crop products (chemurgy),
and taught generations of black students farming techniques for
self-sufficiency.
Carver designed a mobile classroom to take education out to
farmers. He called it a "Jesup wagon" after the New York financier and philanthropistMorris Ketchum Jesup, who provided funding to support the program.
To recruit Carver to Tuskegee, Washington gave him an above
average salary and two rooms for his personal use, although both
concessions were resented by some other faculty. Because he had earned a
master's in a scientific field from a "white" institution, some faculty
perceived him as arrogant.[22] Unmarried faculty members normally had to share rooms, with two to a room, in the spartan early days of the institute.
One of Carver's duties was to administer the Agricultural
Experiment Station farms. He had to manage the production and sale of
farm products to generate revenue for the Institute. He soon proved to
be a poor administrator. In 1900, Carver complained that the physical
work and the letter-writing required were too much.
In 1904, an Institute committee reported that Carver's reports on
yields from the poultry yard were exaggerated, and Washington confronted
Carver about the issue. Carver replied in writing, "Now to be branded
as a liar and party to such hellish deception it is more than I can
bear, and if your committee feel that I have willfully lied or [was]
party to such lies as were told my resignation is at your disposal."
During Washington's last five years at Tuskegee, Carver submitted or
threatened his resignation several times: when the administration
reorganized the agriculture programs, when he disliked a teaching assignment, to manage an experiment station elsewhere, and when he did not get summer teaching assignments in 1913–14. In each case, Washington smoothed things over.
Carver started his academic career as a researcher and teacher. In
1911, Washington wrote a letter to him complaining that Carver had not
followed orders to plant particular crops at the experiment station.
This revealed Washington's micro-management
of Carver's department, which he had headed for more than 10 years by
then. Washington at the same time refused Carver's requests for a new
laboratory, research supplies for his exclusive use, and respite from
teaching classes. Washington praised Carver's abilities in teaching and
original research but said about his administrative skills:
When it comes to the organization of classes, the ability
required to secure a properly organized and large school or section of a
school, you are wanting in ability. When it comes to the matter of
practical farm managing which will secure definite, practical, financial
results, you are wanting again in ability.
In 1911, Carver complained that his laboratory had not received the
equipment which Washington had promised 11 months before. He also
complained about Institute committee meetings.[30] Washington praised Carver in his 1911 memoir, My Larger Education: Being Chapters from My Experience. Washington called Carver "one of the most thoroughly scientific men of the Negro race with whom I am acquainted." After Washington died in 1915, his successor made fewer demands on Carver for administrative tasks.
While a professor at Tuskegee, Carver joined the Gamma Sigma chapter of Phi Beta Sigma
fraternity. He spoke at the 1930 Conclave that was held at Tuskegee,
Alabama, in which he delivered a powerful and emotional speech to the
men in attendance.
From 1915 to 1923, Carver concentrated on researching and
experimenting with new uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans,
pecans, and other crops, as well as having his assistants research and
compile existing uses.
This work, and especially his speaking to a national conference of the
Peanut Growers Association in 1920 and in testimony before Congress in
1921 to support passage of a tariff on imported peanuts, brought him
wide publicity and increasing renown. In these years, he became one of
the most well-known African Americans of his time.
Rise to fame
"One of America's great scientists." U.S. World War II poster circa 1943
Carver developed techniques to improve soils depleted by repeated plantings of cotton. Together with other agricultural experts, he urged farmers to restore nitrogen to their soils by practicing systematic crop rotation: alternating cotton crops with plantings of sweet potatoes or legumes (such as peanuts, soybeans and cowpeas).
These crops both restored nitrogen to the soil and were good for human
consumption. Following the crop rotation practice resulted in improved
cotton yields and gave farmers alternative cash crops. To train farmers
to successfully rotate and cultivate the new crops, Carver developed an
agricultural extension program for Alabama that was similar to the one
at Iowa State. To encourage better nutrition in the South, he widely
distributed recipes using the alternative crops.
Additionally, he founded an industrial research laboratory, where
he and assistants worked to popularize the new crops by developing
hundreds of applications for them. They did original research as well as
promoting applications and recipes, which they collected from others.
Carver distributed his information as agricultural bulletins.
Peanut specimen collected by Carver
Carver's work was known by officials in the national capital before he became a public figure. President Theodore Roosevelt
publicly admired his work. Former professors of Carver's from Iowa
State University were appointed to positions as Secretary of
Agriculture: James Wilson, a former dean and professor of Carver's, served from 1897 to 1913. Henry Cantwell Wallace served from 1921 to 1924. He knew Carver personally because his son Henry A. Wallace and the researcher were friends. The younger Wallace served as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture from 1933 to 1940, and as Franklin Delano Roosevelt's vice president from 1941 to 1945.
The American industrialist, farmer, and inventor William Edenborn of Winn Parish, Louisiana, grew peanuts on his demonstration farm. He consulted with Carver.
In 1916, Carver was made a member of the Royal Society of Arts
in England, one of only a handful of Americans at that time to receive
this honor. Carver's promotion of peanuts gained him the most notice. In
1919, Carver wrote to a peanut company about the potential he saw for
peanut milk. Both he and the peanut industry seemed unaware that in 1917
William Melhuish had secured US 1243855, issued 1917-10-23 for a milk substitute made from peanuts and soybeans.
The United Peanut Associations of America invited Carver to speak
at their 1920 convention. He discussed "The Possibilities of the
Peanut" and exhibited 145 peanut products. By 1920, the U.S. peanut
farmers were being undercut by low prices on imported peanuts from the Republic of China.
In 1921, peanut farmers and industry representatives planned to appear at Congressional hearings to ask for a tariff.
Based on the quality of Carver's presentation at their convention, they
asked the African-American professor to testify on the tariff issue
before the Ways and Means Committee of the United States House of Representatives. Due to segregation,
it was highly unusual for an African American to appear as an expert
witness at Congress representing European-American industry and farmers.
Southern congressmen, reportedly shocked at Carver's arriving to
testify, were said to have mocked him.
As he talked about the importance of the peanut and its uses for
American agriculture, the committee members repeatedly extended the time
for his testimony. The Fordney–McCumber Tariff of 1922 was passed including one on imported peanuts. Carver's testifying to Congress made him widely known as a public figure.
During the last two decades of his life, Carver seemed to enjoy his celebrity status. He was often on the road promoting Tuskegee University, peanuts,
and racial harmony. Although he only published six agricultural
bulletins after 1922, he published articles in peanut industry journals
and wrote a syndicated newspaper column, "Professor Carver's Advice".
Business leaders came to seek his help, and he often responded with free
advice. Three American presidents—Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge and Franklin Roosevelt—met with him, and the Crown Prince of Sweden studied with him for three weeks. From 1923 to 1933, Carver toured white Southern colleges for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation.
With his increasing notability, Carver became the subject of biographies and articles. Raleigh H. Merritt contacted him for his biography published in 1929. Merritt wrote:
At present not a great deal has been done to utilize Dr.
Carver's discoveries commercially. He says that he is merely scratching
the surface of scientific investigations of the possibilities of the
peanut and other Southern products.
In 1932, the writer James Saxon Childers wrote that Carver and his peanut products were almost solely responsible for the rise in U.S. peanut production after the boll weevil devastated the American cotton crop beginning about 1892. His article, "A Boy Who Was Traded for a Horse" (1932), in The American Magazine, and its 1937 reprint in Reader's Digest,
contributed to this myth about Carver's influence. Other popular media
tended to exaggerate Carver's impact on the peanut industry.
From 1933 to 1935, Carver worked to develop peanut oil massages to treat infantile paralysis (polio).
Ultimately, researchers found that the massages, not the peanut oil,
provided the benefits of maintaining some mobility to paralyzed limbs.
From 1935 to 1937, Carver participated in the USDA Disease
Survey. Carver had specialized in plant diseases and mycology for his
master's degree.
In 1937, Carver attended two chemurgy conferences, an emerging field in the 1930s, during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, concerned with developing new products from crops. He was invited by Henry Ford
to speak at the conference held in Dearborn, Michigan, and they
developed a friendship. That year Carver's health declined, and Ford
later installed an elevator at the Tuskegee dormitory where Carver
lived, so that the elderly man would not have to climb stairs.
Carver had been frugal in his life, and in his seventies he
established a legacy by creating a museum of his work, as well as the
George Washington Carver Foundation at Tuskegee in 1938 to continue
agricultural research. He donated nearly US$60,000 (equivalent to $1,089,787 in 2019) in his savings to create the foundation.
Relationships
"Austin Curtis - Scientist successor to Dr. Carver", cartoon by C.H. Alston
Carver never married. At age 40, he began a courtship with Sarah L.
Hunt, an elementary school teacher and the sister-in-law of Warren
Logan, Treasurer of Tuskegee Institute. This lasted three years until
she took a teaching job in California.
In her 2015 biography, Christina Vella reviews his relationships and
suggests that Carver was bisexual and constrained by mores of his
historic period.
When he was 70, Carver established a friendship and research partnership with the scientist Austin W. Curtis, Jr. This young black man, a graduate of Cornell University,
had some teaching experience before coming to Tuskegee. Carver
bequeathed to Curtis his royalties from an authorized 1943 biography by Rackham Holt. After Carver died in 1943, Curtis was fired from Tuskegee Institute. He left Alabama and resettled in Detroit. There he manufactured and sold peanut-based personal care products.
Upon returning home one day, Carver took a bad fall down a flight of
stairs; he was found unconscious by a maid who took him to a hospital.
Carver died January 5, 1943, at the age of 78 from complications (anemia)
resulting from this fall. He was buried next to Booker T. Washington at
Tuskegee University. Due to his frugality, Carver's life savings
totaled $60,000, all of which he donated in his last years and at his
death to the Carver Museum and to the George Washington Carver
Foundation.
On his grave was written, He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.
Personal life
Voice pitch
Even as an adult Carver spoke with a high pitch. Historian Linda O.
McMurry noted that he "was a frail and sickly child" who suffered "from a
severe case of whooping cough and frequent bouts of what was called
croup."
McMurry contested the diagnosis of croup, holding rather that "His
stunted growth and apparently impaired vocal cords suggest instead
tubercular or pneumococcal infection. Frequent infections of that nature
could have caused the growth of polyps on the larynx and may have
resulted from a gamma globulin deficiency. ... until his death the high
pitch of his voice startled all who met him, and he suffered from
frequent chest congestion and loss of voice."
There are some rumors that Carver was castrated. Harley Flack and Edmund Pellegrino's book African-American Perspectives on Biomedical Ethics
(1992) reports that Carver was castrated by a physician at age 11 at
the request of his white master. A friend of Carver's was told by the
autopsy doctors — according to Carver's biographer Peter Burchard, who
told this to Iowa Public Radio in 2010 — that Carver had only scar
tissue instead of testicles.
If it is true that he was castrated before puberty, it would explain
his high voice, but it would also suggest that he should not have been
able to grow his beard.
Christianity
Carver believed he could have faith both in God and science and
integrated them into his life. He testified on many occasions that his
faith in Jesus was the only mechanism by which he could effectively pursue and perform the art of science. Carver became a Christian when he was still a young boy, as he wrote in connection to his conversion in 1931:
I was just a mere boy when
converted, hardly ten years old. There isn't much of a story to it. God
just came into my heart one afternoon while I was alone in the 'loft' of
our big barn while I was shelling corn to carry to the mill to be
ground into meal.
A dear little white boy, one of our neighbors, about my age came
by one Saturday morning, and in talking and playing he told me he was
going to Sunday school tomorrow morning. I was eager to know what a
Sunday school was. He said they sang hymns and prayed. I asked him what
prayer was and what they said. I do not remember what he said; only
remember that as soon as he left I climbed up into the 'loft,' knelt
down by the barrel of corn and prayed as best I could. I do not remember
what I said. I only recall that I felt so good that I prayed several
times before I quit.
My brother and myself were the only colored children in that
neighborhood and of course, we could not go to church or Sunday school,
or school of any kind.
That was my simple conversion, and I have tried to keep the faith.
— G. W. Carver; Letter to Isabelle Coleman; July 24, 1931
He was not expected to live past his 21st birthday due to failing
health. He lived well past the age of 21, and his belief deepened as a
result.
Throughout his career, he always found friendship with other
Christians. He relied on them especially when criticized by the
scientific community and media regarding his research methodology.
Carver viewed faith in Jesus Christ as a means of destroying both barriers of racial disharmony and social stratification.
He was as concerned with his students' character development as he was
with their intellectual development. He compiled a list of eight
cardinal virtues for his students to strive toward:
A monument to Carver at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis
Be clean both inside and out.
Neither look up to the rich nor down on the poor.
Lose, if need be, without squealing.
Win without bragging.
Always be considerate of women, children, and older people.
Be too brave to lie.
Be too generous to cheat.
Take your share of the world and let others take theirs.
Beginning in 1906 at Tuskegee, Carver led a Bible class on Sundays
for several students at their request. He regularly portrayed stories by
acting them out.
He responded to critics with this: "When you do the common things in
life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world."
Honors
1923, Spingarn Medal from the NAACP, awarded annually for outstanding achievement.
1928, honorary doctorate from Simpson College
1939, the Roosevelt Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Southern Agriculture
A movement to establish a U.S. national monument to Carver began before his death. Because of World War II, such non-war expenditures had been banned by presidential order. Missouri senator Harry S. Truman sponsored a bill in favor of a monument. In a committee hearing on the bill, one supporter said:
The bill is not simply a momentary pause on the part of
busy men engaged in the conduct of the war, to do honor to one of the
truly great Americans of this country, but it is in essence a blow
against the Axis,
it is in essence a war measure in the sense that it will further
unleash and release the energies of roughly 15,000,000 Negro people in
this country for full support of our war effort.
The bill passed unanimously in both houses.
On July 14, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated $30,000 for the George Washington Carver National Monument west-southwest of Diamond, Missouri,
the area where Carver had spent time in his childhood. This was the
first national monument dedicated to an African American and the first
to honor someone other than a president. The 210-acre (0.8 km2) national monument complex includes a bust
of Carver, a ¾-mile nature trail, a museum, the 1881 Moses Carver
house, and the Carver cemetery. The national monument opened in July
1953.
In December 1947, a fire broke out in the Carver Museum, and much of the collection was damaged. Time
magazine reported that all but three of the 48 Carver paintings at the
museum were destroyed. His best-known painting, displayed at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893
in Chicago, depicts a yucca and cactus. This canvas survived and has
undergone conservation. It is displayed together with several of his
other paintings.
In 2005, Carver's research at the Tuskegee Institute was designated a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society. On February 15, 2005, an episode of Modern Marvels included scenes from within Iowa State University's Food Sciences Building and about Carver's work. In 2005, the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Missouri, opened a George Washington Carver garden in his honor, which includes a life-size statue of him.
Many institutions continue to honor George Washington Carver.
Dozens of elementary schools and high schools are named after him. National Basketball Association star David Robinson and his wife, Valerie, founded an academy named after Carver; it opened on September 17, 2001, in San Antonio, Texas. The Carver Community Cultural Center, a historic center located in San Antonio, is named for him.
Reputed inventions
Carver was given credit in popular folklore for many inventions that did not come out of his lab. Three patents (one for cosmetics; US 1522176, issued January 6, 1925, and two for paints and stains; US 1541478, issued June 9, 1925 and US 1632365, issued June 14, 1927) were issued to Carver in 1925 to 1927; however, they were not commercially successful.
Aside from these patents and some recipes for food, Carver left no
records of formulae or procedures for making his products. He did not
keep a laboratory notebook.
Mackintosh notes that, "Carver did not explicitly claim that he had
personally discovered all the peanut attributes and uses he cited, but
he said nothing to prevent his audiences from drawing the inference."
Carver's research was intended to produce replacements from common crops
for commercial products, which were generally beyond the budget of the
small one-horse farmer. A misconception grew that his research on
products for subsistence farmers were developed by others commercially
to change Southern agriculture. Carver's work to provide small farmers with resources for more independence from the cash economy foreshadowed the "appropriate technology" work of E. F. Schumacher.
Peanut products
Dennis Keeney, director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, wrote in the Leopold Letter (newsletter):
Carver worked on improving soils, growing crops with low
inputs, and using species that fixed nitrogen (hence, the work on the
cowpea and the peanut). Carver wrote in 'The Need of Scientific
Agriculture in the South': "The virgin fertility of our soils and the
vast amount of unskilled labor have been more of a curse than a blessing
to agriculture. This exhaustive system for cultivation, the destruction
of forest, the rapid and almost constant decomposition of organic
matter, have made our agricultural problem one requiring more brains
than of the North, East or West."
Carver worked for years to create a company to market his products.
The most important was the Carver Penol Company, which sold a mixture of
creosote and peanuts as a patent medicine for respiratory diseases such as tuberculosis. Sales were lackluster and the product was ineffective according to the Food and Drug Administration.
Other ventures were The Carver Products Company and the Carvoline
Company. Carvoline Antiseptic Hair Dressing was a mix of peanut oil and lanolin. Carvoline Rubbing Oil was a peanut oil for massages.
Carver is often mistakenly credited with the invention of peanut butter. By the time Carver published "How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it For Human Consumption" in 1916,
many methods of preparation of peanut butter had been developed or
patented by various pharmacists, doctors and food scientists working in
the US and Canada. The Aztec were known to have made peanut butter from ground peanuts as early as the 15th century. Canadian pharmacist Marcellus Gilmore Edson was awarded U.S. Patent 306,727 (for its manufacture) in 1884, 12 years before Carver began his work at Tuskegee.
Sweet potato products
Carver is also associated with developing sweet potato
products. In his 1922 sweet potato bulletin, Carver listed a few dozen
recipes, "many of which I have copied verbatim from Bulletin No. 129, U.
S. Department of Agriculture". Carver's records included the following sweet potato products: 73 dyes, 17 wood fillers, 14 candies, 5 library pastes, 5 breakfast foods, 4 starches, 4 flours, and 3 molasses. He also had listings for vinegars, dry coffee and instant coffee, candy, after-dinner mints, orange drops, and lemon drops.
Carver bulletins
During his more than four decades at Tuskegee, Carver's official
published work consisted mainly of 44 practical bulletins for farmers.
His first bulletin in 1898 was on feeding acorns to farm animals. His
final bulletin in 1943 was about the peanut. He also published six
bulletins on sweet potatoes, five on cotton, and four on cowpeas. Some
other individual bulletins dealt with alfalfa, wild plum, tomato,
ornamental plants, corn, poultry, dairying, hogs, preserving meats in
hot weather, and nature study in schools.
His most popular bulletin, How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption, was first published in 1916
and was reprinted many times. It gave a short overview of peanut crop
production and contained a list of recipes from other agricultural
bulletins, cookbooks, magazines, and newspapers, such as the Peerless Cookbook, Good Housekeeping, and Berry's Fruit Recipes. Carver's was far from the first American agricultural bulletin devoted to peanuts, but his bulletins did seem to be more popular and widespread than previous ones.
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