(a)The Legislature finds all of the following:
(1)George Washington Carver was an agricultural scientist and inventor who developed hundreds of products using peanuts, sweet potatoes, and soybeans. Born into slavery a year before it was outlawed, Carver left home at a young age to pursue an education and would eventually earn a Master’s Degree in Agricultural Science from Iowa State University. He would go on to teach and conduct research at Tuskegee University for decades.
(2)Born on a farm near Diamond, Missouri, the exact date of Carver’s birth is unknown, but it is thought he was born in January or June of 1864.
(3)At a young age, Carver took a keen interest in plants and experimented with natural pesticides, fungicides, and soil conditioners. He became known as “the plant doctor”
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(a) The Legislature finds all of the following:
(1) George Washington Carver was an agricultural scientist and inventor who developed hundreds of products using peanuts, sweet potatoes, and soybeans. Born into slavery a year before it was outlawed, Carver left home at a young age to pursue an education and would eventually earn a Master’s Degree in Agricultural Science from Iowa State University. He would go on to teach and conduct research at Tuskegee University for decades.
(2) Born on a farm near Diamond, Missouri, the exact date of Carver’s birth is unknown, but it is thought he was born in January or June of 1864.
(3) At a young age, Carver took a keen interest in plants and experimented with natural pesticides, fungicides, and soil conditioners. He became known as “the plant doctor” to local farmers due to his ability to discern how to improve the health of their gardens, fields, and orchards.
(4) In 1894, Carver became the first African American to earn a Bachelor of Science degree. Impressed by Carver’s research on the fungal infections of soybean plants, his professors encouraged him to pursue graduate studies. In 1896, Carver earned his Master of Agriculture degree and immediately received several teaching offers, the most attractive of which came from Booker T. Washington of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.
(5) Washington convinced the university’s trustees to establish an agricultural school and Carver accepted the offer to run the program and would work at Tuskegee Institute for the remainder of his life. 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, and initiated research into crop products.
(6) Farmers enjoyed the higher yields of cotton they were achieving as a result of Carver’s crop rotation technique. However, the technique resulted in a surplus of peanuts and other non-cotton products. Carver then worked on finding alternative uses for these products, with his biggest success coming from peanuts. In all, he developed more than 300 food, industrial, and commercial products from peanuts, including milk, flour, Worcestershire sauce, punches, cooking oils, salad oil, paper, dyes, paints, writing ink, cosmetics, soaps, and wood stains.
(7) In 1937, Carver was asked for a list of the peanut products that he had developed. He wrote in reply, “There are more than 300 of them. I do not attempt to keep a list, as a list today would not be the same tomorrow.” However, Carver did write down advice and recipes, which he shared in agricultural bulletins such as “How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it For Human Consumption” (1916). Thus, while we cannot see all of Carver’s formulas, Carver’s instructions for peanut soup, peanut bread, peanut cake, and more are still available.
(8) Carver died January 5, 1943, at the age of 79. He was buried next to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee University. 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.”
(b) The peanut is designated as the official state legume of Alabama.