Born: 1864, Diamond, MO

Education: Simpson College, 1890; Iowa State College, B.S., 1894, M.S., 1896

Died: January 4, 1943, Tuskegee, AL

Carver is a textbook hero and one of the best known figures in American history. Born a slave, he began his higher education at age thirty and was the first black person to earn degrees from Iowa State College. In 1896 he joined the Tuskegee Institute faculty and developed a respected program in agricultural science. He pursued seminal research in botany and plant bacteriology.

Seeking to improve the South's economy and health, he created more than 400 mainly food products from peanuts, pecans, and potatoes. Peanut butter, a Carver creation, is a national staple. From cotton waste and local clay, he made dyes and other useful goods. He attended to depleted farmlands on weekends, teaching black farmers soil conservation, crop diversification, and productive uses of fertilizers. This work resulted in Tuskegee's annual farming institute, which attracted thousands of rural blacks, and its farm extension service.

Carver advanced scientific and racial progress in spite of Jim Crow. He received the Spingarn Award from the NAACP in 1923; the US Postal Service memorialized him on a stamp in 1948. Five years later Congress authorized the Carver National Monument, which it located at his Missouri birthplace and dedicated on July 17, 1960.