George Washington Carver (1880-1943 was born into a slave house near Diamond Grove, Missouri (USA); he worked his way through lowa State College, obtaining an M.A. in Agriculture in 1896, He was then invited by Booker T. Washington to become Director of Agricultural Research at Tiskegee Institute in Albama.
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Hoping to improve the lives of disadvantaged black farmers and the economy of the Southern US, he promoted peanuts and sweet potatoes as alternatives to soil-depleting cotton and developed numerous products that could be made from each of these crops. He lectured widely on his work and was instrumental in the crop diversification that occurred in the Southern US in the early 20th century.