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We went to the George Washington Carver Museum on the Tuskegee Institute in late 2008. The museum is small, but very worthwhile. There is a short film, gift shop, and lots of items to look at. George Washington Carver was born a slave and did not know his parents or date of birth. He was taken in by the Carver family who treated him like a son. They encouraged his scientific pursuits and interests along with his love of plant life and nature. At the age of nine George Carver went to Neosho, MO for schooling. Then in 1891 he entered Iowa State University to study agriculture. Carver loved to learn and wanted to help others learn. He believed that anyone could reach their full potential no matter what their case. A man named Booker T. Washington saw Carvers potential and asked him to teach at his institute, Tuskegee Institute. Booker T. Washington wanted to make a school where anyone could come to learn, not discriminating against color, race, or status. Carver naturally accepted the offer to teach there. While at the institute he studied the peanut, livestock, and found hundreds of uses for fruit, vegetables, and weeds. With the help of Carver, Booker T. Washington made the School on Wheels, a car with a “school” in the back. They took it around the countryside to farms to teach the farm families and others. Carver wrote a regular column for the newspaper, and also headed up weekly bible studies. George Washington Carver liked to help people and devoted his life to furthering the knowledge of those around him, and furthering his own. Carver also liked to create things. He liked to figure out a way. Probably one of the things he’s best known for is all of uses for the peanut he invented. Farmers used to grow cotton all in the area that Carver lived in. But, one day a beetle came through that wiped out the cotton. Carver said to plant peanuts to stop the beetles. The beetles did stop coming due to the peanuts, but then a new problem arose. What was to be done with all of the peanuts planted all over the countryside? So Carver went into his lab and spent a few days in there, just him and the peanuts. When he emerged from the lab this is what he had found. The peanut could be used to make: glycerin, hand lotion, oil for hair, shampoo, pomade, shaving cream, dandruff care, toilet soap, vanishment cream, fuel brackets, gas, insecticide, nitroglycerine, paper from vines, printers ink, dye for cloth, dye for leather, paint, wood stain, peanut die, axle grease, charcoal made from the shells, hand cleaner, coke a cola, diesel fuel, illuminating oil, lubricating oil, colored paper, white paper, plastics, and more! And he could show all of the people how to make it all! In addition to all of this Carver found a cure for polio, and made paint pigments out of the Alabama clay. George Washington Carver died on January 5th 1943 after a 47 year career at Tuskegee institute and a full life of adventure and learning. What I find that I like best about Carver is not that he invented all of these useful items that we use every day or that he was one of the smartest men. What I like best about him is that he could see the greatness in things, no matter how small or unimportant they seemed. Wither it be a thing, a plant, or a person, he saw the greatness in them and then he tried to bring them up to their full potential. He believed that anyone can accomplish great things, no matter the circumstance. Just take a look at him, born a slave, died one of the greatest men in American history!
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