 Hello from the National Archives public programs and education staff. My name is Breanne Robertson and I am an education specialist at the National Archives in Washington, DC. Welcome to the National Archives Comes Alive Young Learners Program. Today, we meet George Washington Carver, a noted American agricultural scientist, educator and inventor. Carver was often referred to as the peanut man. He developed hundreds of products using peanuts, sweet potatoes and soybeans, revolutionizing the science behind planting and farming. He taught for many years about his work at the Tuskegee Institute. In many contributions, his birthplace site was designated a national monument, the first person other than a US president, given the distinction. George Washington Carver is portrayed by Keith Hinley of American Historical Theater. The National Archives has many records related to George Washington Carver. On this slide, for our education specific resource Docs Teach, you can see an educational activity for George Washington Carver. Here we see one of three patents Carver had. This one from 1925 and part of the collection of records of the patent and trademark office. The patent states Carver is a citizen and resides at Tuskegee in the county of Macon and state of Alabama. It then goes on to state, the invention relates to cosmetics and has an object, the provision of a pomade or cream made from peanuts, which will provide a vanishing cream of any desired or usual time, the pomade or cream having powder combined therewith. While Dr. Carver worked at Tuskegee, he had developed a list of over 300 uses for peanuts. The National Archives has this footage of Carver at Tuskegee. This silent film can be found both in the Docs Teach and National Archives catalog. In it, you can see Carver in the lab at Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University. Dr. Carver taught there for decades and published 44 bulletins for farmers covering many agricultural topics, with the most popular being how to grow the peanut and 105 ways of preparing it for human consumption. Other footage in the film shows him at home tending his flowers and displaying several of his paintings. Dr. John Chanel, the orthopedic surgeon and polio doctor who served as director of the infantile paralysis unit at Tuskegee's John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital is in the film as well as Carver's assistant, Dr. Curtis. Dr. Carver had so many accomplishments that the artist Charles Alston captured his work in this sketch with the appropriate title, One of America's Greatest Scientists. Our programs are brought to you from the National Archives Public Programs and Education Team and the National Archives Foundation. You can find information for free teacher and student programs on the National Archives website, archives.gov, under archives news, upcoming events, and if you follow the National Archives on social media. Our guest today will answer several questions. So let's give a warm welcome to George Washington Carver. Hello, Mr. Carver. How are you? Absolutely wonderful and good morning to you. How's everything with you? Very good. We're so happy to have you with us today. I have a few questions for you. All right. So first, can you tell us about your childhood and where you came from? Well, I was born in Diamond Grove, Missouri, on a small farm owned by the Carver's. When I was born, my father had died prior to my birth. And when I was a few weeks old, my mother and my sister and I were kidnapped and taken to Alabama. The Carver's were able to get my brother and keep James from harm's way. The Carver's actually sent someone to come try to retrieve my family and I, and unfortunately they were only able to get me and bring me back. When I returned back to the Carver's, unfortunately, because I wasn't fully weeded from my mother, I didn't grow like most children. So therefore I was kept inside the house because I couldn't work outside in the field because my bones were fragile and I became domesticated. Therefore I was able to cook clean. I learned how to crochet. And this is where I became, I found love for plants. There was a nice little walkway right next to our home, our cabin, and I would walk down there and I would look at the plants and believe it or not, up until I was about nine years old, I would give names to the plants. Never knew what the plants were names were. So I would make up names. To the point I actually in my, in our community, I became at nine years old, the plant doctor in our area. And so people would bring their plants to me, or I would go and help them go to their farms and help them cope to be whatever problems they were having with their plants. And, but at that same time, I had this love for education. I was just craving to be educated. One day I was actually playing with one of my, one of the young men in the neighborhood, and he told me that he was on his way to Sunday school. And I felt like what is Sunday school. And he began to tell me that that's a school where they learn about who God was. Well, I was so fabricated. I said, you know, white people are just blessed, they get to go to regular school and they get to go to Sunday school. So I wanted to learn more. So at that point, I went and I didn't know how to pray and I learned how to pray and I asked God to come into my life and that's how I became a Christian. Then when I became 10 years old, when I was 10 years old, I was so hungry for education that I decided to run away from home. I walked about another 15 miles niche show. That's where the only black school for children was. And when I arrived there in the middle of the night, I went to sleep in a in a barn, and a the walk ins. Mariah walk ins and her husband took me in. And they took care of me for my duration of elementary school. That's where I received my first Bible from Mariah. And she was the one that actually important. Let me know that she tells me she said, she says, Carver, when you get as you get older, whatever you do, use your gift to educate others. Well, throughout the years I ended up going through a travel as far as I could and I got all my education, and I ended up at Iowa State. And once I arrived there I was the first black to attend that college. I was the first black to not only get my bachelor's degree, but also got my master's degree, and I became the first black to be on the on the faculty. And it was from there that Book of Tea Washington heard about me and hired me to come over to Tuskegee. So that's pretty much how my, my childhood got me to where I am today. An incredible story. So can you tell me what is the Jessup wagon. No glad you asked about the Jessup wagon. Well, see now that was my educational mobile that I use to educate the farmers in the Tuskegee community in that in Alabama. So basically what happened was, when I was hired to add Tuskegee, I was hired not only to teach farming but also to enhance the farming, the problems that they were having on farm, especially at Tuskegee. So I found out the problem was most of the farmers in the area were growing cotton and that was a very profitable product at the time. Unfortunately, what people didn't understand was that the cotton plant was actually removing the nutrients from the ground. So I came up with this. I told them if they redirected their planting with legumes that would help them rebuild the nutrients in the ground. So the Jessup wagon was the wagon that I use and had all my educational materials on along with farming equipment. And I went from farm to farm. And I actually taught from a lot of the farmers how to read and write, as well as how to rebuild their farms by showing them how to rotate their crop so that they get a better yield. And so the Jessup wagon became a mobile educational unit for me. And it was absolutely the most fascinating thing because I actually showed the locals how to become better and to make more money and to get a better yield. So it was absolutely a wonderful opportunity for me. So for those of us who didn't grow up on farms, can you just elaborate a little bit? Like what is crop rotation and why is it so important to farmers? Well, the reason crop rotation is so important is because like I was saying, the cotton plant actually removes the nutrients from the soil. And basically what you do is you wrote by rotating it by putting some growing something else like legumes. So that would be peanuts, soybeans, sweet potatoes. And so basically those those plants actually replenish the soil with the nutrients like phosphorus, nitrogen and various possible so that the soil that your soil would replenish and give you more life. And so basically that's what happened. And from the farmers growing a tremendous amount of peanuts, that's how I was able to come up with 300 different type of by-product from peanuts. Because what happened was, a lot of the we had certain abundance of peanuts, the farmers came to me and said, so now I'm Dr. Carl, what are we going to do with all these peanuts? We just can't keep eating peanuts. We got to do something else with the peanuts. And I locked myself in my lab and I actually came up with, I did various types of experiments to find out how what we could do with the peanut. And the legumes are very important in crop rotation. And like I said, they are very vital to the growth of your soil. So you did so much work with peanuts and sweet potatoes. Were these your favorite foods? No, they were not my favorite foods. They were foods that I found that would be beneficial for farmers. So they just would not rely on cotton. Again, because cotton was such a destructive, so much destruction to the soil that the peanuts and the sweet potatoes would not only yield more growth, but it would also give farmers an opportunity to make the pay the bills in order for them to come up with other ways of making money. Also, the by-products that I created from those two items also allowed, especially a lot of the poor farmers, to be able to afford to do other things in rebuilding their homes, painting, just actually making more, generating more funds in order for them to be more efficient in their lifestyles. So you spent many years working at Tuskegee Institute. Did you like working there? I love this. I love it because it allowed me to do what I enjoyed. One of the things that I found as I was growing up was, and because of my Christian beliefs, I found that in the book of Genesis, it tells us that God, one of the reasons that God created us that man was to take care of the earth. And he also says that he will provide us with many herbs from the earth, and it is so true. And a lot of us have gotten away from utilizing the earth and the things that are generated from the earth. So my calling basically was to bring us back to who we really are as a people and to utilize all of the by-products that God has provided so that we can survive. Believe it or not, if we would, if for some reason if there's no meat or other foods on the ground deep on the earth, do you know that you can still survive off of the peanut? The by-products from the peanut, there's a lot of nutrients in the peanut that will still feed you so that you can still survive off the peanut, just the peanut alone. So imagine if you had the peanut and the sweet potato, then the sky's the limit. There's just no end to what you can do. I know you have a great story about when you testified before Congress in 1921. You're a representative of the United Peanut Association of America. Can you tell us that story of what happened when you visited Congress on behalf of the peanut farmers? Well, I was invited to talk to the Ways and Means Committee. And when I arrived there, I arrived there, I was the only black that was invited. And while I'm sitting in the back of Congress, if you've never been to Congress, I would highly recommend that you bring a lot of patience because they are very brutal. And I sat there and I watched. We were all given 45 minutes to present our whatever it was that we came there to discuss with them. And I sat there and watched them destroy speaker at the speaker. They were just so brutal in the things that they said, well, by the time they got to me, it was close to four o'clock. And so the gentleman comes up to me and tells me that instead of me having 45 minutes, I have 10 minutes. I have exactly 10 minutes. Well, they called me up to the front and I had these two large cases with me. They had all my specimens in it. And it took me almost five, six minutes to walk down to the front and set up my display. And once by the time I got started, I had about four minutes left. And I began to talk and I began to explain what the peanut can do and the various byproducts of the peanut. And when my 10 minutes was up, I started to close my case and I was going to say, and I said, thank you, and I'm with on my way. Well, one of the congressman said, excuse me. So before you leave, can you show open up that case and show us more about what you had. And I said, sure. So I opened up the case and I ended up explaining more of the specimens from the peanuts. And I explained to them about all of the various 300 byproducts that I had created from the peanut. And I told them about the dyes and the cold creams and the flour and boils and so forth. Well, it just so happens that my 10 minutes went from 10 to one hour and 45 minutes. And I was just so moved, because they kept asking me more and more questions. Well, when my time was up, the congressman was so happy and so excited that they actually gave me an ovation, a standing ovation. And not only that, but they also gave us a, the peanut farmers was given a tariff that was an import tariff that was one of the highest ever given granted so that the peanut farmers were actually saved and able to get the money they need in order for them to survive. And of course, I went back to Tuskegee, and I just picked up from where I left off like, you know, it never happened. It was just such a wonderful, wonderful opportunity for me. Oh, that must have been so gratifying. Oh, it was. So this is our last question, our final question for the day. Okay. What advice do you as George Washington Carver have for young people today. I would say, whatever you do. Have a vision. Trust and believe in who you are. The reason why I wanted to, I shared the story, and I'm so glad that you asked about what happened in in Congress of the Ways and Means Committee, because in the Ways and Means Committee, I sat and I want people be destroyed verbally by others. And in my life as a black man, growing up during my time of racism and Jim Crow, I never allowed the negative aspects of my life to detect or deter, keep me from doing what I wanted to do. So for children, I want you all to understand, people are going to be nasty people are going to be rude, they're going to come at you they're going to always see something negative, whatever you do. Stand your ground. Stand your ground, because as long as you know who you are and what you are, you trust and believe in yourself, you can overcome anything. I have a famous saying that I say where there's no vision, there is no hope. And not if you really think about it. That is who you are. You are one of God's greatest creations, because in the Bible, it says that we are created in this image. That's greater than God. No one. So if you created in him, therefore you have a calling and your calling is your calling. So you stand firm, you don't have to argue, you don't have to fight. All you have to do is just stand firm, trust and believe in who you are and you can overcome anything and everything. So if I did it, and if I can do it, no, you can do the same thing. So all you do, please, whatever you do, just stand firm, be positive, think. Don't argue, unless it's the arguing, just believe in yourself and I guarantee you will overcome anything. Thank you, Dr. Carver for those words of wisdom and taking the time to speak with us today. Oh, it's such an honor. And now one last look at the Doc's Teach educational activity related to one of the three patents George Washington Carver received for his lifelong research on peanuts. I hope you can join us next month for our young learners program with Eleanor Roosevelt, humanitarian civil rights advocate, and the longest serving First Lady of the United States. Thank you for participating in our program today.