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Fresberg Cartoon – Learning & History for Students

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Celebrating Black History with Jackie Robinson (Cartoon Jackie Robinson Story)

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After reading the book "Meet Mary H. Wright," name 3 organizations that Mary H. Wright founded.

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How did Robert Smalls gain his freedom?

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The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross

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Just before dawn on May 13, 1862, Robert Smalls and a crew composed of fellow slaves, in the absence of the white captain and his two mates, slipped a cotton steamer off the dock, picked up family members at a rendezvous point, then slowly navigated their way through the harbor. Smalls, doubling as the captain, even donning the captain's wide-brimmed straw hat to help to hide his face, responded with the proper coded signals at two Confederate checkpoints, including at Fort Sumter itself, and other defense positions. Cleared, Smalls sailed into the open seas. Once outside of Confederate waters, he had his crew raise a white flag and surrendered his ship to the blockading Union fleet.

In fewer than four hours, Robert Smalls had done something unimaginable: In the midst of the Civil War, this black male slave had commandeered a heavily armed Confederate ship and delivered its 17 black passengers (nine men, five women and three children) from slavery to freedom.

Sailing From Slavery to Freedom

Our story begins in the second full year of the war. It is May 12, 1862, and the Union Navy has set up a blockade around much of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. Inside it, the Confederates are dug in defending Charleston, S.C., and its coastal waters, dense with island forts, including Sumter, where the first shots of the Civil War were fired exactly one year, one month, before. Attached to Brig. Gen. Roswell Ripley's command is the C.S.S. Planter, a "first-class coastwise steamer" hewn locally for the cotton trade out of "live oak and red cedar," according to testimony given in a U.S. House Naval Affairs Committee report 20 years later.

After two weeks of supplying various island points, the Planter returns to the Charleston docks by nightfall. It is due to go out again the next morning and so is heavily armed, including approximately 200 rounds of ammunition, a 32-pound pivot gun, a 24-pound howitzer and four other guns, among them one that had been dented in the original attack on Sumter. In between drop-offs, the three white officers on board (Capt. C.J. Relyea, pilot Samuel H. Smith and engineer Zerich Pitcher) make the fateful decision to disembark for the night - either for a party or to visit family - leaving the crew's eight slave members behind. If caught, Capt. Relyea could face court-martial - that's how much he trusts them.

At the top of the list is Robert Smalls, a 22-year-old mulatto slave who's been sailing these waters since he was a teenager: intelligent and resourceful, defiant with compassion, an expert navigator with a family yearning to be free. According to the 1883 Naval Committee report, Smalls serves as the ship's "virtual pilot,"but because only whites can rank, he is slotted as "wheelman." Smalls not only acts the part; he looks it, as well. He is often teased about his resemblance to Capt. Relyea: Is it his skin, his frame or both? The true joke, though, is Smalls' to spring, for what none of the officers know is that he has been planning for this moment for weeks and is willing to use every weapon on board to see it through.

Background

Smalls was born on April 5, 1839, behind his owner's city house at 511 Prince Street in Beaufort, S.C. His mother, Lydia, served in the house but grew up in the fields, where, at the age of nine, she was taken from her own family on the Sea Islands. It is not clear who Smalls' father was. Some say it was his owner, John McKee; others, his son Henry; still others, the plantation manager, Patrick Smalls. What is clear is that the McKee family favored Robert Smalls over the other slave children, so much so that his mother worried he would reach manhood without grasping the horrors of the institution into which he was born. To educate him, she arranged for him to be sent into the fields to work and watch slaves at "the whipping post."

"The result of this lesson led Robert to defiance," wrote great-granddaughter Helen Boulware Moore and historian W. Marvin Dulaney, and he "frequently found himself in the Beaufort jail." If anything, Smalls' mother's plan had worked too well, so that "fear[ing] for her son's safety ... she asked McKee to allow Smalls to go to Charleston to be rented out to work." Again her wish was granted. By the time Smalls turned 19, he had tried his hand at a number of city jobs and was allowed to keep one dollar of his wages a week (his owner took the rest). Far more valuable was the education he received on the water; few knew Charleston harbor better than Robert Smalls.

It's where he earned his job on the Planter. It's also where he met his wife, Hannah, a slave of the Kingman family working at a Charleston hotel. With their owners' permission, the two moved into an apartment together and had two children: Elizabeth and Robert Jr. Well aware this was no guarantee of a permanent union, Smalls asked his wife's owner if he could purchase his family outright; they agreed but at a steep price: $800. Smalls only had $100. "How long would it take [him] to save up another $700?" Moore and Dulaney ask. Unwittingly, Smalls' "look-enough-alike," Captain Rylea, gave him his best backup

To white Confederates, the Union ships blocking their harbors were another example of the North's enslavement of the South; to actual slaves like Robert Smalls, these ships signaled the tantalizing promise of freedom. Under orders from Secretary Gideon Welles in Washington, Navy commanders had been accepting runaways as contraband since the previous September. While Smalls couldn't afford to buy his family on shore, he knew he could win their freedom by sea - and so he told his wife to be ready for whenever opportunity dawned.

The Escape on the Planter

That opportunity is at hand on the night of May 12. Once the white officers are on shore, Smalls confides his plan to the other slaves on board. According to the Naval Committee report, two choose to stay behind. "The design was hazardous in the extreme," it states, and Smalls and his men have no intention of being taken alive; either they will escape or use whatever guns and ammunition they have to fight and, if necessary, sink their ship. "Failure and detection would have been certain death," the Navy report makes plain. "Fearful was the venture, but it was made."

At 2:00 a.m. on May 13, Smalls dons Capt. Rylea's straw hat and orders the Planter's skeleton crew to put up the boiler and hoist the South Carolina and Confederate flags as decoys. Easing out of the dock, in view of Gen. Ripley's headquarters, they pause at the West Atlantic Wharf to pick up Smalls' wife and children, along with four other women, three men and another child.

At 3:25 a.m., the Planter accelerates "her perilous adventure," the Navy report continues (it reads more like a Robert Louis Stevenson novel). From the pilot house, Smalls blows the ship's whistle while passing Confederate Forts Johnson and, at 4:15 a.m., Fort Sumter, "as cooly as if General Ripley was on board." Smalls not only knows all the right Navy signals to flash; he even folds his arms like Capt. Rylea, so that in the shadows of dawn, he passes convincingly for white.

"She was supposed to be the guard boat and allowed to pass without interruption," Confederate Aide-de-Campe F.G. Ravenel explains defensively in a letter to his commander hours later. It is only when the Planterpasses out of Rebel gun range that the alarm is sounded - the Planter is heading for the Union blockade. Approaching it, Smalls orders his crew to replace the Palmetto and Rebel flags with a white bed sheet his wife brought on board. Not seeing it, Acting Volunteer Lt. J. Frederick Nickels of the U.S.S. Onward orders his sailors to "open her ports." It is "sunrise," Nickels writes in a letter the same day, an illuminating fact that may have changed the course of history, at least on board the Planter - for now Nickels could see.

In The Negro's Civil War, the dean of Civil War studies James McPherson quotes the following eyewitness account: "Just as No. 3 port gun was being elevated, someone cried out, 'I see something that looks like a white flag'; and true enough there was something flying on the steamer that would have been white by application of soap and water. As she neared us, we looked in vain for the face of a white man. When they discovered that we would not fire on them, there was a rush of contrabands out on her deck, some dancing, some singing, whistling, jumping; and others stood looking towards Fort Sumter, and muttering all sorts of maledictions against it, and 'de heart of de Souf,' generally. As the steamer came near, and under the stern of the Onward, one of the Colored men stepped forward, and taking off his hat, shouted, 'Good morning, sir! I've brought you some of the old United States guns, sir!' " That man is Robert Smalls, and he and his family and the entire slave crew of the Planter are now free.

After "board[ing] her, haul[ing] down the flag of truce, and hoist[ing] the American ensign" (his words), Lt. Nickels transfers the Planter to his commander, Capt. E.G. Parrott of the U.S.S. Augusta. Parrott then forwards it on to Flag Officer Samuel Francis Du Pont (of the "du Pont" Du Ponts), at Port Royal, Hilton Heads Island, with a letter describing Smalls as "very intelligent contraband." Du Pont is similarly impressed, and the next day writes a letter to the Navy secretary in Washington, stating, "Robert, the intelligent slave and pilot of the boat, who performed this bold feet so skillfully, informed me of [the capture of the Sumter gun], presuming it would be a matter of interest." He "is superior to any who have come into our lines - intelligent as many of them have been." While Du Pont sends the families to Beaufort, he takes care of the Planter's crew personally while having its captured flags mailed to Washington via the Adams Express, the same private carrier that had delivered Box Brown to freedom in 1849.

The Reception

Smalls may not have had the $700 he needed to purchase his family's freedom before the war; now, because of his bravery and his inability to purchase his wife, the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1862, passed a private bill authorizing the Navy to appraise the Planter and award Smalls and his crew half the proceeds for "rescuing her from the enemies of the Government." Smalls received $1,500 personally, enough to purchase his former owner's house in Beaufort off the tax rolls following the war, though according to the later Naval Affairs Committee report, his pay should have been substantially higher.

The Confederates seemed to know this already; after Smalls' escape, biographer Andrew Billingsley notes, they put a $4,000 bounty on his head. Still, those on the scene had a hard time explaining how slaves pulled off such a feat; in the aftermath, Aide-de-Campe Ravenel even intimated to his commander that the night before, "it would appear that ... two white men and a white woman went on board of her, and as they were not seen to return it is supposed that they have also gone with her." Suppose all they wanted - there was no record of any white passengers aboard the Planter the morning of May 13 - Smalls and his crew had acted alone. As his contemporary steamer pilot Mark Twain famously wrote: "Facts are stubborn things."

In the North, Smalls was feted as a hero and personally lobbied the Secretary of War Edwin Stanton to begin enlisting black soldiers. After President Lincoln acted a few months later, Smalls was said to have recruited 5,000 soldiers by himself. In October 1862, he returned to the Planter as pilot as part of Admiral Du Pont's South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. According to the 1883 Naval Affairs Committee report, Smalls was engaged in approximately 17 military actions, including the April 7, 1863, assault on Fort Sumter and the attack at Folly Island Creek, S.C., two months later, where he assumed command of the Planter when, under "very hot fire," its white captain became so "demoralized" he hid in the "coal-bunker." For his valiancy, Smalls was promoted to the rank of captain himself, and from December 1863 on, earned $150 a month, making him one of the highest paid black soldiers of the war. Poetically, when the war ended in April 1865, Smalls was on board the Planter in a ceremony in Charleston Harbor.

Robert Smalls' Postwar Record

Following the war, Smalls continued to push the boundaries of freedom as a first-generation black politician, serving in the South Carolina state assembly and senate, and for five nonconsecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives (1874-1886) before watching his state roll back Reconstruction in a revised 1895 constitution that stripped blacks of their voting rights. He died in Beaufort on February 22, 1915, in the same house behind which he had been born a slave and is buried behind a bust at the Tabernacle Baptist Church. In the face of the rise of Jim Crow, Smalls stood firm as an unyielding advocate for the political rights of African Americans: "My race needs no special defense for the past history of them and this country. It proves them to be equal of any people anywhere. All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life."

For those interested in learning more about this daring Civil War hero, Helen Boulware Moore and W. Martin Dulaney, with help from the National Endowment for the Humanities, have curated a traveling exhibit, " The Life and Times of Congressman Robert Smalls." You can also find him on YouTube, including in a South Carolina state educational video; a fourth grader's Black History Month presentation; even a realtor's tour of his former home in Beaufort, most recently listed for $1.2 million.

Imagine what the Planter and its guns and ammunition would fetch in current dollars? One thing I know: Robert Smalls and the purchase of his family's freedom? Priceless.
Fifty of the 100 Amazing Facts will be published on The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross website. Read all 100 Facts on The Root.

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Robert Smalls, from Escaped Slave to House of Representatives | African American History Blog | The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross

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Just before dawn on May 13, 1862, Robert Smalls and a crew composed of fellow slaves, in the absence of the white captain and his two mates, slipped a cotton steamer off the dock, picked up family members at a rendezvous point, then slowly navigated their way through the harbor.

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True or False. Phillis Wheatley attended school to be a poet.

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Untold Stories of Slavery in America by ANN

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First African-American Poet former slave Phillis Wheatley Oct 1, 1775

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In which events did FloJo win Gold Medals in the 1988 Olympics?

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Florence Joyner - Track and Field Athlete & Olympic Gold Medalist | Mini Bio | BIO

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True or False. Louis Armstrong is well known for his public speaking skills and for being a saxophonist.

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Educational Videos for Students (Cartoons on Bullying, Leadership & More)

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Celebrate Black History Month: Louis Armstrong Biography (Black History Educational Videos)

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Harriet Tubman was best known for:
A. Rebelling against Slave Owners
B. Pottery
C. The Underground Railroad
D. African American Rights

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When Was Harriet Tubman Born?

Harriet Tubman was born around 1820 on a plantation in Dorchester County, Maryland. Her parents, Harriet ("Rit") Green and Benjamin Ross, named her Araminta Ross and called her "Minty."

Rit worked as a cook in the plantation's "big house," and Benjamin was a timber worker. Araminta later changed her first name to Harriet in honor of her mother.

Harriet had eight brothers and sisters, but the realities of slavery eventually forced many of them apart, despite Rit's attempts to keep the family together. When Harriet was five years old, she was rented out as a nursemaid where she was whipped when the baby cried, leaving her with permanent emotional and physical scars.

Around age seven Harriet was rented out to a planter to set muskrat traps and was later rented out as a field hand. She later said she preferred physical plantation work to indoor domestic chores.

A Good Deed Gone Bad

Harriet's desire for justice became apparent at age 12 when she spotted an overseer about to throw a heavy weight at a fugitive. Harriet stepped between the enslaved person and the overseer-the weight struck her head.

She later said about the incident, "The weight broke my skull ... They carried me to the house all bleeding and fainting. I had no bed, no place to lie down on at all, and they laid me on the seat of the loom, and I stayed there all day and the next."

Harriet's good deed left her with headaches and narcolepsy the rest of her life, causing her to fall into a deep sleep at random. She also started having vivid dreams and hallucinations which she often claimed were religious visions (she was a staunch Christian). Her infirmity made her unattractive to potential slave buyers and renters.

Escape from Slavery

In 1840, Harriet's father was set free and Harriet learned that Rit's owner's last will had set Rit and her children, including Harriet, free. But Rit's new owner refused to recognize the will and kept Rit, Harriet and the rest of her children in bondage.

Around 1844, Harriet married John Tubman, a free Black man, and changed her last name from Ross to Tubman. The marriage was not good, and the knowledge that two of her brothers-Ben and Henry-were about to be sold provoked Harriet to plan an escape.

Harriet Tubman: Underground Railroad

On September 17, 1849, Harriet, Ben and Henry escaped their Maryland plantation. The brothers, however, changed their minds and went back. With the help of the Underground Railroad, Harriet persevered and traveled 90 miles north to Pennsylvania and freedom.

Tubman found work as a housekeeper in Philadelphia, but she wasn't satisfied living free on her own-she wanted freedom for her loved ones and friends, too.

She soon returned to the south to lead her niece and her niece's children to Philadelphia via the Underground Railroad. At one point, she tried to bring her husband John north, but he'd remarried and chose to stay in Maryland with his new wife.

Fugitive Slave Act

The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act allowed fugitive and freed workers in the north to be captured and enslaved. This made Harriet's role as an Underground Railroad conductor much harder and forced her to lead enslaved people further north to Canada, traveling at night, usually in the spring or fall when the days were shorter.

She carried a gun for both her own protection and to "encourage" her charges who might be having second thoughts. She often drugged babies and young children to prevent slave catchers from hearing their cries.

Over the next 10 years, Harriet befriended other abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass, Thomas Garrett and Martha Coffin Wright, and established her own Underground Railroad network. It's widely reported she emancipated 300 enslaved people; however, those numbers may have been estimated and exaggerated by her biographer Sarah Bradford, since Harriet herself claimed the numbers were much lower.

Nevertheless, it's believed Harriet personally led at least 70 enslaved people to freedom, including her elderly parents, and instructed dozens of others on how to escape on their own. She claimed, "I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger."

Harriet Tubman's Civil War Service

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Harriet found new ways to fight slavery. She was recruited to assist fugitive enslaved people at Fort Monroe and worked as a nurse, cook and laundress. Harriet used her knowledge of herbal medicines to help treat sick soldiers and fugitive enslaved people.

In 1863, Harriet became head of an espionage and scout network for the Union Army. She provided crucial intelligence to Union commanders about Confederate Army supply routes and troops and helped liberate enslaved people to form Black Union regiments.

Though just over five feet tall, she was a force to be reckoned with, although it took over three decades for the government to recognize her military contributions and award her financially.

Harriet Tubman's Later Years

After the Civil War, Harriet settled with family and friends on land she owned in Auburn, New York. She married former enslaved man and Civil War veteran Nelson Davis in 1869 (her husband John had died 1867) and they adopted a little girl named Gertie a few years later.

Harriet had an open-door policy for anyone in need. She supported her philanthropy efforts by selling her home-grown produce, raising pigs and accepting donations and loans from friends. She remained illiterate yet toured parts of the northeast speaking on behalf of the women's suffrage movement and worked with noted suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony.

In 1896, Harriet purchased land adjacent to her home and opened the Harriet Tubman Home for Aged and Indigent Colored People. The head injury she suffered in her youth continued to plague her and she endured brain surgery to help relieve her symptoms. But her health continued to deteriorate and eventually forced her to move into her namesake rest home in 1911.

Pneumonia took Harriet Tubman's life on March 10, 1913, but her legacy lives on. Schools and museums bear her name and her story has been revisited in books, movies and documentaries.

Harriet Tubman: $20 Bill

Tubman even had a World War II Liberty ship named after her, the SS Harriet Tubman.

In 2016, the United States Treasury announced that Harriet's image will replace that of former President and slaveowner Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin (who served under President Trump) later announced the new bill would be delayed until at least 2026. In January 2021, President Biden's administration announced it would speed up the design process to mint the bills honoring Tubman's legacy.

Sources

Early Life. Harriet Tubman Historical Society.

General Tubman: Female Abolitionist was Also a Secret Military Weapon. Military Times.

Harriet Tubman Biography. Biography.

Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged, Residence, and Thompson AME Zion Church. National Park Service.

Harriet Tubman Myths and Facts. Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman Portrait of An American Hero by Kate Clifford Larson, Ph.D.

Harriet Tubman. National Park Service.

Harriet Tubman. National Women's History Museum.

Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People. Harriet Tubman Historical Society.

Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad. National Park Service.

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Harriet Tubman: Facts, Underground Railroad & Legacy | HISTORY

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Harriet Tubman was an escaped enslaved woman who became a "conductor" on the Underground Railroad, leading enslaved people to freedom before the Civil War. She was also a nurse, a Union spy and a women's suffrage supporter.

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Which part of the U.S. Government did Barack Obama run for but did not win in 2002?

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Barack Obama was the 44th president of the United States (2009-2017) and the first African American to be elected to that office. Obama was born in Hawaii, studied at Columbia and Harvard, and served in the Senate as a Democrat from 2005-2008. On November 4, 2008, Obama defeated Republican challenger John McCain to capture the presidency.

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What was the name of Madam CJ Walkers haircare line and what two items did she create for African American Women?

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MLA - Michals, Debra. "Madam C. J. Walker." National Women's History Museum. National Women's History Museum, 2015. Date accessed.

Chicago - Michals, Debra. "Madam C. J. Walker." National Women's History Museum. 2015. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/madam-cj-walker.

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Madam C.J. Walker was an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and activist. She rose from poverty in the South to become one of the wealthiest African American women of her time.

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George Washington Carver was well known for his use of what plant to make household products such as: cosmetics, dyes, paints and plastics?

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George Washington Carver ( c. 1864 - January 5, 1943) was an African American agricultural scientist and inventor. He taught southern farmers to plant crops other than cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion. Apart from his work to improve the lives of farmers, Carver was also a leader in promoting environmentalism. He received numerous honors for his work, including the Spingarn Medal of the NAACP.

Early years

George Washington Carver was born into slavery in Diamond Grove, Newton County, near Crystal Place, now known as Diamond, Missouri, during the early to mid 1860s. The exact date of his birth is uncertain and was not known to Carver - however, it was before slavery was eliminated in Missouri in January 1865, after the American Civil War. His master, Moses Carver, was a German-American immigrant who had purchased George's parents, Mary and Giles, from William P. McGinnis on October 9, 1855, for $700.

When George was only a week old, he, a sister, and his mother were kidnapped by night raiders from Arkansas. George's brother, James, was rushed to safety from the kidnappers. The kidnappers sold the slaves in Kentucky. Moses Carver hired a Union scout named John Bentley to find them, but Bentley was only able to locate the infant George. Moses made a deal with the raiders for George's return and rewarded Bentley for finding him. After slavery was eliminated, Moses Carver and his wife Susan raised George and his older brother James as their own children. They encouraged George in his schooling, and "Aunt Susan" taught him the basics of reading and writing.

Black people were not allowed to attend the public school in Diamond Grove. George decided to go to a school for black children 10 miles (16 km) south in Neosho. When he reached the town, he found the school closed for the night, so he slept in a nearby barn. The next morning he met a kind woman, Mariah Watkins, from whom he wished to rent a room. When he introduced himself as "Carver's George," as he had done his whole life, she replied that from now on his name was "George Carver." George liked Mariah Watkins, and her words, "You must learn all you can, then go back out into the world and give your learning back to the people," made a great impression on him.

At the age of 13, due to his desire to attend the academy in Fort Scott, Kansas, he relocated to the home of another foster family there. He attended several schools before earning his diploma at Minneapolis High School in Minneapolis, Kansas.

College education

Carver applied to several colleges before being accepted at Highland University in Highland, Kansas. When he arrived, however, they rejected him because of his race. In August 1886, Carver traveled by wagon from Highland to Eden Township in Ness County, Kansas. He homesteaded a claim near Beeler, where he maintained a small conservatory (a building or room where plants are grown) of plants and flowers and a geological collection. He manually plowed 17 acres (69,000 m ²) of the claim, planting rice, corn, Indian corn, and garden produce, as well as various fruit trees, forest trees, and shrubbery. He also earned money by performing odd jobs in town and working as a ranch hand.

In early 1888, Carver obtained a $300 loan at the Bank of Ness City for education, and by June he left the area. In 1890, Carver started studying art and piano at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa. His art teacher, Etta Budd, recognized Carver's talent for painting flowers and plants; she encouraged him to study botany at Iowa State Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) in Ames.

When he began there in 1891, he was the first black student at Iowa State. Carver's Bachelor's thesis for a degree in Agriculture was "Plants as Modified by Man," dated 1894. Iowa State University professors Joseph Budd (Etta's father) and Louis Pammel convinced Carver to continue there for his master's degree. Carver did research at the Iowa Experiment Station under Pammel during the next two years. His work at the experiment station in plant pathology and mycology caused Americans to recognize and respect him as a botanist. Carver received his master of science degree in 1896 and taught as the first black faculty member at Iowa State.

Tuskegee Institute

In 1896, Booker T. Washington invited Carver to head the Agriculture Department at Tuskegee Institute. Carver taught there for 47 years, developing the department into a strong research center. Carver accomplished much during his time at Tuskegee Institute: He taught methods of crop rotation. He introduced several other cash crops for farmers that would also improve the soil of areas that only grew cotton. He started research into crop products and taught generations of black students farming methods for self-sufficiency.

Carver was as concerned with his students' character development as he was with their intellectual development. He wrote a list of eight virtues for his students to strive toward:

Be clean both inside and out.

Neither look up to the rich nor down on the poor.

Lose, if need be, without squealing.

Win without bragging.

Always be considerate of women, children, and older people.

Be too brave to lie.

Be too generous to cheat.

Take your share of the world and let others take theirs.

Carver designed a mobile classroom to take education out to farmers. He called it a "Jesup wagon" after the New York financier and philanthropist Morris Ketchum Jesup, who gave Carver money to support the program.

Rise to fame

Carver developed ways to improve soils in which the nitrogen was used up by repeated plantings of cotton. Together with other agricultural experts, he urged farmers to put nitrogen back into their soils by practicing organized crop rotation: alternating cotton crops with plantings of sweet potatoes or legumes (such as peanuts, soybeans, and cowpeas). These crops restore nitrogen to the soil and are good for people to eat. Farmers who rotated their crops benefitted in two ways: their cotton grew better than before and they also had alternative cash crops. To train farmers to successfully rotate and cultivate the new crops, Carver developed an agricultural program for Alabama that was similar to the one at Iowa State.

Carver founded a research laboratory in which he and his assistants worked to make the new crops popular by developing hundreds of uses for them. They did original research and shared the crops' usefulness and recipes that they had collected from others. Carver distributed his information as agricultural bulletins. He wanted as many people as possible to have access to this valuable information.

Carver became one of the most well-known African Americans of his time. His work was known by officials in the national capital before he became a public figure. President Theodore Roosevelt publicly admired his work. In 1916, Carver was made a member of the Royal Society of Arts in England, one of only a handful of Americans at that time to receive this honor. Carver's promotion of peanuts gained him the most notice. The United Peanut Associations of America invited Carver to speak at their 1920 convention. He discussed "The Possibilities of the Peanut" and showed 145 peanut products.

From 1915 to 1923, Carver concentrated on researching and experimenting with new uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans, pecans, and other crops, as well as having his assistants research existing uses. This work, and especially his testifying to Congress, made him widely known as a public figure. Carver noticed that U.S. peanut farmers were not making much money because the price of imported peanuts was less than the peanuts grown in the U.S. This caused him to speak before Congress in support of a tariff on imported peanuts, which Congress passed in 1922.

Life while famous

During the last two decades of his life, Carver seemed to enjoy his celebrity status. He was often on the road promoting Tuskegee Institute, peanuts, and racial harmony. Although he only published six agricultural bulletins after 1922, he published articles in peanut industry journals and wrote a newspaper column, "Professor Carver's Advice." Business leaders came to seek his help, and he often responded with free advice. Three American presidents- Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, and Franklin Roosevelt-met with him, and the Crown Prince of Sweden studied with him for three weeks. From 1923 to 1933, Carver toured white Southern colleges for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation.

With his increasing notability, Carver became the subject of biographies and articles. In 1932 it was written that Carver and his peanut products were almost solely responsible for the rise in U.S. peanut production after the boll weevil devastated the American cotton crop beginning about 1892.

From 1935 to 1937, Carver participated in the USDA Disease Survey. Carver had specialized in plant diseases for his master's degree. In 1937, Carver attended two chemurgy (the chemical and industrial use of organic raw materials) conferences during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, concerned with developing new products from crops. He was invited by Henry Ford to speak at a conference and they developed a close friendship.

Upon returning home one day, Carver took a bad fall down a flight of stairs; he was found unconscious by a maid who took him to a hospital. Carver died January 5, 1943, at the age of 78 from complications resulting from this fall. He was buried next to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee University.

On his grave is written: He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.

Carver's life savings totaled $60,000, all of which he donated to the Carver Museum and to the George Washington Carver Foundation.

The George Washington Carver Museum at Tuskegee Institute was approved in 1938, built, and dedicated in 1941. The Museum held Dr. Carver's large collections of native plants, minerals, birds and vegetables; his products from the peanut, sweet potato and clays; and his many paintings, drawings, and textile art. In December 1947, a fire broke out in the Carver Museum, and much of the collection was damaged. Time magazine reported that all but three of the 48 Carver paintings at the museum were destroyed.

A movement to establish a U.S. national monument to Carver began before his death. Because of World War II, spending that did not help pay for the war had been banned by order of the President. Missouri senator Harry S. Truman sponsored a bill in favor of a monument. The bill was passed and on July 14, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated $30,000 for the George Washington Carver National Monument west-southwest of Diamond, Missouri, the area where Carver had spent time in his childhood. This was the first national monument dedicated to an African American and the first to honor someone other than a president. The 210-acre (0.8 km ²) national monument complex includes a bust of Carver, a ¾-mile nature trail, a museum, the 1881 Moses Carver house, and the Carver cemetery. The national monument opened in July 1953.

Carver was featured on U.S. 1948 commemorative stamps. From 1951 to 1954, he was pictured on a commemorative half dollar coin. A second stamp honoring Carver, with a value of 32¢, was issued on February 3, 1998, as part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series.

In 1977, Carver was elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans. In 1990, Carver was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In 1994, Iowa State University awarded Carver a Doctor of Humane Letters. In 2000, Carver was a charter inductee in the USDA Hall of Heroes as the "Father of Chemurgy." In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed George Washington Carver as one of 100 Greatest African Americans.

In 2005, Carver's research at the Tuskegee Institute was made a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society. On February 15, 2005, an episode of Modern Marvels included scenes from within Iowa State University's Food Sciences Building and about Carver's work.

Two ships, the Liberty ship SS George Washington Carver and the nuclear submarine USS George Washington Carver (SSBN-656), were named in his honor. Many institutions continue to honor George Washington Carver. A garden and statue of him are dedicated in the famous Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis. Dozens of elementary schools and high schools are named after him. National Basketball Association star David Robinson and his wife, Valerie, founded an academy named after Carver; it opened on September 17, 2001, in San Antonio, Texas. The Carver Community Cultural Center, a historic center located in San Antonio, is named for him.

George Washington Carver quotes

"Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses."

"Learn to do common things uncommonly well."

"There is no shortcut to achievement. Life requires thorough preparation-veneer isn't worth anything."

"It is simply service that measures success."

"Start where you are, with what you have. Make something of it and never be satisfied."

"I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour if we will only tune in."

"Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks in the woods and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books, for they speak with the voice of God."

"The secret of my success? It is simple. It is found in the Bible."

Interesting facts about George Washington Carver

George Washington Carver was famous for his work in Alabama but was born in Missouri.

Carver considered many weeds "nature's vegetables" and would eat sandwiches made with them.

George Washington Carver was the first African American to have a national park named after him.

Carver possessed the hidden talents of a pianist and painter. His art was shown at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago.

He encouraged black farmers to grow peanuts. He developed and promoted many products made from peanuts, but none became successful in stores.

Carver is often mistakenly given the credit for the invention of peanut butter. In fact, he did not do that.

Carver helped Henry Ford make peanut rubber that was to be used for cannons.

Carver believed that peanut oil could help those who suffered from polio, but no scientific evidence proved it.

In 1941, magazine named Carver a "Black Leonardo."

He was widely recognized and praised in the white community for his many achievements and talents.

In Spanish: George Washington Carver para niños

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