Have you ever wondered who invented Peanut Butter? Did you know that the same man made “more than 450 products ranging from margarine to library paste that could be made from the peanut, the sweet potato, and various other cultivated plants” (http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/harmon/carvharm.htm)? That man, also known as the “Peanut Man” (http://search.biography.com/print_record.pl?id=13469), is George Washington Carver. There are three commonly asked questions about Carver including: “What was his personal life like?” “What did he actually do?” and “What did he like to do when he wasn’t working?” Basically, Carver was an African-American slave born at the end of the Civil War that was able to overcome many obstacles and become a famous scientist and inventor.George Washington Carver didn’t have that good of a childhood, because he was born a sick, weak baby and a slave in Missouri in 1864. His father died before he was born, leaving his mother, Mary, and their owners, Moses and Susan Carver, to take care of him and his brother James. One night there was a raiding party that took George and his mother and though his mother never came back, he was eventually returned to the Carvers. He and James took Carter as a last name because they weren’t allowed last names when they were slaves, and because they were the ones who had raised them and whom they still lived with. George stayed at the Carvers and helped with cooking and gardening, which he was so good at he adopted the name “The Plant Doctor.” George Washington Carver had little schooling, even though he could read very well. When he was 12 he attended a black school in Neosho, Missouri, about eight miles away, because he had been rejected from Diamond Grove because he was black. He had to help with the chores to pay for his room and board.(http://www.norfacad.pvt.k12.va.us/project/carver/early...
