WORKING///WRITING///PLAYING///CONTACT
by Rob Arner
If George Washington was the father of our country, then George Washington Carver was the father of recycling. Few people in history better practiced saving things for others than George Washington Carver. Here was a man who was true to his belief, “to bring happiness to others, brings happiness to yourself.” Carver sets an example to today’s environmental movement by making its practice affordable for all. He translated environmental protection into economic prosperity from virtually a scrap heap.
George Washington Carver embodied public service by refusing numerous offers to become rich, and cheerfully donating all his inventions to those in need. Drawing a modest salary for his almost five decades of teaching at Tuskegee Institute, he left his entire estate (some $60,000) to this school. Modest and humble both shunning fame and honor, George Washington Carver serves as a symbol of the American altruism in action.
His philosophy was "Throw nothing away, everything can be used again." Throughout his life he practiced the ethic of preservation, inventing the science of ersatz, or substitutes. His relentless exploration of botany, agriculture, and soil economy enabled him to devise ways of not just helping those disadvantaged, yet bettered the world for all. Carver taught conservation by example and told his students, "That will be a mark of your success, not the style of clothes you wear, nor the amount of money you put in the bank. It is only service that counts."
Born into slavery, orphaned, and bought for the price of a horse, Carver conquered overwhelming odds to secure an education, and ultimately become a teacher who enriched the minds of thousands and taught that there is value in all things. He knew adversity early as a young, sickly boy with a serious speech defect. Yet, against staggering poverty, his perseverance saw him through college and graduate studies to become a self taught internationally famous scientist.
Many knew Carver as the "peanut man" because he transformed this legume into a major agricultural product, but few recognized his greater achievements. Besides the 300 products he developed from peanuts and 118 products from the sweet potato, he developed many new products from waste materials, including recycled oil, and paints and stains from clay. All totaled, Carver invented a thousand different products.
As a scientist, Carver adapted and transformed discarded materials back into new, valuable resources, thus opening up vast possibilities for industrial expansion which would make the lives of his fellow human beings more comfortable and secure. He investigated the use of millions of tons of cellulose and lignin that were being discarded yearly, turning these waste products into invaluable materials, such as marble, wallboards, and road cover. He preached, “Find new uses for this waste and thus enlarge the usefulness of the product for mankind."
Carver was driven to connect the rich abundant resources we squandered to the barren and impoverish existence he saw. If it was organic waste from the compost heap he would say, “There is no richer plant food than things we ignore or throw away every day.” Advocating folks to make compost piles of manure, mulch, wood, paper, rags and other organic material Carver stated, “ no fertilizer or system of fertilization...will build up the land as effectively, cheaply and permanently.”
Fittingly, Carver combated waste by recycling. If Carver needed lab equipment he would instruct his students, “ Today, we’re going to do something which has never been done before. We’re going out and find things we need for our laboratory. We’re going into town and look through every scrap heap.” What today has evolve from many of Carver’s contributions are numerous thriving sustainable industries.
From his compassion for the poverty and meagerness of the farmer’s lives at the turn of the century, Carver transformed wasteful practices into a cornucopia of new products (regardless of their color). He found all sorts of uses for crops—from soups to nuts to milks—to new raw materials for industry. From the soybean he created flour, meal, coffee, breakfast food, oil, and milk. He transformed the peanut, at that time considered an insignificant crop and "monkey food," into a multi-billion dollar industry providing a major source of food and medicine. Some of the products he derived from the peanut include beverages, pickles, sauces, meal, bleach, wood filler, washing powder, metal polish, paper, ink, plastics, shaving cream, rubbing oil, linoleum, shampoo, axle grease and synthetic rubber. A humble man, he sought no recognition for his numerous discoveries and contributions, and sought no patent on his therapeutic peanut oil.
Carver’s humility for his discoveries never ceased. He gave credit to the revelation and divine inspiration he received from getting up very early and walking in the woods.
“Alone there with the things I love most, I gather my specimens and study the lessons Nature is so eager to teach us all. Nothing is more beautiful than the loveliness of the woods before sunrise. At no other time have I so sharp understanding of what God means to do with me as in those hours of dawn. When other folk are still asleep, I hear God best and learn His plan.”
Carver loved to paint when he had spare time. “ Paint! The people down here are walking on paint-good paint - durable paint.” Blending clay washes and rotten sweet potatoes he developed 27 distinct colors of paint . Using soybean oil he developed automobile spray paints and even discovered a shade of royal blue last used by the ancient Egyptians. When a paint manufacturer offered Carver fame and profit from this discovery, Carver responded that he would take no compensation as he did to all the other offers to become rich from his commercial inventions.
An admittedly spiritual man who considered himself "God's servant," he was once asked to speak on soil improvement to a group of poor white farmers. He gave his well-received talk at an unpainted church near Montgomery, Alabama. After his talk, some of the farmers expressed their concern about not having enough money to paint the church. A few days later, Carver arrived with pails of blue paint, and modestly commented, “ Lift up your eyes, good people, to see the hills of God. See all the gorgeous colors, with which he has decked them? We’ll take just a little from his bounteous store of pure and lasting coloring, and with it paint your church!” The following Sunday, the people worshipped in the church whose new color now matched the sky above.
Amidst war and poverty, he found people in need of many things without the means of acquiring them. From soil starved of nutrients from years of cotton farming, he invented some one thousand items of food, clothing, and building material. Of this era, he stated:
"At no period in our history is it more important that every acre, yea, every foot of land be made to produce its highest possible yield. It is equally important that everything possible be saved for our consumption. The shortage of tin cans, glass containers, the high price of sugar as well as the containers, make it emphatic that we have some other method within the reach of the humblest citizen."
To compensate for the lack of animal waste available as fertilizer, he used two methods of fertilizing: one was growing velvet beans, cow peas and grass to be plowed under in the fall as a green fertilizer; in the spring he grew and plowed under wheat, oat, and rye. Through this ingenious method, fields once depleted of nutrients were revitalized and the soil became fertile once again.
The basis of Carver's ideas was that nature "has a way of evening things out" because it creates no waste. He explained his faith, “Mysteries are things we don’t understand because we haven’t learned to tune in.” He illustrated that the mastery of economic plant life and the maintenance of soils came from finding useful purposes of all things. He noted that failure resulted when farmers did not seize the opportunities to convert waste materials into new resources, and consequently proved his point by demonstrating that compost piles could be made with paper, rags, grass, weeds, street sweepings and anything else that decayed quickly.
Carver perceived the whole instead of the sum of its parts. His enlightened vision of unity came from seeing the connectiveness of all things. As we approach the millennium, such an insight to evolve a healthy economy depends on thrift and recycling. Reducing waste has implications in all facets of our way of life—from how we conduct our simplest everyday tasks, to our relationships, how we eat, play and work. Carver understood this. That's why he started his laboratory with bottles, old fruit jars and any other thing he recycled from the trash pile at Tuskegee Institute to invent all sorts of products from the trash.
Although numerous major industries were sparked by this American genius, his transmutation of waste into wealth has yet to be fully realized. Carver had a profound passion for nature, understood the importance of service to human welfare, disregarded conventional pleasures, and exhibited no interest in financial reward. (He refused Thomas Edison's employment offer of $50,000 a year for five years, preferring to remain at his small laboratory at Tuskegee College until his death.) Few individuals on this planet have practiced what they preached with such resourcefulness. He told his students,
"Young people, I want to beg of you always keep your eyes open to what Mother Nature has to teach you. By so doing you will learn many valuable things every day of your life."
Carver, a black man, did not see the color of his skin as a barrier in the segregated South of a century ago. He assisted people of all colors because he believed that "to bring happiness to others brings happiness to oneself." The final act of generosity from this quiet, resourceful, hard-working genius came in the form of his bequeath to the Tuskegee Institute: his entire savings garnered from his modest salary of $125 a month of 47 years of teaching which he earmarked for the study of soil fertility and continued creation of useful products from waste materials.
Besides numerous heads of states journeying across the world to visit Carver, three presidents were his friends—Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge and Franklin Roosevelt. FDR stated on one visit, “You are a great American, Professor. What you have done in your laboratory has made our nation stronger.” For years he corresponded with Ghandi working on a vegetable diet. Henry Ford became a close friend and when they were both interviewed by the press commented, “Professor Carver can answer all your question—he thinks exactly as I do.” Will Rogers visited the Tuskegee Institute and pointing to Dr. Carver said, “But your most valuable possession is that gentleman right there.”
Few individuals have created so much and asked for so little. All Carver’s inventions not only benefit people but reflected his reverence for the planet. Dr. George Washington Carver—the "Wizard of Tuskegee," and the "Columbus of Soil"—serves as a wonderful role model. Our following his example of respecting nature's gifts and treating all things as sacred is critical if we wish to learn from this great champion of conservation and invention. He not only greatly expanded our economy, but his brilliant achievements enriched the earth by observing and translating its splendor.
Dr. Carver was a pioneer in recycling, botany, agronomy, chemistry, plant pathology, agriculture, mycology, genetics, dietetics and ersatz. Thanks to his bountiful discoveries, Carver’s labor of love provides us with the glorious gifts he emulated from nature and a sense of appreciation for what a wonderous spirit shared with human kind. This American genius deserves greater recognition and we can all embrace his vision of emulating nature, "throw nothing away, everything can be used again."