George Washington Carver Joins Tuskegee Institute

George Washington Carver, who had just earned his master's degree from Iowa State College — the first Black American to do so there — accepted Booker T. Washington's invitation to lead Tuskegee's agriculture department. Over the following decades Carver would revolutionize Southern agriculture by developing hundreds of uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes, and soybeans, helping Black farmers diversify away from depleted cotton land. His work made him one of the most celebrated scientists in American history.