A prolific inventor who developed hundreds of products from peanuts, sweet potatoes, and other crops, Carver never patented his discoveries. He believed they were divinely inspired and belonged to everyone. His mobile agriculture wagon brought education directly to farmers, serving as a school on wheels.

Carver’s talents extended far beyond the laboratory. He was an accomplished artist who knew how to knit and crochet. True to his belief that “I never throw anything away,” he practiced what we’d now call sustainability—creating macramé from discarded mail thread and finding purpose in everything. His humanitarian work included serving with the YMCA and the Commission for Interracial Relations, where he reached out to young people with his message of potential and possibility.

• “It is service that measures success.”
• “How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.”
• “When you can do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you command the attention of the world.”