11. African-American educator and author Booker T. Washington contacted Carver in 1896 and offered him a position at his brand new school, Tuskegee Institute, as the head of the agricultural department. Carver accepted and went on to devote the rest of his life to the institution and its goals.
12. In 1916, he was elected as a member of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts in England, the world’s oldest scientific organization.
13. In 1918, he went to the War Department in Washington, D.C., to demonstrate his findings on the sweet potato.
14. Tuskegee’s agricultural department achieved national recognition under Carver’s leadership.
15. Carver taught farmers how to utilize farm waste products to grow better plants.
16. Carver pioneered a mobile classroom to bring his lessons to farmers. The classroom was known as a “Jesup wagon.”
17. He did not accept compensation for the advice he gave to peanut producers and other farmers.
18. He was known throughout the South as the “farmer’s best friend.”
19. He reached a wide audience with the Tuskegee Experiment Station’s bulletins and brochures that he wrote and published from 1898 until his death.
20. In 1923, he was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP.
