My fourth grade teacher had a quirky sense of humor, and sometimes we weren’t sure when she was joking. During our Earth Science unit, she told us that George Washington Carver had invented peanuts. I was fairly sure she was kidding, but I suspect a few of my classmates initially thought she was telling the truth. Peanuts originated in South America, and they are not true nuts.
I did believe for years that Carver had invented peanut butter, and was disappointed to find out that the honor went instead to Canadian pharmacist Marcellus Gilmore Edson, who was awarded the U.S. patent for peanut butter in 1884.
George Washington Carver was born into slavery in 1864. After years of struggle to receive an education, he graduated from college in 1896 with a Master of Science in Botany. His interests were plant physiology and mycology (the study of fungi).
Booker T. Washington invited Carver to head the Agriculture Department at Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), where he taught for 4...