George Washington Carver: A Life (Southern Biography Series)

Although it's a bit of happenstance that I chose to read a modern biography of Carver at this point in time, I would note that it would have been hard to avoid him as an exemplar of the "safe" Black man at the time when I was in primary and secondary school. Also, though I really didn't think about the man for a long while, I suppose that at the back of my mind I've had the question of just how much of an exemplar Carver really was.

Vella, however, does make a strong case that Carver remains a great exemplar. This is considering his humanity, intellectual engagement, and commitment; perhaps too much commitment. While Booker T. Washington badly wanted Carver as a trophy hire for the Tuskegee Institute, the real guts of this book is how show more Vella documents the remarkably poor treatment that Carver received while on the school's payroll. The fact is that Carver only really flourished as a researcher once Washington passed on, as opposed to merely being the nominal manager of the school's agricultural operations. There is a whole constellation of reasons for this, but Washington was under pressure from the trustees to make the school pay for itself, whereas Carver was trying to run an experimental farm. In trying to do everything, and Washington trying to keep up appearances, nothing was done well; Washington cuts a remarkable shabby figure as an institutional leader in this telling.

From there, and the last third of Carver's life, Vella examines how the man went from being an obscure regional figure to becoming a national treasure; much helped by Carver's unlikely friendship with Henry Ford.

Going forward from this exercise, I find that I really do need to study more about the long-running conflict between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, which Carver was on the fringes of. show less