Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site
Way down in Alabama is Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site, which sits on the campus of present day Tuskegee University, a school established in 1881 by the state of Alabama to prepare newly freed people and their children for self-sufficiency. As an off-shoot of the Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site is the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site. Over 1000 proud, African American pilots trained at Tuskegee to fortify the U.S. war effort. The war was the Second World War when segregation yet ruled the nation.
Mark and I have limited time since we’re meeting the family this late afternoon in Destin, Florida for some fun and relaxation, but I do want to get an hour’s worth or so of knowledge about something at Tuskegee.
Like always, our first stop is the Visitor Center, which sits just outside the gates leading onto the Tuskegee campus. I see there is an entire museum dedicated to George Washington Carver, who came to the school to head the Agricultural Department in 1896, having earned his masters degree in Botany from Iowa State Agricultural College, now Iowa State University.
“George Washington Carver…” I recall from second grade, “he invented peanut butter.” In the George Washington Carver Museum is where we choose to spend our time.
The museum is a little larger than a basketball court with the right third dedicated to Tuskegee’s history. A theater and a bookstore are also off to the right. However, the left two-thirds of the large room is crammed with displays of Carver’s findings, inventions and discoveries and even his artwork.
Interested in nature from a young age, Carver became known as the plant doctor. It seemed anything he touched would thrive. He collected soils and extracted the pigments to develop paints that interested several commercial paint companies. The paints were used on the Tuskegee campus and throughout the area.
He wrote bulletins for distribution to farming families, instructing them in the ways of crop rotation, deep planting, use of natural fertilizers and recipe variations.
And who can forget Carver’s extensive work with the peanut? The museum has copies of Carver’s lab books on display and some of the ingenious uses he developed for the legume: foods for humans and livestock, medicines, dyes, beverages (peanut lemon punch, anyone?), cosmetics, soap, diesel fuel, insulating boards, linoleum, and the uses go on unbelievably.
He also developed uses like this for the sweet potato, sand and even the burlap sack. Carver was a recycler before the word “environmentalist” even came into the American lexicon.
George Washington Carver is one of our nation’s true early innovators, and a short visit to Tuskegee Institute will introduce you to and flabbergast you with how much he did with so little.
Mark and I have limited time since we’re meeting the family this late afternoon in Destin, Florida for some fun and relaxation, but I do want to get an hour’s worth or so of knowledge about something at Tuskegee.
Like always, our first stop is the Visitor Center, which sits just outside the gates leading onto the Tuskegee campus. I see there is an entire museum dedicated to George Washington Carver, who came to the school to head the Agricultural Department in 1896, having earned his masters degree in Botany from Iowa State Agricultural College, now Iowa State University.
“George Washington Carver…” I recall from second grade, “he invented peanut butter.” In the George Washington Carver Museum is where we choose to spend our time.
The museum is a little larger than a basketball court with the right third dedicated to Tuskegee’s history. A theater and a bookstore are also off to the right. However, the left two-thirds of the large room is crammed with displays of Carver’s findings, inventions and discoveries and even his artwork.
Interested in nature from a young age, Carver became known as the plant doctor. It seemed anything he touched would thrive. He collected soils and extracted the pigments to develop paints that interested several commercial paint companies. The paints were used on the Tuskegee campus and throughout the area.
He wrote bulletins for distribution to farming families, instructing them in the ways of crop rotation, deep planting, use of natural fertilizers and recipe variations.
And who can forget Carver’s extensive work with the peanut? The museum has copies of Carver’s lab books on display and some of the ingenious uses he developed for the legume: foods for humans and livestock, medicines, dyes, beverages (peanut lemon punch, anyone?), cosmetics, soap, diesel fuel, insulating boards, linoleum, and the uses go on unbelievably.
He also developed uses like this for the sweet potato, sand and even the burlap sack. Carver was a recycler before the word “environmentalist” even came into the American lexicon.
George Washington Carver is one of our nation’s true early innovators, and a short visit to Tuskegee Institute will introduce you to and flabbergast you with how much he did with so little.
posted by Elizabeth Evans Fryer | 10:07 AM
2 Comments:
When I was young( I still am!)my father would take us camping in the south.Saw alot of cool things.
Daniel Boones gravesite,manmouth caves,lookout mountain,now my son might be moving to ky with his girlfriend have a job with a tv station down there.They should go for it while they are young.
Yeah, KY is a beautiful state. Mark and I went to Washington, KY last Sunday--about an hour and 20 minutes southeast of here--for a chocolate festival. It was cold and really wasn't worth the trip as half the vendors didn't return on Sunday since it rained on Saturday, but we bought lots of sweets from those who were there.
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