George Washington Carver was a young boy from Missouri born into slavery. No one expected him to succeed because slaves were not allowed to be educated. After the Civil War, he enrolled in classes and was a star student. He became the first black student at Iowa State Agricultural College and later its first black professor. He went on to the Tuskegee Institute where he specialized in botany (the study of plants) and developed techniques to grow crops better. He was also an inventor who developed hundreds of household products and recipes using peanuts.
