George Washington Carver Improved Agricultural Practices

When George Washington Carver arrived in the South, only about one-fifth of Black farmers owned any land. The overreliance on cotton as the region’s main cash crop depleted the soil of its nutrients, and the sharecropper system kept tenant farmers in a permanent state of poverty. Improving the practice of Southern agriculture and the conditions of poor farmers became Carver’s chief concern.

This segment from Iowa PBS’s George Washington Carver: An Uncommon Life documentary includes interviews from people who knew or were influenced by him. Interviews took place at Iowa State University, Simpson College and Tuskegee University.