George Washington Carver (1864-1943), American agricultural chemist. Carver (third, bottom row) sitting with his staff. Carver was born a slave but was adopted by his former owners (1865). He earned his bachelor (1891) and master (1894) degrees from Iowa State University before becoming director of agricultural research at Tuskegee University (1896). While in this position, Carver took an interest in the repeated farming of the traditional crop of cotton, which was removing nutrients from the soil. Carver introduced crop rotation and the alternating of cotton crops and legume crops helped to restore nitrogen to the soil.