George Washington Carver: Negro Scientist

by Sam Epstein

A biography of the man, born a slave, who became a scientist and devoted his entire life to helping the South improve its agriculture.

Genres: Childrens

Hardcover

First published June 1, 1960

About the author

Sam Epstein (November 22, 1909 - January 31, 2000) was an American author of juvenile non-fiction books.
Starting in 1938, Sam, along with his wife Beryl Williams Epstein, jointly wrote over 120 books.

Although Sam is often individually credited for many of the books, Beryl played a major role in their creation. While Epstein and his wife had very different writing styles, they took turns writing chapters and editing each other’s work, enabling their styles to blend together.
The couple contributed numerous titles to several children’s book series, including the Real Books, All About, and Franklin Watts First Book series.

They also wrote the Ken Holt Mystery series under the name Bruce Campbell.

Reviews

[Debi Cates]

This is one of those books I read as a kid and have since thought about on and off for more than fifty years. Today I am wondering which school library carried it and of the unknown librarian who selected it for the shelves of the elementary school I attended.

I'm in ever-growing awe of librarians who seem to know what the minds of children crave long before anyone else. This book's original title, the one I read, was George Washington Carver: Negro Scientist.

Carver was born enslaved, just before slavery was abolished. As a baby, his family was kidnapped from their white slave owner, Moses Carver, in Missouri and the family was sold in Kentucky. He alone was found and was returned to Carver. After slavery was abolished, Carver and his wife raised George as one of their own children and encouraged his intellectual pursuits. One can't help but wonder what America would be like today had there been tens of thousands of stories like that, of whites who embraced the 13th Amendment, instead of resenting it and passing down cruelty and resentment for generations.

This autobiography for children was published before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Very likely school segregation was still going on where I lived at the time. If not by law, then by de facto segregation when whites and people of color lived in distinct areas of town and thus attended different schools. As a child I was aware of it--where did I live at the time I read this book? New Mexico? Oklahoma? I can't quite recall nor do I recall questioning exactly why that was; why there were few to no non-whites in the schools I attended. Had I asked, I wonder what answer I would have gotten. Certainly the appropriate, educating word "systemic" would not have been used.

However, even at just 8 or 9 years old, we were taught about the shameful history of slavery in the United States. That was before these current inane laws prohibiting the factual teaching of it were enacted, lest someone white feels "bad."

(I'm confused. Who are the "snowflakes" again?)

We should all feel bad about it, about that time in our country's history. Sickened, heart-broken, ashamed, and outraged, too. Those are healthy responses. It's called empathy and you should be glad if your child feels it. It's a painful capacity that distinguishes good people from cruel or psychopathic ones.

Oh, but seeing this cover uplifts me. It brings me back to the early fuzzy questions of my younger self. This book is an early testament to a host of adults--artists, writers, agents, publishers, librarians--who answered questions of children like myself. They were part of the hard work of "making a more perfect union."

[Melissa]

Lovely warm illustrations accompany the story of this introductory biography. Skims very quickly over George’s infancy and childhood, so much of the struggles and long time it took for him to attain each goal in his education is regrettably widely omitted.

Spoilers—

For anyone interested, these are specifically compared to what I’ve read in other Dr Carver biographies, in this case specifically to the Signature biography by Arna Bontemps.

Discrepancies:
- states Mary was not warned by the Carvers about the night raiders. No specific name given to the man who tracked down George
- Says that Mr Carver was too poor to pay anyone to go find Mary and George; Signature says Mr Carver offered money but it was refused
- Says a trade was set up, and a horse for Mary and baby George but only the baby was left behind ; Signature says a man went out and found George with a woman who didn’t want him
- states George left home at age 13, not 9yo like the Signature asserts
- Doesn’t mention his relationships at all like the Signature
- Does mention Aunt Maria giving him a Bible; Signature doesn’t

[HM]

I was a little disappointed in this one- it seemed inaccurate in some areas, though maybe that was in an effort to keep it simple? George Washington Carver is my all-time favorite biography and I’ve read much about him, but I’m coming to this little reader as a 52 year old, not an 8 year old so maybe that’s part of it. This one lacked some of the inspiration that his character always brings me. But still a worthy read.