# George Washington Carver didn't invent peanut butter?! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 23, 2008, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-carver-didnt-invent-peanut-butter/434703 "2008-01-23T19:08:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2008, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-carver-didnt-invent-peanut-butter/434703/1 "2008-01-23T19:08:24Z")
According to Wikipedia, “Recipe number 51 on the list of 105 peanut uses describes a “peanut butter” that led to the belief that Carver invented the modern product with this name. It is a recipe for making a typical gritty, oily peanut butter of the period. It does not have the key steps (which would be difficult to achieve in a kitchen) for manufacturing stable, creamy commercial peanut butter that was developed in 1922 by Joseph L. Rosefield. Carver is also often incorrectly credited with the invention of the original oily type of peanut butter. In 1890, even before Carver was in college, George A. Bayle Jr. of St. Louis marketed a crude form of peanut butter as a food easily eaten by people with poor teeth.” Well, there goes _my_ entire February’s worth of public schooling. For a while as a child I actually thought Carver _invented the peanut_. Like, from scratch. And now I find he didn’t even do peanut butter?! I am so disappointed and disillusioned. (Okay, so he was a really neat guy. But he did not invent peanut butter! Or, for that matter, the peanut.) ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2008, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-carver-didnt-invent-peanut-butter/434703/2 "2008-01-23T19:18:30Z")
No doubt this revisionism is simply a desperate attempt by Carver’s heirs to head off all the peanut allergy lawsuits hanging over their heads. _"Oh, would you look at that! Turns out it wasn’t Great-grandpa’s_ fault after all! It was that bastard Rosefield’s doing! He probably invented all that peanut-compatible food processing machinery too! Go take a chunk out of his ass instead!"\* \*Actually, according to his biographers, Carver was known to his great-grandchildren by the affectionate nickname “Pea-pappy.” ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2008, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-carver-didnt-invent-peanut-butter/434703/3 "2008-01-23T19:51:37Z")
[QUOTE=Terrifel] \*Actually, according to his biographers, Carver was known to his great-grandchildren by the affectionate nickname “Pea-pappy.” [/QUOTE] That is so cute I can hardly stand it. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2008, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-carver-didnt-invent-peanut-butter/434703/4 "2008-01-23T19:52:37Z")
[QUOTE=Zsofia] Well, there goes _my_ entire February’s worth of public schooling. For a while as a child I actually thought Carver _invented the peanut_. Like, from scratch. And now I find he didn’t even do peanut butter?! [/QUOTE] Of course not. According to the patent records I’ve found, it was Edward “Skippy” Williamson and Frederick “Jif” Armstrong. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2008, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-carver-didnt-invent-peanut-butter/434703/5 "2008-01-23T20:12:14Z")
Don’t leave us hanging like that **Zsofia** – give the reference. The Wikipedia article on Peanut Butter gives a history, but doesn’t give the information you do – it simply says that Carver didn’t nvent it, and gives a reference: > [@](#): > > Mackintosh, Barry. 1977. George Washington Carver and the Peanut: New Light on a Much-loved Myth. American Heritage 28(5): 66-73. > **[Peanut butter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut_butter)** > > Peanut butter is a food paste or spread made from ground, dry-roasted peanuts. It commonly contains additional ingredients that modify the taste or texture, such as salt, sweeteners, or emulsifiers. Consumed in many countries, it is the most commonly used of the nut butters, a group that also includes cashew butter and almond butter. > Peanut butter is a nutrient-rich food containing high levels of protein, several vitamins, and dietary minerals. It is typically served as a spread on bread, toa... The quote you give comes friom their entry on George Washington Carver: > **[George Washington Carver](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_Carver)** > > George Washington Carver (c. 1864 – January 5, 1943) was an American agricultural scientist and inventor who promoted alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion. He was one of the most prominent black scientists of the early 20th century. > While a professor at Tuskegee Institute, Carver developed techniques to improve types of soils depleted by repeated plantings of cotton. He wanted poor farmers to grow other crops, such as peanuts and sweet potatoes, as a source of th... The “Peanut Butter” article notes that Rose Davis of Algierville, New York made it in the 1840s, but she was copying what she’d seen in Cuba. And that the Incas, far earlier, were reported to have made a paste of peanuts. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2008, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-carver-didnt-invent-peanut-butter/434703/6 "2008-01-23T20:45:31Z")
Well, it’s not like Wikipedia is the world’s best scholarly engine. That quote _is_ from the George Washington Carver article. Here’s a summation of the point: > [@](#): > > The following year he testified before the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, captivating congressional representatives with his showmanship and ideas for multiple derivatives from the crop including candy, ink, and ice cream flavoring. Mackintosh noted that Carver established his new celebrity nationwide, telling the lawmakers, “I have just begun with the peanut.” From then on he was known as the “Peanut Man.” After his death, the Carver Museum at Tuskegee credited him with developing 287 peanut by-products, including food and beverages, paints or dyes, livestock feed, cosmetics, and medicinal preparations. Peanut butter, however, was not among his discoveries. His similar laboratory work with the sweet potato totaled 159 commodities like flour, molasses, vinegar, various dyes, and synthetic rubber. > > But in reality, most of these by-products were more fanciful than practical and could be mass-produced more easily from other substances. Peanuts continued to be used almost entirely for peanut butter, peanut oil, and for baked goods instead of the plethora of products Carver concocted. For all his discoveries, he only held three patents: two for paint products and one for a cosmetic. None was commercially successful. > > “George Washington Carver.” Contemporary Black Biography, Volume 4. Gale Research, 1993. > Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2008. [http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC](http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC) So in other words, all that stuff we were supposed to be so proud of him wasn’t really very important. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2008, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-carver-didnt-invent-peanut-butter/434703/7 "2008-01-23T20:49:20Z")
But he still bumped into the guy holding a chocolate bar, right? ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2008, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-carver-didnt-invent-peanut-butter/434703/8 "2008-01-23T20:54:17Z")
No, that’s Mr. Reese. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2008, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-carver-didnt-invent-peanut-butter/434703/9 "2008-01-23T21:05:57Z")
Just found this: > [@](#): > > Wikipedia is referenced at the end of the show, where Stan asks “If only there was a place where you could make outrageous claims, without any proof, and millions of people would accept it as fact…”, then the scene flips to Steve typing up an article on “Wikipedia” on his home computer. The title of the article is “The Truth about Peanut Butter”. All articles on the real Wikipedia related to peanut butter, Mary Todd Lincoln, and the Illuminati were protected before the end of the episode’s first broadcast. It’s from the Wikipedia article on the American Dad episode **Black Mystery Month** , which manages to parody Da Vinci Code, National Treasure, Peanut Butter, and Wikipedia. I gotta look this up – I’m much too far outta the loop. > **[American Dad! season 3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mystery_Month)** > > The third season of American Dad! first aired on the Fox Network in nineteen episodes from September 10, 2006, to May 20, 2007, before being included in two DVD box sets and in syndication. The series focuses on the eccentric upper middle class Smith family in a fictionalized version of Langley, Virginia and their six housemates: Father, husband, CIA agent, and Republican, Stan; his wife and housewife, Francine; their liberal, hippie, college-aged daughter, Hayley; their dorky high-school-aged... ---
**Author:** ![Rube\_E.Tewesday](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f0a364/32.png) [@Rube\_E.Tewesday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rube_E.Tewesday)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2008, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-carver-didnt-invent-peanut-butter/434703/10 "2008-01-23T21:26:33Z")
I keep thinking of the episode of _NYPD Blue_ where Sipowicz was interrogating a black man. He started off “I know that that great African-American George Washington Carver invented the peanut. Now, where were you last night?” ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2008, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-carver-didnt-invent-peanut-butter/434703/11 "2008-01-23T21:30:05Z")
[QUOTE=Zsofia] That is so cute I can hardly stand it. [/QUOTE] Thank you. Actually I have no idea whether Carver had great-grandchildren or not; but if he didn’t, I’m sure he made a substitute out of peanuts. History is all very well and good, but unverifiable anecdotes are what really separate the statistics from the legends. Dammit, I don’t need historians to tell me that Carver was a flawed, often-fallible human being! I need the mythological Carver as mad scientist, who reflexively believed that peanuts were the answer to all life’s problems! I refuse to take this lying down. I sincerely believe that George Washington Carver has the potential to be the next Chuck Norris internet phenomenon. Except instead of the tough-guy thing, he’s the guy who attacks everything with peanuts. Everyone should help out with their own GWC Facts. Throughout his career, GWC produced over 770 hybrid strains of peanut. The four most intelligent strains carried on his work to produce over 11,500 new hybrid strains of peanut. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2008, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-carver-didnt-invent-peanut-butter/434703/12 "2008-01-23T21:43:13Z")
This is very disconcerting. And I went to George Washington Carver Junior High. Honestly ---
**Author:** ![Ignatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3be4f8/32.png) [@Ignatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignatz)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2008, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-carver-didnt-invent-peanut-butter/434703/13 "2008-01-23T22:23:14Z")
And I always thought he was the one who sculpted (carved) the statue of George Washington! ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2008, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-carver-didnt-invent-peanut-butter/434703/14 "2008-01-24T01:12:34Z")
[QUOTE=Ignatz] And I always thought he was the one who sculpted (carved) the statue of George Washington! [/QUOTE] Out of peanut butter. It melted in the Georgia sun. Completely irrelevant (and insane) anecdote: I had a friend whose cousin took her kids out of public school to home-school them when she “discovered” that the kids knew who George Washington Carver was, but not George Washington. How about that? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2008, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-carver-didnt-invent-peanut-butter/434703/15 "2008-01-24T03:32:06Z")
[QUOTE=KRM] This is very disconcerting. And I went to George Washington Carver Junior High. Honestly [/QUOTE] This is entirely appropriate, since George Washington Carver’s research established the original pay scale that still determines the modern public schoolteacher’s salary even today. And this is why… ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Dave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/46a35a/32.png) [@Great\_Dave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Dave)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2008, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-carver-didnt-invent-peanut-butter/434703/16 "2008-01-24T03:44:28Z")
[QUOTE=Terrifel] This is entirely appropriate, since George Washington Carver’s research established the original pay scale that still determines the modern public schoolteacher’s salary even today. And this is why… [/QUOTE] winner. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2008, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-carver-didnt-invent-peanut-butter/434703/17 "2008-01-24T07:07:08Z")
[QUOTE=Terrifel] Actually I have no idea whether Carver had great-grandchildren or not; [/QUOTE] Since he was a gay man, Carver never married or produced children. And at that time, gay couples such as him and his lover Austin W. Curtis, Jr. were not permitted to adopt, so there would not be any adopted children to produce grandchildren or great-grandchildren, either. ---
**Author:** ![Flander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8c91f0/32.png) [@Flander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flander)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2008, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-carver-didnt-invent-peanut-butter/434703/18 "2008-01-24T14:59:30Z")
[QUOTE=Great Dave] winner. [/QUOTE] Seconded. ---
**Author:** ![HeadNinja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b4bc9f/32.png) [@HeadNinja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeadNinja)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2008, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-carver-didnt-invent-peanut-butter/434703/19 "2008-01-24T17:05:26Z")
An episode of the animated series The Tick featured several great Scientists from history trapped in a cage. GWC lamented that they would be out of that cage “If only he had some peanuts.” When he does get ahold of peanuts he creates a peanut fueled engine of destruction that also utilizes peanuts as ammunition. He was truly a great man. ---
**Author:** ![PoorYorick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PoorYorick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoorYorick)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2008, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-carver-didnt-invent-peanut-butter/434703/20 "2008-01-24T17:42:23Z")
[QUOTE=eleanorigby] Out of peanut butter. It melted in the Georgia sun. [/QUOTE] I believe you’re mistaken. It melted in the dark. Remember all the sweet green peanut butter running down? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-carver-didnt-invent-peanut-butter/434703.md?page=2)