2024 S Reverse Proof "GW Carver Peanuts" Innovation $1 - Missouri

The American Innovation $1 Coin representing Missouri honors George Washington Carver, agricultural scientist, inventor, and educator. George Washington Carver was born into slavery in Missouri at the end of the Civil War. In the 1890s, he studied botany and agriculture at Iowa State Agricultural College. He then joined the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama at the invitation of Booker T. Washington. He taught agricultural methods at Tuskegee for 47 years. In the South, cotton was the primary cash crop, despite it creating poor quality soil due to nutrient depletion. Carver wanted to improve the life of poor farmers trying to make a living growing cotton. He taught methods such as crop rotation, which alternated cotton with nitrate-producing legumes like peanuts and peas. The cotton depleted the soil of its nutrients while the legumes restored nitrogen. This method improved crop yields and was more cost-effective than using commercial fertilizer. Carver investigated alternative crops to