George Washington Carver, an undersized, softspoken genius, achieved fame as an agricultural chemist, botanist, educator, and inventor, though he refused to patent or capitalize on most of his innovations. His study of peanuts and peanut products, sweet potatoes, and soybeans led to an economic bonanza for the southern farmer by providing an alternative to cotton and tobacco as staple crops. A native of Diamond Grove, Missouri, he was born a slave. His birthdate was never recorded. When Carver was an infant he was kidnapped along with his brother Jim and their mother Mary by slave rustlers. His mother was sold, but George suffered from whooping cough and was left to die. When Carver's original master sought to find his stolen slaves, the price for the sickly child immediately increased. The thieves required Carver's master to trade a three-hundred-dollar race horse for the boy's ransom. Following the Emancipation Proclamation...