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George Washington Carver: Scientist and Symbol
An intimate and sensitive psychological portrait, a well informed intellectual sketch, and and unusually readable scientific treatise, this biography of Carver has a depth and a breadth of research rarely found in such studies.
384 pages, Paperback
First published June 16, 1982
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About the author
Linda O. McMurry
14 books1 followerLinda O. McMurry is a Professor of History at North Carolina State University, and author of George Washington Carver: Scientist and Symbol and Recorder of the Black Experience: A Biography of Monroe Nathan Work. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
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August 27, 2016A very good read.
January 3, 2026
This was a hard read for me. I started this book on the recommendation from the NPS ranger at the George Washington Carver (GWC) National Monument when I visited there recently. GWC is a role model for me and I wanted to learn more.
This book held an undercurrent of something I couldn’t quite articulate. I am a student of history so I am used to walking through the process that accompanies reading books where my illusion of a historical character is destroyed by the reality of who they actually were. About halfway through the book though, it felt like this book was a bit different.
Linda’s work, written in 1981, seems to reflect the revisionist biography movement of the 1960s-70s, pushing back against uncritical histories and myths of historical figures. McMurry seeks to strip away the mythology of Carver as the saintly “Peanut Man,” which had value. And to me, the book reads less as a biography honoring Carver’s life, and more as a defense brief justifying his fame to skeptics.
McMurry writes of his “perceived humility”,
his “need for recognition by practical men”, and questions “how could a man so imbued with a sense of divine destiny continue to feel so vulnerable to the doubts of his fellow man”, as if belief in one’s purpose should make someone immune to the toll of constant degradation. She notes that “even mild criticism could reopen painful wounds,” the closest she comes to acknowledging trauma, and frames his responses as excessive sensitivity. It was hard for me to reconcile this in light of what Carver experienced just to exist in the places and time that he did. As one example, at 14 or 15 yrs old, Carver watched Bill Howard “taken from jail by a mob and hung, and his body afterwards burned.”
These characterizations of Carver made me look to find reviews that grapple with this aspect of Linda’s work. I wasn’t able to find any (not saying they don’t exist). I do wonder what it meant to be the only Black leader of an agricultural experiment station in the South at that time while being judged for measures of success in the 1970’s and even now.
The book raised important questions about whose perspective counts as neutral, and what it means when someone who overcame impossible odds and comes up so wanting by a scholarly historian’s standards.
I will try to head back to the GWC national monument today for a follow up conversation with the rangers.
This book held an undercurrent of something I couldn’t quite articulate. I am a student of history so I am used to walking through the process that accompanies reading books where my illusion of a historical character is destroyed by the reality of who they actually were. About halfway through the book though, it felt like this book was a bit different.
Linda’s work, written in 1981, seems to reflect the revisionist biography movement of the 1960s-70s, pushing back against uncritical histories and myths of historical figures. McMurry seeks to strip away the mythology of Carver as the saintly “Peanut Man,” which had value. And to me, the book reads less as a biography honoring Carver’s life, and more as a defense brief justifying his fame to skeptics.
McMurry writes of his “perceived humility”,
his “need for recognition by practical men”, and questions “how could a man so imbued with a sense of divine destiny continue to feel so vulnerable to the doubts of his fellow man”, as if belief in one’s purpose should make someone immune to the toll of constant degradation. She notes that “even mild criticism could reopen painful wounds,” the closest she comes to acknowledging trauma, and frames his responses as excessive sensitivity. It was hard for me to reconcile this in light of what Carver experienced just to exist in the places and time that he did. As one example, at 14 or 15 yrs old, Carver watched Bill Howard “taken from jail by a mob and hung, and his body afterwards burned.”
These characterizations of Carver made me look to find reviews that grapple with this aspect of Linda’s work. I wasn’t able to find any (not saying they don’t exist). I do wonder what it meant to be the only Black leader of an agricultural experiment station in the South at that time while being judged for measures of success in the 1970’s and even now.
The book raised important questions about whose perspective counts as neutral, and what it means when someone who overcame impossible odds and comes up so wanting by a scholarly historian’s standards.
I will try to head back to the GWC national monument today for a follow up conversation with the rangers.
August 22, 2012
Very informative
October 8, 2012
A very readable biography of a misunderstood figure.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews