GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER

Born of slave parents in 1860 in Diamond, Missouri, Dr. Carver almost single-handedly revolutionized southern agriculture. From his small laboratory on the campus of Tuskegee Institute flowed hundreds of discoveries and products from the once neglected peanut. From the peanut Dr. Carver discovered meal, instant and dry coffee, bleach, tar remover, wood filler, metal polish, paper, ink, shaving cream, rubbing oil, linoleum, synthetic rubber, and plastics. From the soybean he obtained flour, breakfast food, and milk. It is highly doubtful if any person has done as much for southern agriculture as Dr. Carver. Dr. Carver died in 1943 and was buried next to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee Institute. On July 17, 1960 the George Washington Carver National Monument was dedicated at Dr. Carver's birth site. This was the first U.S. federal monument dedicated to a African-American.

SAMUEL DAVIDSON CHAMBERS

Samuel Davidson Chambers was probably the most successful black farmer in Utah from about 1872 through the first decades of the 20th century. Born on May 21, 1831, in Alabama, Chambers was separated from his mother as a boy and taken to Mississippi where he was kept as a slave until the end of the Civil War. He and his wife, Amanda Leggroan, came to Utah in 1870 as Mormon converts. For a time Chambers worked at a sawmill, but by 1872 he had established a home for his family in Salt Lake City's Eighth Ward and was farming and growing fruit. After about six years in the city the family moved to a small farm in the Mill Creek area southeast of town. The small fruits-including currants, grapes, cherries, and gooseberries-that Chambers worked hard to cultivate won prizes at local fairs. The farm produced many necessities for the family's survival as well: chickens, eggs, peas, wheat, corn, cabbage, pork, butter, and molasses. Chambers had some 30 acres under cultivation by World War I.