George Washington Carver Museum
Tuskegee, Alabama
"Please Mr. Creator, will you tell me why the peanut was made?" George Washington Carver said he asked this of God after he'd convinced Southern farmers to save their soil by growing peanuts instead of cotton. What to do with all those peanuts?
God answered, and George Washington Carver invented peanut mayonnaise, instant coffee, and substitute asparagus; peanut face bleach, dandruff shampoo, and axle grease; peanut laxatives, diesel fuel, and goiter treatment.
George Washington Carver's lab was at Tuskegee University, and the campus converted its old laundry into a museum. Henry Ford dedicated the museum in 1941, embedding in its floor three auto parts made of "soybean plastic" that Carver helped to develop. The exhibits included his inventions, his artwork (he'd won an honorable mention at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair), and his natural history collection -- including giant vegetables in jars. Much has disappeared over the years due to fires and cautious curators, but the museum still has a "soil monolith" to show how Carver extracted paint pigments from Alabama clay; and a bust of Carver wearing his lab apron, cradling peanuts in his hands.
GWC should not be confused with Booker T. Washington, of whom there is a statue just down the street.