Booker T Washington And George Washington Carver Had A Complicated Partnership

Upon arrival at the Tuskegee, George Carver was expecting a proper laboratory, which Booker T. Washington had promised him. Instead, all he got was a room with a lamp. He had brought his own microscope with him and used the lamp to both warm his hands and as a Bunsen burner as "George Washington Carver:

Upon arrival at the Tuskegee, George Carver was expecting a proper laboratory, which Booker T. Washington had promised him. Instead, all he got was a room with a lamp. He had brought his own microscope with him and used the lamp to both warm his hands and as a Bunsen burner as "George Washington Carver: A Life" notes.

Alas, though, "for the entire 19 years that Carver and Washington worked together at Tuskegee, they made each other wretched," Christina Vella wrote for NBC, "Only after Booker's death in 1915 could Carver begin garnering a reputation for his scientific work."

Washington died one of the most famous men in America: a controversial figure whose impact on Black education remains unequaled in history. George Washington Carver forged himself a legacy independent from that of his former boss with his innovative ideas for farming techniques, most notably those involving peanuts, as the National Peanut Board explains. 

As Washington once wrote (via NPS History Archive), "I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life, as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed." Washington and Carver both succeeded in changing history, even though the greatest obstacles they faced were ostensibly each other. 

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