Famous for devising around 300 uses for the peanut, (wow, 300?) George Washington Carver was also an influential educator, botanist, and humanitarian. He advocated scientific methods to farmers who had become dependent on cotton. The peanut, being a legume, put nitrogen back into the soil for other plants to use. It was also nutritionally balanced crop that provided much needed protein into the diet as well as healthy fats, an let's not forget it helped subsidize the monocle and top hat industry for years. Wait, different peanut. Also, not those children with a dog who moonlights as fighter pilot. Anyways, Carver's work stressed self-sufficiency through crop rotation, waste salvaging, crop diversification, and a renewed respect for the natural world, and his contributions to agriculture carry on this legacy today. Fun fact: Although Carver didn’t invent peanut butter, his work with the peanut helped popularize it. Established in 1943, George Washington Carver National Monument, near ...