George Washington Carver was an agricultural scientist whose genius saved the economy of the American South. At Tuskegee Institute, he developed crop rotation methods to restore nitrogen to soil depleted by cotton farming. He promoted the planting of nitrogen-fixing crops like peanuts and sweet potatoes. To create a market for these crops, he developed over 300 products from peanuts (including dyes, plastics, and gasoline) and 118 from sweet potatoes. While often mistakenly credited with inventing peanut butter, his true genius was in chemurgy—the branch of chemistry that creates industrial products from agricultural raw materials. Carver's work improved the lives of poor farmers and promoted ecological sustainability long before it was popular.