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Inside Iowa State
March 19, 1999

Carver capsule

Thomas Edison and Henry Ford made him lucrative offers, but George Washington Carver declined, remaining at Tuskegee Institute. Late in life, he donated his life savings -- more than $40,000 -- to an endowment to continue his Tuskegee work. While he discovered nearly a thousand new uses for plants, Carver sought only three patents.

"(The) creator did not charge anything to grow the peanut," he said, "and I cannot accept money for my work with it."

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