Dear Friends,
Today’s post is about lifelong friendship of two
distinguished Americans, George Washington Carver and Henry Ford with different
background. This friendship is an interesting example of long-term benefits for
the entire society.
G W Carver, born in 1864 was raised as a slave’s kid on the
farm of his mother’s former master Moses Carver. Carver developed a keen
interest in plants, in the surrounding woods. Eventually he became the only
African American with an advanced degree in scientific agriculture at that
time.
Henry Ford, on the other hand, was born on his father’s farm
in 1863. While studying, Ford used to build water wheels and steam engines. Eventually
Ford became an Industrialist and founded “Ford Motor Company”.
In 1937, Carver and Ford met at a meeting of pioneers in the chemurgy movement, a branch of applied chemistry for industrial products from agricultural raw materials. This meeting was the start of a lifelong friendship. Those days no white industrialist would ever think of associating with a black man, but Ford didn’t care.
During that period, due to lack of knowhow, color pigment
could not be evenly mixed with paint. A Binder is required to bind a color
pigment to the slippery paint film. Hence cars were mostly painted Black
Once Henry ford famously stated that "You can have it
(Ford Model T) in any color as long as it's black".
However, this condition changed after both decided to
collaborate. With a mutual interest in industrial products made from plants, Carver
collaborated with Ford on soybean oil and the usages of it in Industry. Those days Soyabean was specifically grown
for animal feed only.
Using soybean oil, Carver invented a binder that allowed
multi-pigmented colors to be added in the paint. By this technology, Ford could
offer cars in different colors of paint. This enabled Ford to expand his
offerings to people significantly.
Fearlessly advocating for radical change, in 1939, Ford built a school to serve the educational needs of the African American children of lower Bryan County and named the school in honor of Carver, naming it “George Washington Carver School”.
FDC Credit: Philatelist K S Palani
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