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George Washington Carver

George Washington Carver (c. 1864 – January 5, 1943) was an American agricultural scientist and inventor who promoted alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion. He was one of the most prominent black scientists of the early 20th century.

While a professor at Tuskegee Institute, Carver developed techniques to improve types of soils depleted by repeated plantings of cotton. He wanted poor farmers to grow other crops, such as peanuts and sweet potatoes, as a source of their own food and to improve their quality of life. Under his leadership, the Experiment Station at Tuskegee published over forty practical bulletins for farmers, many written by him, which included recipes; many of the bulletins contained advice for poor farmers, including combating soil depletion with limited financial means, producing bigger crops, and preserving food.

Apart from his work to improve the lives of farmers, Carver was also a leader in promoting environmentalism. He received numerous honors for his work, including the Spingarn Medal of the NAACP. In an era of high racial polarization, his fame reached beyond the black community. He was widely recognized and praised in the white community for his many achievements and talents. In 1941, Time magazine dubbed Carver a "Black Leonardo".

Color film of Carver shot in 1937 at the Tuskegee Institute by African American surgeon Allen Alexander was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2019. The 12 minutes of footage includes Carver in his apartment, office and laboratory, as well as images of him tending flowers and displaying his paintings.

Early years
Carver was born into slavery, in Diamond Grove, (now Diamond, Newton County, Missouri), near Crystal Palace, sometime in the early 1860s. The date of his birth is uncertain and was not known to Carver because it was before slavery was abolished in Missouri, which occurred in January 1865, during the American Civil War. His enslaver, Moses Carver, was a German American immigrant, who had purchased George's parents, Mary and Giles, from William P. McGinnis on October 9, 1855, for $700 (~$ in ).

Giles died before George was born and when he was a week old, he, his sister, and his mother were kidnapped by night raiders from Arkansas. George's brother, James, was rushed to safety from the kidnappers. The kidnappers sold the trio in Kentucky. Moses Carver hired John Bentley to find them, but he found only the infant George. Moses negotiated with the raiders to gain the boy's return and rewarded Bentley. After slavery was abolished, Moses Carver and his wife, Susan, raised George and his older brother, James, as their own children. They encouraged George to continue his intellectual pursuits, and "Aunt Susan" taught him the basics of reading and writing.

Black people were not allowed at the public school in Diamond Grove. George decided to go to a school for black children 10 miles (16 km) south, in Neosho. When he reached the town, he found the school closed for the night. He slept in a nearby barn. By his own account, the next morning he met a kind woman, Mariah Watkins, from whom he wished to rent a room. When he identified himself as "Carver's George", as he had done his whole life, she replied that from now on his name was "George Carver". George liked Mariah Watkins and her words, "You must learn all you can, then go back out into the world and give your learning back to the people", made a great impression on him.

At age 13, because he wanted to attend the academy there, he moved to the home of another foster family, in Fort Scott, Kansas. After witnessing the killing of a black man by a group of white people, Carver left the city. He attended a series of schools before earning his diploma at Minneapolis High School in Minneapolis, Kansas.

During his time spent in Minneapolis, there was another George Carver in town, which caused confusion over receiving mail. Carver chose a middle initial at random and began requesting letters to him be addressed to George W. Carver. Someone once asked if the "W" stood for Washington, and Carver grinned and said, "Why not?" However, he never used Washington as his middle name, and signed his name as either George W. Carver or simply George Carver.

College education

Carver applied to several colleges before being accepted at Highland University in Highland, Kansas. When he arrived, they refused to let him attend because of his race. In August 1886, Carver traveled by wagon with J. F. Beeler from Highland to Eden Township in Ness County, Kansas. He homesteaded a claim near Beeler, where he maintained a small conservatory of plants and flowers and a geological collection. He manually plowed 17 acre of the claim, planting rice, corn, Indian corn and garden produce, as well as various fruit trees, forest trees, and shrubbery. He also earned money by odd jobs in town and worked as a ranch hand.

In early 1888, Carver obtained a $300 (~$ in ) loan at the Bank of Ness City for education. By June he left the area. In 1890, Carver started studying art and piano at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa. His art teacher, Etta Budd, recognized Carver's talent for painting flowers and plants; she encouraged him to study botany at Iowa State Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) in Ames.

When he began there in 1891, he was the first black student at Iowa State. Carver's bachelor's thesis for a degree in Agriculture was "Plants as Modified by Man", dated 1894. Iowa State University professors Joseph Budd and Louis Pammel convinced Carver to continue there for his master's degree. Carver did research at the Iowa Experiment Station under Pammel during the next two years. His work at the experiment station in plant pathology and mycology first gained him national recognition and respect as a botanist. Carver received his Master of Science degree in 1896. Carver taught as the first African American faculty member at Iowa State.

Despite occasionally being addressed as "doctor", Carver never received an official doctorate, and in a personal communication with Pammel, he noted that it was a "misnomer", given to him by others due to his abilities and their assumptions about his education. Though he did not have an earned doctorate, both Simpson College and Selma University awarded him honorary doctorates of science in his lifetime. In addition, Iowa State awarded him a posthumous doctor of humane letters degree in 1994.

Tuskegee Institute
In 1896, Booker T. Washington, the first principal and president of the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), invited Carver to head its Agriculture Department. Carver taught there for 47 years, developing the department into a strong research center and working with two additional college presidents during his tenure. He taught methods of crop rotation, introduced several alternative cash crops for farmers that would also improve the soil of areas heavily cultivated in cotton, initiated research into crop products (chemurgy), and taught generations of black students farming techniques for self-sufficiency.

Carver designed a mobile classroom to take education out to farmers. He called it a "Jesup wagon" after the New York financier and philanthropist Morris Ketchum Jesup, who provided funding to support the program.

To recruit Carver to Tuskegee, Washington gave him an above average salary and two rooms for his personal use, although both concessions were resented by some other faculty. Because he had earned a master's in a scientific field from a "white" institution, some faculty perceived him as arrogant. Unmarried faculty members normally had to share rooms, with two to a room, in the spartan early days of the institute.

One of Carver's duties was to administer the Agricultural Experiment Station farms. He had to manage the production and sale of farm products to generate revenue for the institute. He soon proved to be a poor administrator and clashed with other faculty members, especially George Ruffin Bridgeforth. In 1900, Carver complained that the physical work and the letter-writing required were too much.

In 1904, an Institute committee reported that Carver's reports on yields from the poultry yard were exaggerated, and Washington confronted Carver about the issue. Carver replied in writing, "Now to be branded as a liar and party to such hellish deception it is more than I can bear, and if your committee feel that I have willfully lied or [was] party to such lies as were told my resignation is at your disposal." During Washington's last five years at Tuskegee, Carver submitted or threatened his resignation several times: when the administration reorganized the agriculture programs, when he disliked a teaching assignment, to manage an experiment station elsewhere, and when he did not get summer teaching assignments in 1913–14. In each case, Washington smoothed things over.

Carver started his academic career as a researcher and teacher. In 1911, Washington wrote a letter to him complaining that Carver had not followed orders to plant particular crops at the experiment station. This revealed Washington's micro-management of Carver's department, which he had headed for more than 10 years by then. Washington at the same time refused Carver's requests for a new laboratory, research supplies for his exclusive use, and respite from teaching classes. Washington praised Carver's abilities in teaching and original research but said this about his administrative skills:

"When it comes to the organization of classes, the ability required to secure a properly organized and large school or section of a school, you are wanting in ability. When it comes to the matter of practical farm managing which will secure definite, practical, financial results, you are wanting again in ability."

In 1911, Carver complained that his laboratory had not received the equipment which Washington had promised 11 months before. He also complained about Institute committee meetings. Washington praised Carver in his 1911 memoir, My Larger Education: Being Chapters from My Experience. Washington called Carver "one of the most thoroughly scientific men of the Negro race with whom I am acquainted". After Washington died in 1915, his successor made fewer demands on Carver for administrative tasks.

From 1915 to 1923, Carver concentrated on researching and experimenting with new uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans, pecans, and other crops, as well as having his assistants research and compile existing uses. This work, and especially his speaking to a national conference of the Peanut Growers Association in 1920 and in testimony before Congress in 1921 to support passage of a tariff on imported peanuts, brought him wide publicity and increasing renown. In these years, he became one of the most well-known African Americans of his time.

Rise to fame
Carver developed techniques to improve soils depleted by repeated plantings of cotton. Together with other agricultural experts, he urged farmers to restore nitrogen to their soils by practicing systematic crop rotation: alternating cotton crops with plantings of sweet potatoes or legumes, such as peanuts, soybeans and cowpeas. These crops both restored nitrogen to the soil and were good for human consumption.

Following the crop rotation practice resulted in improved cotton yields and gave farmers alternative cash crops. To train farmers to successfully rotate and cultivate the new crops, Carver developed an agricultural extension program for Alabama that was similar to the one at Iowa State. To encourage better nutrition in the South, he widely distributed recipes using the alternative crops.

He founded an industrial research laboratory, where he and assistants worked to popularize the new crops by developing hundreds of applications for them. They did original research as well as promoting applications and recipes, which they collected from others. Carver distributed his information as agricultural bulletins.

Carver's work was known by officials in the national capital before he became a public figure. President Theodore Roosevelt publicly admired his work. Former professors of Carver's from Iowa State University were appointed to positions as Secretary of Agriculture: James Wilson, a former dean and professor of Carver's, served from 1897 to 1913. Henry Cantwell Wallace served from 1921 to 1924. He knew Carver personally because his son Henry A. Wallace and the researcher were friends. The younger Wallace served as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture from 1933 to 1940, and as Franklin Delano Roosevelt's vice president from 1941 to 1945.

The American industrialist, farmer, and inventor William C. Edenborn of Winn Parish, Louisiana, grew peanuts on his demonstration farm. He consulted with Carver.

In 1916, Carver was made a member of the Royal Society of Arts in England, one of only a handful of Americans at that time to receive this honor. Carver's promotion of peanuts gained him the most notice.

By 1920, the U.S. peanut farmers were being undercut by low prices on imported peanuts from the Republic of China. In 1921, peanut farmers and industry representatives planned to appear at Congressional hearings to ask for a tariff. Based on the quality of Carver's presentation at their convention, they asked the African-American professor to testify on the tariff issue before the Ways and Means Committee of the United States House of Representatives. Due to segregation, it was highly unusual for an African American to appear as an expert witness, but Carver appeared and unpacked numerous exhibits and samples to make his case for greater food and industrial uses for the peanut. Southern congressmen mocked him, but as he talked about the importance of the peanut and its uses for American agriculture and manufacturing, committee members repeatedly extended the time for his testimony. The Fordney–McCumber Tariff was enacted in 1922, and included a duty on imported peanuts. Carver's testimony, including samples of peanut milk, peanut flour, industrial dyes made from peanuts, and other peanut-based products, made him widely known as a public figure.

Life while famous

During the last two decades of his life, Carver seemed to enjoy his celebrity status. He was often on the road promoting Tuskegee University, peanuts, sweet potatoes, and racial harmony. Although he only published six agricultural bulletins after 1922, he published articles in peanut industry journals and wrote a syndicated newspaper column, "Professor Carver's Advice". Business leaders came to seek his help, and he often responded with free advice. Three American presidents—Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge and Franklin Roosevelt—met with him, and the Crown Prince of Sweden studied with him for three weeks. From 1923 to 1933, Carver toured white Southern colleges for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation.

With his increasing notability, Carver became the subject of biographies and articles. Raleigh H. Merritt contacted him for his biography published in 1929. Merritt wrote:

"At present not a great deal has been done to utilize Dr. Carver's discoveries commercially. He says that he is merely scratching the surface of scientific investigations of the possibilities of the peanut and other Southern products."

In 1932, the writer James Saxon Childers wrote that Carver and his peanut products were almost solely responsible for the rise in U.S. peanut production after the boll weevil devastated the American cotton crop beginning about 1892. His article, "A Boy Who Was Traded for a Horse" (1932), in The American Magazine, and its 1937 reprint in Reader's Digest, contributed to this myth about Carver's influence. Other popular media tended to exaggerate Carver's impact on the peanut industry.

From 1933 to 1935, Carver worked to develop peanut oil massages to treat infantile paralysis (polio). Ultimately, researchers found that the massages, not the peanut oil, provided the benefits of maintaining some mobility to paralyzed limbs.

From 1935 to 1937, Carver participated in the USDA Disease Survey. Carver had specialized in plant diseases and mycology for his master's degree.

In 1937, Carver attended two chemurgy conferences, an emerging field in the 1930s, during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, concerned with developing new products from crops. He was invited by Henry Ford to speak at the conference held in Dearborn, Michigan, and they developed a friendship. That year Carver's health declined, and Ford later installed an elevator at the Tuskegee dormitory where Carver lived, so that the elderly man would not have to climb stairs.

Carver had been frugal in his life, and in his seventies he established a legacy by creating a museum of his work, as well as the George Washington Carver Foundation at Tuskegee in 1938 to continue agricultural research. He donated nearly US$60000 1938 in his savings to create the foundation.

Carver headed the modern organic movement in the southern agricultural system. Carver's background for his interest in organic farming sprouted from his father being killed during the Civil War, and when his mother was kidnapped by Confederate slave raiders. Now an orphan, Carver found comfort in botany when he was just 11 years old in Kansas. Carver learned about herbal medicine, natural pesticides, and natural fertilizers that yielded plentiful crops from his caretaker. When crops and house plants were dying, he would use his knowledge and go and nurse them back to health. As a teenager, he was termed the "plant doctor".

When his study about infection in soybean reached Booker T. Washington, he invited him to come and teach at the Tuskegee Agricultural school.

Although the emancipation allowed Black families 40 acres and a mule, President Johnson revoked this and gave the land to white plantation owners instead. This prompted Black farmers to exchange what was once their land, and in turn, a small part of the land's harvest. This led to sharecropping. Carver soon realized that farmers were not obtaining enough food to survive, and how the industrialization of cotton had contaminated the soil.

Carver wanted to find a way to organically transform Alabama's failing soil. He found that alternating nitrogen-rich crops would let the soil get back to its natural state. Keeping crops like sweet potatoes, peanuts, and cowpeas would produce more food surplus and different types of food for farmers. Carver worked to pioneer organic fertilizers like swamp muck and compost for the farmers to use. These fertilizers were more sustainable to the planet and helped farmers to spend less money on fertilizers since they were recycling products.

Carver pushed for woodland preservation, to help improve the quality of the topsoil. He urged farmers to feed their hogs acorns. The acorns contained natural pesticides and feeding them acorns was cheaper for the farms too. Carver's efforts towards the holistic and organic approach are still in practice today. In his research, Carver discovered Permaculture. Permaculture could be used to produce carbon from the atmosphere, produce a higher quantity of crops, and let crops flourish despite global warming.

Relationships
Carver never married. At age 40, he began a courtship with Sarah L. Hunt, an elementary school teacher and the sister-in-law of Warren Logan, Treasurer of Tuskegee Institute. This lasted three years until she took a teaching job in California. In her 2015 biography, Christina Vella reviews his relationships and suggests that Carver was bisexual and constrained by mores of his historic period.

When he was 70, Carver established a friendship and research partnership with the scientist Austin W. Curtis Jr. This young black man, a graduate of Cornell University, had some teaching experience before coming to Tuskegee. Carver bequeathed to Curtis his royalties from an authorized 1943 biography by Rackham Holt. After Carver died in 1943, Curtis was fired from Tuskegee Institute. He left Alabama and resettled in Detroit. There he manufactured and sold peanut-based personal care products.

Death
Upon returning home one day, Carver suffered a bad fall down a flight of stairs; he was found unconscious by a maid who took him to a hospital. Carver died January 5, 1943, at the age of 78 or 79 from complications (anemia) resulting from this fall. His death came when he was sitting up in bed while painting a Christmas card which said, “Peace on earth and goodwill to all men.” Carver biographer Prema Ramakrishnan said of him that  "His death was characteristic of him and his entire life’s work." He was buried next to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee University. Due to his frugality, Carver's life savings totaled $60,000, all of which he donated in his last years and at his death to the Carver Museum and to the George Washington Carver Foundation.

On his grave was written, "He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world."

Christianity
Carver believed he could have faith both in God and science and integrated them into his life. He testified on many occasions that his faith in Jesus was the only mechanism by which he could effectively pursue and perform the art of science. Carver became a Christian when he was still a young boy, as he wrote in connection to his conversion in 1931:

"I was just a mere boy when converted, hardly ten years old. There isn't much of a story to it. God just came into my heart one afternoon while I was alone in the 'loft' of our big barn while I was shelling corn to carry to the mill to be ground into meal.

A dear little white boy, one of our neighbors, about my age came by one Saturday morning, and in talking and playing he told me he was going to Sunday school tomorrow morning. I was eager to know what a Sunday school was. He said they sang hymns and prayed. I asked him what prayer was and what they said. I do not remember what he said; only remember that as soon as he left I climbed up into the 'loft,' knelt down by the barrel of corn and prayed as best I could. I do not remember what I said. I only recall that I felt so good that I prayed several times before I quit.

My brother and myself were the only colored children in that neighborhood and of course, we could not go to church or Sunday school, or school of any kind.

That was my simple conversion, and I have tried to keep the faith."

He was not expected to live past his 21st birthday due to failing health. He lived well past the age of 21, and his belief deepened as a result. Throughout his career, he always found friendship with other Christians. He relied on them especially when criticized by the scientific community and media regarding his research methodology.

Carver viewed faith in Jesus Christ as a means of destroying both barriers of racial disharmony and social stratification. He was as concerned with his students' character development as he was with their intellectual development. He compiled a list of "eight cardinal virtues" whose possession defines "a lady or a gentleman":
 * Be clean both inside and out.
 * Who neither looks up to the rich nor down on the poor.
 * Who loses, if needs be, without squealing.
 * Who wins without bragging.
 * Who is always considerate of women, children and old people.
 * Who is too brave to lie.
 * Who is too generous to cheat.
 * Who take his share of the world and lets other people have theirs.

Beginning in 1906 at Tuskegee, Carver led a Bible class on Sundays for several students at their request. He regularly portrayed stories by acting them out.

Voice pitch
Even as an adult Carver spoke with a high pitch. Historian Linda O. McMurry noted that he "was a frail and sickly child" who suffered "from a severe case of whooping cough and frequent bouts of what was called croup". McMurry contested the diagnosis of croup, holding rather that "His stunted growth and apparently impaired vocal cords suggest instead tubercular or pneumococcal infection. Frequent infections of that nature could have caused the growth of polyps on the larynx and may have resulted from a gamma globulin deficiency. ... until his death the high pitch of his voice startled all who met him, and he suffered from frequent chest congestion and loss of voice."

Honors

 * 1923, Spingarn Medal from the NAACP, awarded annually for outstanding achievement.
 * 1928, honorary doctorate from Simpson College
 * 1939, the Roosevelt Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Southern Agriculture
 * 1940, Carver established the George Washington Carver Foundation at the Tuskegee Institute.
 * 1941, The George Washington Carver Museum was dedicated at the Tuskegee Institute.
 * 1942, Ford built a replica of Carver's birth cabin at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn as a tribute.
 * 1942, Ford dedicated a laboratory in Dearborn named after Carver.
 * 1943, Liberty ship SS George Washington Carver launched
 * 1947, George Washington Carver Area High School, named in his honor is opened by the Chicago Public Schools in the Riverdale/Far South Side area of Chicago, Illinois, United States.
 * 1950, George Washington Carver State Park named
 * 1951–1954, U.S. Mint features Carver on a 50 cents silver commemorative coin
 * 1965, Ballistic missile submarine USS George Washington Carver (SSBN-656) launched.
 * 1969, Iowa State University constructs Carver Hall in honor of Carver—a graduate of the university.
 * 1943?, the US Congress designated January 5, the anniversary of his death, as George Washington Carver Recognition Day.
 * 1999, USDA names a portion of its Beltsville, Maryland, campus the George Washington Carver Center.
 * 2002, Iowa Award, the state's highest citizen award.
 * 2004, George Washington Carver Bridge, Des Moines, Iowa
 * 2007, the Missouri Botanical Gardens has a garden area named in his honor, with a commemorative statue and material about his work
 * 2022, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed legislation naming Feb. 1st every year as George Washington Carver Day in Iowa
 * Willowbrook Neighborhood Park in Willowbrook, California was renamed George Washington Carver Park in his honor.
 * Schools named for Carver include the George Washington Carver Elementary School of the Compton Unified School District in Los Angeles County, California, the George Washington Carver School of Arts and Science of the Sacramento City Unified School District in Sacramento, California, and the Dr. George Washington Carver Elementary School, a Newark public school in Newark, New Jersey.
 * Taxa named after him include: Colletotrichum carveri and Metasphaeria carveri, both named by Job Bicknell Ellis and Benjamin Matlack Everhart in 1902; Cercospora carveriana, named by Pier Andrea Saccardo and Domenico Saccardo in 1906; Taphrina carveri named by Anna Eliza Jenkins in 1939; and Pestalotia carveri, named by E. F. Guba in 1961.

Legacy
A movement to establish a U.S. national monument to Carver began before his death. Because of World War II, such non-war expenditures had been banned by presidential order. Missouri senator Harry S. Truman sponsored a bill in favor of a monument. In a committee hearing on the bill, one supporter said:

"The bill is not simply a momentary pause on the part of busy men engaged in the conduct of the war, to do honor to one of the truly great Americans of this country, but it is in essence a blow against the Axis, it is in essence a war measure in the sense that it will further unleash and release the energies of roughly 15,000,000 Negro people in this country for full support of our war effort."

The bill passed unanimously in both houses.

On July 14, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated $30,000 (~$ in ) for the George Washington Carver National Monument west-southwest of Diamond, Missouri, the area where Carver had spent time in his childhood. This was the first national monument dedicated to an African American and the first to honor someone other than a president. The 210 acre national monument complex includes a bust of Carver, a $3⁄4$-mile nature trail, a museum, the 1881 Moses Carver house, and the Carver cemetery. The national monument opened in July 1953.

In December 1947, a fire broke out in the Carver Museum, and much of the collection was damaged. Time magazine reported that all but 3 of the 48 Carver paintings at the museum were destroyed. His best-known painting, displayed at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, depicts a yucca and cactus. This canvas survived and has undergone conservation. It is displayed together with several of his other paintings. Carver was featured on U.S. 1948 commemorative stamps. From 1951 to 1954, he was depicted on the commemorative Carver-Washington half dollar coin along with Booker T. Washington. A second stamp honoring Carver, of face value 32¢, was issued on February 3, 1998, as part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series. Two ships, the Liberty ship SS George Washington Carver and the nuclear submarine USS George Washington Carver (SSBN-656), were named in his honor.

In 1977, Carver was elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans. In 1990, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In 1994, Iowa State University awarded Carver a Doctor of Humane Letters. In 2000, Carver was a charter inductee in the USDA Hall of Heroes as the "Father of Chemurgy".

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed George Washington Carver as one of 100 Greatest African Americans.

In 2005, Carver's research at the Tuskegee Institute was designated a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society. On February 15, 2005, an episode of Modern Marvels included scenes from within Iowa State University's Food Sciences Building and about Carver's work. In 2005, the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Missouri, opened a George Washington Carver garden in his honor, which includes a life-size statue of him.

Many institutions continue to honor George Washington Carver. Dozens of elementary schools and high schools are named after him. National Basketball Association star David Robinson and his wife, Valerie, founded an academy named after Carver; it opened on September 17, 2001, in San Antonio, Texas. The Carver Community Cultural Center, a historic center located in San Antonio, is named for him.

Reputed inventions
Carver has been given credit in popular folklore for many inventions that did not come out of his lab. Three patents (one for cosmetics;, and two for paints and stains; , and ) were issued to Carver in 1925 to 1927; however, they were not commercially successful.

Aside from these patents and some recipes for food, Carver left no records of formulae or procedures for making his products. He did not keep a laboratory notebook. Mackintosh notes that, "Carver did not explicitly claim that he had personally discovered all the peanut attributes and uses he cited, but he said nothing to prevent his audiences from drawing the inference."

Carver's research was intended to produce replacements from common crops for commercial products, which were generally beyond the budget of the small one-horse farmer. A misconception grew that his research on products for subsistence farmers were developed by others commercially to change Southern agriculture. Carver's work to provide small farmers with resources for more independence from the cash economy foreshadowed the "appropriate technology" work of E. F. Schumacher.

Peanut products
Dennis Keeney, director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, wrote in the Leopold Letter (newsletter):

"Carver worked on improving soils, growing crops with low inputs, and using species that fixed nitrogen (hence, the work on the cowpea and the peanut). Carver wrote in 'The Need of Scientific Agriculture in the South': 'The virgin fertility of our soils and the vast amount of unskilled labor have been more of a curse than a blessing to agriculture. This exhaustive system for cultivation, the destruction of forest, the rapid and almost constant decomposition of organic matter, have made our agricultural problem one requiring more brains than of the North, East or West."

Carver worked for years to create a company to market his products. The most important was the Carver Penol Company, which sold a mixture of creosote and peanuts as a patent medicine for respiratory diseases such as tuberculosis. Sales were lackluster and the product was ineffective according to the Food and Drug Administration. Other ventures were The Carver Products Company and the Carvoline Company. Carvoline Antiseptic Hair Dressing was a mix of peanut oil and lanolin. Carvoline Rubbing Oil was a peanut oil for massages.

Carver is often mistakenly credited with the invention of peanut butter. By the time Carver published "How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it For Human Consumption" in 1916, many methods of preparation of peanut butter had been developed or patented by various pharmacists, doctors and food scientists working in the US and Canada. The Aztecs were known to have made peanut butter from ground peanuts as early as the 15th century. Canadian pharmacist Marcellus Gilmore Edson was awarded (for its manufacture) in 1884, 12 years before Carver began his work at Tuskegee.

Sweet potato products
Carver is also associated with developing sweet potato products. In his 1922 sweet potato bulletin, Carver listed a few dozen recipes, "many of which I have copied verbatim from Bulletin No. 129, U. S. Department of Agriculture". Carver's records included the following sweet potato products: 73 dyes, 17 wood fillers, 14 candies, 5 library pastes, 5 breakfast foods, 4 starches, 4 flours, and 3 molasses. He also had listings for vinegars, dry coffee and instant coffee, candy, after-dinner mints, orange drops, and lemon drops.

Carver bulletins
During his more than four decades at Tuskegee, Carver's official published work consisted mainly of 44 practical bulletins for farmers. His first bulletin in 1898 was on feeding acorns to farm animals. His final bulletin in 1943 was about the peanut. He also published six bulletins on sweet potatoes, five on cotton, and four on cowpeas. Some other individual bulletins dealt with alfalfa, wild plum, tomato, ornamental plants, corn, poultry, dairying, hogs, preserving meats in hot weather, and nature study in schools.

His most popular bulletin, How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption, was first published in 1916 and has been reprinted numerous times. It provides a short overview of peanut crop production and contains a list of recipes from other agricultural bulletins, cookbooks, magazines, and newspapers, such as the Peerless Cookbook, Good Housekeeping, and Berry's Fruit Recipes. While Carver's was not the first American agricultural bulletin devoted to peanuts,    his bulletins seem to have been more popular and widespread than those that preceded his.

Scholarly studies

 * Hersey, Mark D. My Work Is That of Conservation: An Environmental Biography of George Washington Carver (University of Georgia Press; 2011) 306 pages.
 * Hersey, Mark. "Hints and Suggestions to Farmers: George Washington Carver and Rural Conservation in the South". Environmental History 11#2 (2006): 239–268.
 * Mackintosh, Barry. "George Washington Carver: The Making of a Myth". Journal of Southern History 42#4 (1976): 507–528. in JSTOR
 * Barry Mackintosh, "George Washington Carver and the Peanut: New Light on a Much-loved Myth", American Heritage 28(5): 66–73, 1977.
 * McMurry, L. O. "Carver, George Washington". American National Biography Online February 2000
 * McMurry, Linda O. George Washington Carver: Scientist and Symbol (Oxford University Press, 1982). online ; Google copy)

Popular works

 * Carver, George Washington. "1897 or Thereabouts: George Washington Carver's Own Brief History of His Life". George Washington Carver National Monument.
 * Collins, David R. George Washington Carver: Man's Slave, God's Scientist, (Mott Media, 1981)
 * William J. Federer, George Washington Carver: His Life & Faith in His Own Words, AmeriSearch (2003) ISBN 0965355764
 * Kremer, G. R. ed. George Washington Carver: In His Own Words, University of Missouri Press; 1987, Reprint edition (1991) ISBN 978-0826207852
 * H. M. Morris, Men of Science, Men of God (1982)
 * E. C. Barnett and D. Fisher, Scientists Who Believe (1984)

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text:
Grok

Grok is a neologism coined by American writer Robert A. Heinlein for his 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land. While the Oxford English Dictionary summarizes the meaning of grok as "to understand intuitively or by empathy, to establish rapport with" and "to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment", Heinlein's concept is far more nuanced, with critic Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr. observing that "the book's major theme can be seen as an extended definition of the term." The concept of grok garnered significant critical scrutiny in the years after the book's initial publication. The term and aspects of the underlying concept have become part of communities such as computer science.

Descriptions in Stranger in a Strange Land
Critic David E. Wright Sr. points out that in the 1991 "uncut" edition of Stranger, the word grok "was used first without any explicit definition on page 22" and continued to be used without being explicitly defined until page 253 (emphasis in original). He notes that this first intensional definition is simply "to drink", but that this is only a metaphor "much as English 'I see' often means the same as 'I understand'". Critics have bridged this absence of explicit definition by citing passages from Stranger that illustrate the term. A selection of these passages follows:

"Grok means 'to understand', of course, but Dr. Mahmoud, who might be termed the leading Terran expert on Martians, explains that it also means, 'to drink' and 'a hundred other English words, words which we think of as antithetical concepts. 'Grok' means all of these. It means 'fear', it means 'love', it means 'hate' – proper hate, for by the Martian 'map' you cannot hate anything unless you grok it, understand it so thoroughly that you merge with it and it merges with you – then you can hate it. By hating yourself. But this implies that you love it, too, and cherish it and would not have it otherwise. Then you can hate – and (I think) Martian hate is an emotion so black that the nearest human equivalent could only be called mild distaste."

"Grok means "identically equal". The human cliché "This hurts me worse than it does you" has a distinctly Martian flavor. The Martian seems to know instinctively what we learned painfully from modern physics, that observer acts with observed through the process of observation. Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed – to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science and it means as little to us as color does to a blind man."

"The Martian Race had encountered the people of the fifth planet, grokked them completely, and had taken action; asteroid ruins were all that remained, save that the Martians continued to praise and cherish the people they had destroyed."

"All that groks is God."

Etymology
Robert A. Heinlein originally coined the term grok in his 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land as a Martian word that could not be defined in Earthling terms, but can be associated with various literal meanings such as "water", "to drink", "to relate", "life", or "to live", and had a much more profound figurative meaning that is hard for terrestrial culture to understand because of its assumption of a singular reality.

According to the book, drinking water is a central focus on Mars, where it is scarce. Martians use the merging of their bodies with water as a simple example or symbol of how two entities can combine to create a new reality greater than the sum of its parts. The water becomes part of the drinker, and the drinker part of the water. Both grok each other. Things that once had separate realities become entangled in the same experiences, goals, history, and purpose. Within the book, the statement of divine immanence verbalized among the main characters, "thou art God", is logically derived from the concept inherent in the term grok.

Heinlein describes Martian words as "guttural" and "jarring". Martian speech is described as sounding "like a bullfrog fighting a cat". Accordingly, grok is generally pronounced as a guttural gr terminated by a sharp k with very little or no vowel sound (a narrow IPA transcription might be ). William Tenn suggests Heinlein in creating the word might have been influenced by Tenn's very similar concept of griggo, earlier introduced in Tenn's story "Venus and the Seven Sexes" (published in 1949). In his later afterword to the story, Tenn says Heinlein considered such influence "very possible".

In computer programmer culture
Uses of the word in the decades after the 1960s are more concentrated in computer culture, such as an InfoWorld columnist in 1984 imagining a computer saying, "There isn't any software! Only different internal states of hardware. It's all hardware! It's a shame programmers don't grok that better."

The Jargon File, which describes itself as "The Hacker's Dictionary" and has been published under that name three times, puts grok in a programming context:

"When you claim to "grok" some knowledge or technique, you are asserting that you have not merely learned it in a detached instrumental way but that it has become part of you, part of your identity. For example, to say that you "know" Lisp is simply to assert that you can code in it if necessary – but to say you "grok" Lisp is to claim that you have deeply entered the world-view and spirit of the language, with the implication that it has transformed your view of programming. Contrast zen, which is a similar supernatural understanding experienced as a single brief flash."

The entry existed in the very earliest forms of the Jargon File in the early 1980s. A typical tech usage from the Linux Bible, 2005 characterizes the Unix software development philosophy as "one that can make your life a lot simpler once you grok the idea".

The book Perl Best Practices defines grok as understanding a portion of computer code in a profound way. It goes on to suggest that to re-grok code is to reload the intricacies of that portion of code into one's memory after some time has passed and all the details of it are no longer remembered. In that sense, to grok means to load everything into memory for immediate use. It is analogous to the way a processor caches memory for short term use, but the only implication by this reference was that it was something a human (or perhaps a Martian) would do.

The main web page for cURL, an open source tool and programming library, describes the function of cURL as "cURL groks URLs".

The book Cyberia covers its use in this subculture extensively:

"This is all latter day usage, the original derivation was from an early text processing utility from so long ago that no one remembers but, grok was the output when it understood the file. K&R would remember."

The keystroke logging software used by the NSA for its remote intelligence gathering operations is named GROK.

One of the most powerful parsing filters used in Elasticsearch software's logstash component is named grok.

A reference book by Carey Bunks on the use of the GNU Image Manipulation Program is titled Grokking the GIMP

In counterculture

 * Tom Wolfe, in his book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968), describes a character's thoughts during an acid trip: "He looks down, two bare legs, a torso rising up at him and like he is just noticing them for the first time... he has never seen any of this flesh before, this stranger. He groks over that..."

 * In his counterculture Volkswagen repair manual, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot (1969), dropout aerospace engineer John Muir instructs prospective used VW buyers to "grok the car" before buying.

 * The word was used numerous times by Robert Anton Wilson in his works The Illuminatus! Trilogy and Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy.

title: Grok


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Talk:Grammatical mood

Energetic mood
the arabic word "Ya-ktub-un" does not mean "he certainly writes" but "They are writing" so i think the whole paragraph is misleading. i would find a better example...

 * Perhaps lā taghurannaka l-maḍhāhir! 'don't let appearances deceive you!' might do. Kanjuzi (talk) 19:15, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Which are the moods of English language?
It would be essential to get an answer in this article. But I cannot find it. (The answer is maybe Indicative, Subjunctive, Imperative but according to another opinion Conditional is also a mood in English. Is it?) (you are - you were - be - you would be) --Szipucsu (talk) 22:01, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Anyway I think the article is too theoretical. What about writing some words about the moods of English language with examples and the moods of other Germanic languages? Then some words about other Indo-European languages (and eventually some other languages). --Szipucsu (talk) 22:08, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

 * From a linguistics perspective, a mood is a type of inflectional verb form, so the English "would go" is not a mood; it is a way of expressing one type of modality, which is a broader concept that allows either syntactic or inflectional constructions. On the other hand, from a traditional grammar perspective, it is a mood.

 * So the moods in English, linguistically speaking, are the indicative, imperative, and subjunctive. For a longer list of English moods from a traditional grammar perspective, see English conjugation tables. Duoduoduo (talk) 17:23, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * However, the whole article on English conjugation tables was deleted on June 1, 2011, so you haven't done anyone any good with this paragraph! People absolutely must check into RED wikilinks to find out why, and here it is December 29, 2012, 1.5 years later, and nobody had done so before me. RED wikilinks are poisonous snakes. 98.67.166.78 (talk) 04:19, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

The Progresive Mood
Some people might want to call it by a different name, but in high school in the United States, and earlier, I studied the progressive mood. This one uses the present tense of the verb "to be" plus the present participle of the main verb. Here are some examples of the use of the present progressive mood: "Manfred is driving his big black Mercedes to Brussels right now." "I am riding the train to work on time right now for a change." "Heidi is buying a hamburger now for that big, shaggy dog that she saw outside the front door of McDonald's." English has a progressive mood and it is used often and correctly by native speakers of the language, but many other languages such as Modern High German do not have a progressive mood. The same idea is expressed by a present tense or past tense verb combined with one or two adverbs. In English, there are the present progressive mood, the past progressive mood, and the future progressive mood, and there are also perfect tense moods. Unfortunately, many foreigners who have studied English in schools misuse the present progressive mood but using it when the present indicative mood is what they really need. It sounds strange. 98.67.166.78 (talk) 04:02, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

 * The examples you gave are not moods but aspects. See . (CaptainTickles (talk) 05:29, 28 January 2013 (UTC))

Vacuous Mood, Generic Bastard Clause... ?
I am in no sense a linguist, so could be my ignorance, but I drew confusion when trying to see what terms best (parsimoniously) describe a particular occurrence in English. Namely, the use of a progressive-aspect predicate or verbal noun on its own, stating no subject or mood: 'Making the most of your holiday'. Long used for slogans, titles and other places where it need no be a sentence, but there's a growing habit among younger people in the Anglo-sphere (and more so, -web) to mimic this as a sentence form for describing a thing done, liked or witnessed - often with intentional ambiguity.

For example, vapid captioned pictures plague the web with "When boys wear hats", and "Drinking a nice warm cup of tea" is the immediate way to mean 'I am approvingly drinking a nice warm cup of tea, and attention-whore-ing-ly beckon the thoughts of others on me or themselves doing so.'

A 'sentence' with no subject, tense or mood. There are many ways to term it indirectly, but it gets a bit untidy, and nothing in the articles I've read quite seems to pin it down. It strikes me as best summarised in terms of (lacking) mood. I've no wish to recognise the style as sound English, but I assume the academic would have or seek a succinct description of it. Can anyone shed light? Is it mentioned in any reputable works? Should this or another article allude to it?

Abh88 (talk) 14:16, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: If nobody else offers input here, you should take your question to Reference desk/Language, which is set-up for this kind of thing. –Quiddity (talk) 19:30, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Simplification
The opening section seemed to me too complex - hitting the reader with too many technical terms at once - so I have simplified it slightly. Kanjuzi (talk) 19:18, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

French subjunctive
The example is incorrect since "avait" is indicative. Theoretically, we could replace it with the imperfect subjunctive, but it would sound archaic. --147.142.185.205 (talk) 13:23, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Hebrew optative?
A contributor has added Biblical Hebrew to the list of languages that has an optative mood. I have undone that addition. According to the WP article, Biblical Hebrew has cohortative, imperative, and jussive moods, but there is no mention of optative. If optative is a mood in Hebrew, some reference to a standard grammar is needed, since this does not seem to be the generally established view. Kanjuzi (talk) 05:30, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

 * Jussive is the terminology used by Semitists and Hebraists; its primary functions are wishes (prototypical optative) and 3rd person directive (common cooptation of optatives).--178.203.147.251 (talk) 13:57, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Moods
"Infinitives, gerunds, and participles, which are non-finite forms of the verb, are not considered to be examples of moods."
 * Historically seen, this is not correct. In traditional grammar, the infinitive (infinitive mode, infinitive mood) is a mood. And contemporary, there might be different views. For example, the Icelandic term for "participle", "lýsingarháttur", literally means "description mood". The name implies that is regarded as a mood.

"English has indicative, imperative, emphatic, and subjunctive moods"
 * "emphatic" as an English mood? Depending on the source, the English moods usually are either infinitive, indicative, imperative and subjunctive, or just indicative, imperative and subjunctive.

-Amejne (talk) 20:52, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

I've removed emphatic. Honestly not sure why it was on there for so long; if we were to count it, we would also have to count all the other auxiliary verbs as moods. Plus, there were no sources about it, and I couldn't find anything reputable by searching it. Dayshade (talk) 05:51, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Different concepts, terminological confusion, history and some responses to previous comments Hebrew and emphatics
The article is, as rated, indeed in need of much expansion and clarification. I hope the following will be helpful suggestions.

I highly recommend the introductory article of this volume as a place to start to remedy these issues:

https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199591435.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199591435

[I apologise for not carrying out the tast myself. ]

1. The article, at least as defined by its introduction, does treat of different notion(s) of mood/modality as conceptualized by scholars diverging from Palmer and Bybee (&c.) (i.e. mood as manifestation of modality, attitude, realis/irrealis etc.).

While this ~school is part of the mainstream and certainly influential, there are many different and important conceptualizations to consider.

There are scholars that consider modality a supercategory, rather than grammatical category equivalent to tense/aspect proper. Others consider it epiphenomenal and I imagine there are some that do not see grounds for a unified category covering these different semantic functions in the first place.

The following issues stem from reading previous entries in the talk page rather a close reading of the article itself.

2. Some responses concerned the applicabilty of the term to periphrastic constructions vs. its limitation to inflection proper. This either means that the definition of mood as the inflectional manifestation of modality needs to be better defined or that the issue of periphrastic manifestation of inflection-equivalent itself needs some clarification. On this, I would also note, again, that this entire line of thought is one among others.

The overlap/synonymity of optative/jussive indicates lack of cohesion.

The sections on the subjunctive, and probably also on the conditional, should be expanded with reference to discussion of their validity as moods in the sense of manifestation of midality. Being more syntactic in nature, their consideration in discussion of modality is highly controversial. There is extensive literature esp. on the subjunctive in the article by Mauri/Sanso in the volume linked.

3. The responders' confusion of different notions of mood as (e.g. as simply the paradigm of different verbal forms), use of the term 'mode', highlight the need for a section on the history of the terminology and concepts. The relevant article on this history in the volume above is a very useful summary.

A history would be even more useful toward an article more inclusive of the available scholarship.

4. Jussive is the common name of the Hebrew (and other West Semitic) form(s) of the prefix conjugation expressing wishes and commands (though there is an imperative= 2nd person directive). The form is used in other contexts and the history is a bit too complex to explain here. The point is, though, that, unless one defines 'jussive' as '3rd person directive', there is not reason why the form should not be called optative, especially for those not specialized in semitology.

I should note that the common term for the cognate Akkadian form among assyriologists is 'precative'. Again, it may well, if not preferrably be termed 'optative' here.

5. The inclusion of emphatics (energic/energetic may also be considered a synonym, at least going by semitology) is quesitoned above. However, they are/can be 'modal' according to Palmer and are considered 'moods' among semitists.

For those interested, though I cannot explain it thoroughly or aptly: They can be analysed as modal (wherein non-factuality is a key element) in their being responses to doubt or negation of what they state (counterfact-ing a counterfactual?). Furthermore, they are certainly related to 'the speaker's attitude toward what they are saying'.

This having been said, the status of emphatics as 'modal' is indeed questionable on grounds that their function is that of discourse rather than modality per se (This is considered in Palmer too, where it is posited the categories are not mutually exclusive). This is similar to the problem in treating subjunctives and conditional where the key function codified is syntactic rather than semantic (>modal). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.203.147.7 (talk) 20:26, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Move “Moods in Oceanic languages” section
Move the “Moods in Oceanic languages” section to their respective articles. The rest of the page is focusing on the different moods, and using certain languages as examples. This section focuses just on the three languages, not the moods themselves. This section would be better suit if moved to each respective language’s main article, and removed from this article. ThunderxBolt (talk) 22:49, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Grammatical mood


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Geelong Football Club

The Geelong Football Club, nicknamed the Cats, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The club competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition. The club formed in 1859, making it the second-oldest AFL side after Melbourne and one of the oldest football clubs in the world.

In the 1860s, Geelong participated in a series of Challenge Cup competitions, and was a foundation member of both the Victorian Football Association (VFA) in 1877 and the Victorian Football League (VFL) in 1897, now the national AFL. The club won the Western District Challenge Cup in 1875, a then-record seven VFA premierships between 1878 and 1886, and six VFL premierships by 1963, after which it experienced a 44-year waiting period until it won its next premiership, a Grand Final-record 119-point victory in 2007. Geelong won a further three premierships in 2009, 2011 and 2022. The Cats have fierce competitive rivalries with Hawthorn and Collingwood.

Geelong play most of their home games at Kardinia Park (known for sponsorship reasons as GMHBA Stadium) and play the remainder at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Geelong's traditional guernsey colours are white with navy blue hoops. The club's nickname was first used in 1923 after a run of losses prompted a local cartoonist to suggest that the club needed a black cat to bring it good luck. Geelong also field teams in other competitions; a reserves men's team in the Victorian Football League (VFL), a senior women's team in the AFL Women's (AFLW) and a reserves women's team in the VFL Women's (VFLW) competitions. The club's official team song and anthem is "We Are Geelong".

History
The club was founded in 1859 in the city of Geelong, Australia, and is the second oldest AFL club. It is believed to be the fourth oldest football club in Australia and one of the oldest in the world and one of the most successful. Initially playing under its own rules, some of which, notably, were permanently introduced into Australian Football, it adopted the Laws of Australian Football in the early 1860s after a series of compromises with the Melbourne Football Club.

Geelong went on to play for most of its existence in the premier competitions, the first competition, the Caledonian Society Cup, a foundation club of both the Victorian Football Association (VFA) in 1877 and the Victorian Football League (VFL) in 1897., VFL and continues in the elite Australian Football League (AFL). The Cats have been the VFL/AFL premiers ten times, with four in the AFL era (since 1990) in 2007, 2009, 2011, and most recently, 2022, to be the second most successful club over that period one behind Hawthorn. They have also won ten McClelland Trophies, the most of any AFL/VFL club.

Many of the club's official records before 1920 have disappeared.

Guernseys
Geelong's traditional navy blue and white hooped guernsey has been worn since the club's inception in the mid-1800s. The design is said to represent the white seagulls and blue water of Corio Bay.

The team has worn various away guernseys since 1998, all featuring the club's logo and traditional colours.

Nickname
Geelong has been nicknamed the 'Cats' since 1923, when the Herald sporting local cartoonist, "Wells" (Samuel Garnet Wells), suggested that adopting a black cat as a mascot might bring a football club good luck in his Herald cartoon of 6 July 1923.

Song: "We Are Geelong"
"We Are Geelong" is the song sung after a game won by the Geelong Football Club. It is sung to the tune of "Toreador" from Carmen. The lyrics were written by former premiership player John Watts. Only the first verse is used at matches and by the team after a victory. The song currently used by the club was recorded by the Fable Singers in April 1972.

 * We are Geelong, the greatest team of all
 * We are Geelong; we're always on the ball
 * We play the game as it should be played
 * At home or far away
 * Our banners fly high, from dawn to dark
 * Down at Kardinia Park.

 * So! Stand up and fight, remember our tradition
 * Stand up and fight, it's always our ambition
 * Throughout the game to fight with all our might
 * Because we're the mighty blue and white
 * And when the ball is bounced, to the final bell
 * Stand up and fight like hell!

Stadium and training facilities
Geelong's administrative headquarters is its home stadium, GMHBA Stadium or also known as Kardinia Park. The club trains here during the season, however it also trains at its alternate training venue, the Deakin University Elite Sports Precinct. The latter features an MCG-sized oval and is used often by the club in the pre-season, when Kardinia Park is being used for other events.

Hawthorn
The rivalry between Hawthorn and Geelong is defined by two Grand Finals: those of 1989 and 2008. In the 1989 Grand Final, Geelong played the man, resulting in major injuries for several Hawks players, Mark Yeates knocking out Dermott Brereton at the opening bounce; Hawthorn controlled the game, leading by approximately 40 points for most of the match; in the last quarter, Geelong almost managed to come from behind to win, but fell short by six points. In the 2008 Grand Final, Geelong was the heavily backed favourite and had lost only one match for the season, but lost by 26 points; Geelong then won its next eleven matches against Hawthorn over the following five years, under a curse, which was dubbed the "Kennett curse" which was attributed to disrespectful comments made by Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett following the 2008 Grand Final. It was later revealed that after the 2008 grand final, Paul Chapman initiated a pact between other Geelong players to never lose to Hawthorn again. The curse was broken in a preliminary final in 2013, after Paul Chapman played his final match for Geelong the previous week. Hawthorn went on to win the next three premierships. In 2016 Geelong again defeated Hawthorn in the qualifying final. In twenty matches between the two sides between 2008 and 2017, twelve were decided by less than ten points, with Geelong victorious in eleven of those twelve matches.

Collingwood
In 1925, Geelong won their first flag over Collingwood. In 1930, Collingwood defeated Geelong in the grand final making it four flags in-a-row for the Pies. Geelong would later deny Collingwood three successive premierships in 1937, winning a famous grand final by 32 points.

The two sides played against each other in 6 finals between 1951 and 1955, including the 1952 Grand Final when Geelong easily beat Collingwood by 46 points. In 1953, Collingwood ended Geelong's record 23-game winning streak in the home and away season, and later defeated them by 12 points in the grand final, denying the Cats a third successive premiership.

Since 2007, the clubs have again both been at the top of the ladder and have met regularly in finals. Geelong won a memorable preliminary final by five points on their way to their first flag in 44 years. In 2008, Collingwood inflicted Geelong's only home-and-away loss, by a massive 86 points, but the teams did not meet in the finals. They would meet in preliminary finals in 2009 and 2010, each winning one en route to a premiership. They finally met again in a Grand Final in 2011, which Geelong won by 38 points; Geelong inflicted Collingwood's only three losses for the 2011 season.

Sponsorship
At 99 years as of 2024, Geelong's sponsorship with the Ford Motor Company is the longest active sports sponsorship of any sports team in the world, with continuous sponsorship dating back to 1925, a record recognised by Guinness.

Officials

 * President: Craig Drummond
 * Vice President: Diana Taylor
 * Chief Executive Officer: Steve Hocking
 * General Manager – Football: Simon Lloyd

Win–loss record

 * Statistics are correct to end of 2023 season

Reserves team
The Geelong reserves (also known as the Bendigo Bank Cats for sponsorship reasons) are the reserves side of the club, playing in the Victorian Football League.

History
Geelong's reserves side began competing in the Victorian Junior Football League, later known as the VFL/AFL reserves, in 1922. The team won thirteen premierships during that time (1923, 1924, 1930, 1937, 1938, 1948, 1960, 1963, 1964, 1975, 1980, 1981 and 1982), the most of any club.

Since the demise of the AFL reserves competition, the Geelong reserves have competed in the Victorian Football League. Unlike all other Victorian AFL clubs, Geelong has never operated in a reserves affiliation with an existing VFL club, having instead operated its stand-alone reserves team continuously. The team is composed of both reserves players from the club's primary and rookie AFL lists, and a separately maintained list of players eligible only for VFL matches. Home games are played at GMHBA Stadium, with some played as curtain-raisers to senior AFL matches.

The side is also known as the Bendigo Bank Cats, referring to the club's commercial partnership with Bendigo Bank.

Club honours

 * Premierships (3): 2002, 2007, 2012
 * Runners-ups (2): 2006, 2013
 * Minor premierships (2): 2002, 2013
 * Wooden spoons (1): 2005

Women's teams
In 2017, following the inaugural AFL Women's (AFLW) season, Geelong was among eight clubs that applied for licenses to enter the competition from 2019 onwards. In September 2017, the club was announced as one of two clubs, along with, to receive a license to join the competition in 2019. The club has also had a team in the second-tier VFL Women's league since 2017.

The club has qualified for the AFL Women's finals on three occasions, making it through the preliminary final in 2023 before losing to eventual premiers.

title: Geelong Football Club


text:
Talk:Geelong Football Club

Coaches list
I have created a Geelong FC coaches list. (List of Geelong Football Club coaches) feel free to add or edit because their are coaches prior to 1910 missing. Sge 15:41, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Club's History
I have been looking at the sport featured articles (Chelsea FC, Central Coast Mariners, Sydney Roosters) and it has come to my attention that all of these pages follow the same layout. This layout includes a summery of the clubs history with a separate page devoted to a more detailed history. I was wondering if this would be a a good idea to do to the GFC History section because it has become quite long. Any thoughts on this? Sge 03:27, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I have long agreed with this idea - the current history run down here is far too cluttered and detailed. It needs to be cut down significantly, with a great portion made separate in another article. Boomtish (talk) 06:29, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

TAKE OFF!!!! THE VFA PREMIERSHIPS FROM THE MAIN RIGHT HAND BOX UNDER CLUB DETAILS (I'M A GEELONG SUPPORTER)OTHER CLUBS DON'T HAVE THEM LISTED AS PREMIERSHIPS IT'S A CLUB RECORD AND PART OF OUR HISTORY BUT THEY DO NOT DESERVE TO BE LISTED AS LEAGUE TITLES EVEN THOUGH YOU'VE MADE THE DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN VFL/AFL AND VFA. WE HAVE 9 VFL/AFL FLAGS AS THEY'RE IN THE SAME CONTINUOUS LEAGUE. THE VFA IS NOT APART OF SAID LEAGUE. BY ALL MEANS LIST THE 7 VFA FLAGS DOWN WHERE THE RECORDS ARE LISTED BUT NOT IN THE MAIN BOX. IT JUST LOOKS MESSY AND GIVES TO MUCH ACKNOWLEDGMENT TO THE VFA PREMIERSHIPS BY HAVING THEM IN THE MAIN BOX. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO TAKE THEM OUT SO YOU MUST DO THIS. GIVING YOU A WEEK. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.50.222.114 (talk) 06:37, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Broadening scope of article
This article concentrates almost exclusively on the on-field fortunes of GFC.

The club is also a political, social, cultural and financial entity.

GFC has had some difficult moments with VFL/AFL administrations, notably the question of GFC's readmission to the VFL after WWII.

GFC has had a unique relationship with the local community.

GFC has a club culture and identity that is firmly established in the public mind.

GFC has had unique challenges in keeping the club viable financially.

I think the entry on Richmond Football Club treats related issues well.

I'm suggesting that the GFC entry use that one as a model for covering these issues.

--TrackerGee (talk) 04:28, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Inappropriate tone
The tone of this article is far too informal for an encyclopedia, hence why I have added the tag. For example (and these are just a few, there are dozens within the article): It reads like a blog written by a football fan, not an encyclopedia article. There are also many statements that need referencing. Anyway, just wanted to highlight areas for improvement. Somno (talk) 04:21, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * "To celebrate its good fortune, Geelong buried a toy bomber in the Kardinia Park turf. This comical ceremony..."
 * "In 1981 Geelong's finals campaign inflicted more heartbreak."
 * "In the pre-season of 1988, in a foretaste of approaching frustrations"
 * "Geelong kicked mammoth scores"
 * "However, the Gary Ablett show had not even started yet"
 * "Hawthorn stole the match to win by two points. The loss against the Eagles was by a little more lop-sided. Once again, Geelong fell short."
 * "in the second half West Coast's Peter Matera ran riot, booting five goals"
 * "As Ablett walked back to take his kick, the siren went"
 * "To add insult to injury, former Geelong player Greg Williams, now a superstar at Carlton"
 * "a decision involving a fantastic mark to Leigh Colbert may have turned the game as the mark wasn't paid"
 * "The season proved fruitful"
 * "Geelong finally managed to entice shy Modewarre player"
 * "Geelong thrashed Melbourne by 55 points"

Opinions wanted
I've done a bit of work on this article in the past week or so, and I intend to do a lot more because I'd like to try to push it up to A-class or even Featured Article quality. As far as I can see the article is well organized and adequately sourced. There's still some tweaking to be done, but I think the major problem is the extensive History section.

Much of it has POV issues; as Somno quite rightly says, it reads like a blog written by a fan. I could tone down the adulation but it might not be worth the effort because I think much of it should be torn down and built up again from scratch. We currently have twelve seperate subsections of the History section, each covering a decade or a year, and few are more than a few paragraphs. It looks ugly and disproportionate.

But before I plunge in with my pruning shears and big red pen, and start making wholesale changes, I thought I'd run it past the rest of you and ask for opinions on how best this bit could be improved. Reyk YO!  08:09, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

 * One thing I should note that I personally believe needs to be addressed, is the length of the article. There is really no need to provide a running commentary of every season to date. Look at other sporting team FA like Arsenal F.C. or Aston Villa F.C., they each cover the history of the club well enough in the respective section of their articles, without going over the top. One thing to note is the use of separate articles to cover more comprehensively each specific season. I feel this needs to be done with this article, particularly given the long history of the Geelong Football Club. Aside from that, main issues are prose, POV, and sourcing. I'm happy to help get this article up to scratch. Cheers Boomtish (talk) 13:27, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

 * Agree with everything said above; I think starting the history section again will give the article a stronger base to work from. I'm also happy to help, I just didn't want to tackle the article by myself 'cause it's so long! I have access to databases so may be able to access some helpful older info for sourcing. Somno (talk) 14:10, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I think we could divide the history section into fewer, but longer, subsections. Perhaps something like this: I'm not so much concerned that the article is long, long articles are good, it's just that too much weight is given to some areas and not enough to others. If it still turns out that the history section is too long then we should think about splitting it into a seperate article as Boomtish suggests. As it stands, the everything after about 1950 is covered in tedious and excessive detail and needs to be pruned, while the info on Geelong in early years of the VFL is pretty sparse. In particular, Geelong's wartime troubles need to be covered in more detail. Do your sources have enough info on this stuff, Somno? Reyk YO!  22:35, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Founding of the Club - Formation of the VFL
 * 1897 - WWII
 * WWII - National expansion in 1987
 * 1987 to Today
 * Hmm, now that I look, the first database doesn't go as far back for Aussie topics (I've gone back to the '50s for British stuff). The earliest Cats article is from 1989, with interesting sentences such as "Like their kindred spirits in Newcastle, Wollongong and Canberra, Geelong folk enjoy nothing more than putting people from the big smoke in their place." Perhaps that article was written by whoever wrote the History section of this one! I'll keep looking - I'm sure there must be recent articles that discuss those times. Somno (talk) 03:47, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I have access to a book 'The Clubs' that details every VFL/AFL club's history. Would serve as a nice external source as well I would think. I still do strongly believe that the history section needs to be pruned down significantly. Boomtish (talk) 03:56, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Does anyone have access to The Road to Kardinia: The Story of the Geelong Football Club, 1996, Russell H. T. Stephens, Playright Publishing? Somno (talk) 03:59, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I haven't. I've got the following:
 * Every Game Ever Played(1983) by Stephen Rodgers
 * Cats on the Prowl
 * Year of the Cat
 * Gary Ablett Unauthorised Biography
 * Reyk YO!  04:22, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Are we scratching the History section? If so, where should we draft a replacement? What sort of information/level of detail should we include? Somno (talk) 06:32, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Reyk YO!  23:16, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I've set up a subpage here:

 * Somno, regarding this bit During the 1923 season a black cat came onto the ground during a game between Collingwood and Hawthorn, are you sure that's supposed to be Hawthorn? IIRC they didn't join the league until 1925. Reyk  YO!  02:28, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

 * Oops, that's supposed to Collingwood Juniors and Hawthorn Juniors. Somno (talk) 02:43, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I thought the mentions of burying objects under Corio/Kardinia in the history section were urban legends, but it is verified in an article in The Herald-Sun. The article from last year is about what Geelong could bury if they beat Port in the grand final the following week. Is this tradition worthy of mention, or a crufty item? Somno (talk) 05:27, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

So what did they bury? A battery?? Lasiorhinus (talk) 05:45, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:NAB cup logo.gif
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Club Song
Are the lyrics of the team song copyright? I remember there used to be a page with all the team's songs that was deleted due to the lyrics being copyrighted, but I don't know if there are some individual clubs that may no longer have copyrighted lyrics. Morstar (talk) 12:32, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yerp, the copyright is granted automatically (under the Berne Convention) and exists for the period until the death of the author + 70 years. So it'll expire seventy years after John Watts dies. The use of the lyrics on this page should be fine. Take a look at Wikipedia's current policy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Non-free_content#Policy. timothykhoo (talk) 20:53, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Notable Players
I'm not sure about that list. It's entirely subjective as it stands. It might be good to have some loose definitions on what constitutes notable...Multiple premierships & awards (i.e., Jimmy Bartel), achievements outside of GFC or AFL... etc. I don't think Damien Drum is of more note than some players who have not made that list.

I've added Bobby Davis and Jimmy Bartel, and removed references to notable players being "Players." It may be worth scrapping the section altogether, as a lot of FA club pages don't have a comparable section. That said, I think it is a nice way for people to get acquainted with characters from the club, albeit an incomplete list. (Refusetm (talk) 15:40, 11 June 2012 (UTC))

Mark Thompson
It says Mark Thompson is to quit in the info box. I though he had quit, when he announced his resignation yesterday? --124.176.156.21 (talk) 09:21, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Guernsey
That guernsey looks pretty ordinary and the blue is certainly far lighter than the navy actually in use. Hoever06 (talk) 00:06, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

"currently trading as Geelong Cats"
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the Geelong Football Club currently officially trading as the "Geelong Cats"? Look at the Western Bulldogs page to see how this should be formatted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.107.71.45 (talk) 12:44, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

 * Is there a source that tells us that the club is currently officially trading as the "Geelong Cats"? HiLo48 (talk) 13:14, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Ever since the GFC hit, they have moved away from using GFC officially. However, common usage is still to refer to them as Geelong, Geelong Football Cats or The Cats.  This is very different to the Western Bulldogs, who completely changed their name, similar to what the Kangaroos did.  Fremantle also, once the Levi's restriction ended, started using Fremantle Dockers more often.  But the official AND common names remain as the XXX Football Club, so these pages should remain where they are.  And most long term fans hate the Name Nickname style, as it makes it sound American, which is a bad thing for most people over 40 years old. The-Pope (talk) 14:15, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Yep. They are "Geelong", or "the Cats", but not the "Geelong Cats". HiLo48 (talk) 03:38, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

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Handbaggers
The cats were once called the Handbaggers. That is an officials former nickname. HandbaggerCat (talk) 07:43, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
 * No it's not. HiLo48 (talk) 07:46, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Not to my knowledge, please prove it with a reference.  - Yours Faithfully, GA Melbourne ( T | C )  08:06, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Geelong Football Club