Creative Minds Biographies

There wasn't anything that George Washington Carver couldn't grow. He took the common goober--today's peanut--and created hundreds of useful products from it, turning goobers into a very profitable staple for the South. At the same time, this very...

Mary Church Terrell grew up after the Civil War with many opportunities. Although she received an excellent education and had a distinguished teaching career, Mary grew up African American in a segregated country. There were opportunities she did not...

Mary Ann Shadd Cary spent her entire lifetime fighting for justice and equality for African Americans. Born a free African American in the 1820s, Cary started schools for black children and wrote books and articles. She was also the first black woman...

For the first twenty-eight years of her life. Harriet Tubman lived as a slave on a southern plantation. Finally, with the help of a Quaker woman, she was able to escape to Philadelphia by way of the Underground Railroad. After her escape, Harriet...

Samuel Clemens grew up in a child's paradise--Hannibal, Missouri. There, mischief added humor to everyday events as Sam encountered the folks who would one day reappear as Huck Finn, Aunt Polly, and Becky Thatcher in his books, The Adventures of Tom...

Taken from her family in Africa at the age of seven, Phillis Wheatley arrived in Boston as a slave in 1761. After she was purchased by the Wheatley family, Phillis quickly learned to speak and read English. The bright young girl soon began writing...

In 1877 a young man developed a way to reproduce sounds so they could be heard again and again. This young man, Thomas Edison, has since been heralded as one of the world's greatest inventors. This inspiring biography details the creation of Edison's...

Sojourner Truth was born into slavery in New York in 1797 or 1798. She never knew for sure which year she was born or even whether it was summer or winter. By the time she was a young woman, Sojourner knew she could no longer live as a slave, and with...

In 1791 plans for the new capital city, Washington, D.C., were in the works, but someone was needed to help with the surveying. Thomas Jefferson recommended Benjamin Banneker for the job. Banneker was a free black man who lived at a time when black...