About the Author
Christina Vella received her Ph.D. in Modern European and U.S. history from Tulane University, where she was recently Visiting Professor. She has been a consultant and writer for the U.S. State Department, NPR, PBS, and the History Channel. Her books include Intimate Enemies: The Two Worlds of the Baroness de Pontalba, which was featured on the cover of the New York Times Book Review and was nominated for both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award.The Two Worlds of the Baroness de Pontalba, Michaela Leonarda Almonaster de Pontalba was the sponsor of landmark architectural complexes in her native Louisiana, as well as in France, her home for 67 years. She conceived the Pontalba Buildings in New Orleans as two magnificent blocks of row houses facing each other on Jackson Square. Finished in 1851, they revitalized the declining center of the city and set the taste for elaborate cast ironwork in the Vieux Carré. Her showpiece mansion in Paris—now the U. S. Embassy residence—was built in 1840 with her close supervision. Most recently she published George Washington Carver: A Life (LSU Press, 2015.) Her biography of Kemal Ataturk, Ataturk and the Unveiling of Turkey, is in publication. Dr. Vella lives in New Orleans. She lectures widely on a variety of historical, biographical, and literary subjects. For more information visit www.christinavella.com.
George Washington Carver: A Life
Despite George Washington Carver’s lifelong difficulties with systemic racial prejudice, when he died in 1943, millions of Americans mourned the passing of one of the nation’s most honored and well-known scientists. Scores of children’s books celebrate the contributions of this prolific botanist, responsible for so many items that improved ordinary life—peanut butter and shoe polish, for instance—but no biographer has fully examined both his personal life and career until Christina Vella.
Vella excels on every level in her approach and execution of this work, most notably the depth of her research and her witty, humorous, delightful writing and storytelling. Referring to men like two-term congressman and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture James C. Wilson, one of George’s professors at Iowa State, she writes, “Those were the teachers who became George’s heroes, generous men who loved both books and cows, men who were as happy examining soil samples as listening to Bach. George wanted to be like them in every detail.”
Rising above the scores of books written for kids, this is the first scholarly biography of Carver in thirty years, and surely excels above all others in examining how his personal life—including the competitive relationship with Booker T. Washington— and love interests impacted his career.