The mechanical reaper. A time-saving invention which allowed farmers
to more than double their crop size while at the same time spurring
other innovations in farm machinery. This reaper, which combined all
the steps that earlier harvesting machines had performed separately, was
the brilliant innovation of a man, a man named Cyrus Hall McCormick.
Born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, Cyrus was son to a man who's
imagination also boggled with new inventions. As a child, Cyrus
experimented with different tools in hopes of inventing something which
would simplify his father's job. Finally, in 1831, he built his first
reaper. Succeeding where his father had failed, Cyrus made some
adjustments to his machine before patenting his invention in 1834. At
around the same time (1833), a man by the name of Obed Hussey announced
a the construction of a reaper of his own.
The year was 1840, and by this time, McCormick had started to
manufacture his creation and sold it for the first time in Virginia.
The reaper's marketing did very well, and it's sales had expanded to
other parts of the United States by 1844. Because of it's efficiency,
the horse-drawn reaper allowed farmers to harvest five times the regular
2 acre per day amount that skilled workers used to harvest.
In 1847, the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company was moved to Chicago.
Location, ease of distribution, and reputation were all factors which
convinced McCormick that Chicago was the place for him. "Centrally
located in the Midwest, he used the Great Lakes to transport reapers to
the East, and the Mississippi River to transport to the South."* What
more, as industries grew in the Windy City, Chicago soon turned into a
major railroad central in the 1850's. This added to the distribution
potential which McCormick needed to ship his reapers out to other parts
of the US.
The company's success thrived under the name...
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