- The invention of the first mechanical reaper is generally credited to Cyrus McCormick.
- But there is a lot of controversy over its creation.
- This does not change the tremendous impact it had on modern farming
From the beginning of agriculture to modern times, grain crops were harvested by hand using implements such as scythes and sickles for thousands of years. This was a slow process that required hard labor. It largely had to be done in dry weather, so large numbers of people were needed to complete the harvest before wet weather set in.
The labor and time-intensive nature of harvesting meant that farmers were limited in the amounts they could sow, as they needed to be able to reap all of their crops or risk having them go to waste – a waste of the valuable resources used to grow them in the first place.
All of this changed with the invention of the mechanical reaper. In fact, the reaper has been cited as the most important invention of the agricultural revolution of the 19th century.
By allowing more crops to be harvested in a shorter time and with far fewer workers, the reaper allowed farms to become larger and more productive. This, in turn, accelerated industrialization and urbanization as displaced farm workers migrated to factories and entered the pool of paid workers.
The credit for the invention of the mechanical reaper goes to American Cyrus McCormick, but the story is not as straightforward as it may appear. Here are some fascinating facts about McCormick and the mechanical reaper.
1. McCormick wasn’t the first to patent the reaper
The conventional story is that Cyrus’ father, Robert McCormick, had been trying to develop a workable reaper for several years at the family’s plantation, Walnut Grove, in Rockbridge County, Virginia. Robert abandoned the project in 1831, and Cyrus (who was then 22) built a reaper based on a different principle.
Cyrus McCormick tested his reaper on a neighbor’s farm in 1831. It worked, but it had several issues, including a clatter so loud that enslaved people had to walk alongside it to calm the frightened horses.
He took out a patent on the reaper in 1834 but was mainly focused on running the family’s iron foundry. However, when the foundry failed in 1837, McCormick hoped to turn the family’s fortunes around with the reaper. He made some improvements and began manufacturing them in 1841.
However, another inventor, Obed Hussey, had patented a reaper in 1833, one year before McCormick. Hussey and McCormick became business rivals as they competed to corner the reaper market.
2. McCormick wasn’t the first to invent a mechanical reaper, either
There had been earlier attempts at developing a mechanical reaper. One of these was by Patrick Bell (1799-1869), a Scottish clergyman working on his father’s farm. Bell invented his reaping machine in 1826 and demonstrated it publicly in 1828.
It has been described as using a 12-vane revolving reel that pulled the crop over a knife bar made up of reciprocating blades positioned over fixed blades. Power was derived using gearing from the wheels.
A canvas conveyor moved the grain and stalks into rows, and two horses pushed the reaper through the field.
However, Bell never filed a patent for his reaping machine, apparently because he believed that it should be free to benefit everyone. Only a few were ever manufactured, but Bell’s reaper may have influenced Cyrus and his father, Robert, in their endeavors.
Both machines were pulled by horses and had a knife bar held at right angles to the direction of travel.
3. McCormick gained the upper hand through innovation
Hussey and McCormick each began patenting improvements and exhibiting their competing reapers, and both saw sales success in the U.S. and England as the 1840s and 1850s wore on.
However, as it became apparent that the reaper was a major game-changer in farming, other inventors were also working to improve the reaper’s design. McCormick quickly incorporated many of these into his machines, but Hussey stubbornly refused to use the ideas of others.
As a result, Hussey fell behind in technological advancements, and his business declined. He eventually sold his reaper business in 1858.
4. McCormick succeeded despite the expiration of his patent
McCormick’s initial patent expired in 1848, and when competing manufacturers managed to block its renewal, the plans for the basic machine passed into the public domain.
At this point, McCormick might well have lost out to other companies, who began to build their own reapers based on his initial design. But this did not happen. Why? Because McCormick changed tactics and focused on
sales.
McCormick opened a factory in Chicago (then largely a swamp) and began mass-producing the reapers. To sell his machines, he traveled the farmlands of the U.S. (and later Europe), using then-novel tactics such as public demonstrations, warranties, catalogs, promotional items, advertising, and extension of credit. This focus on sales worked, and he began to outsell his rivals.
McCormick’s Reaper also won prizes in international competitions, and between the publicity and the sales push, McCormick soon became a household name, at least among farmers.
5. The reaper was actually slow to catch on
For such a revolutionary invention, you might expect farmers would be eager to get their hands on a reaper as soon as it was available. But it actually took around 20-25 years before sales grew to more than a few a year.
Hussey patented his reaper in 1833, and McCormick followed in 1834, but farmers didn’t start purchasing the machines in large numbers until the mid-1850s.
One explanation for the upsurge in sales in the 1850s was the big rise in global wheat prices during the Crimean War when grain exports from Russia and other Black Sea nations were curtailed. The price rise meant that farmers could more easily afford to scale up production.
However, another explanation may be that before the mid-1850s, most American farms were simply too small to make the expensive reapers a practical purchase. In addition, by the 1850s, labor prices were rising due to higher demand for workers to build railroads and other big infrastructure projects of the age.
Another reason for the slow sales growth before the 1850s is that reaper technology was not advanced enough before then to make the machine worthwhile. Before this, the reaper may have been too unreliable and unwieldy to make it seem worth the effort.
6. The McCormick company used propaganda to its advantage
Over the years, the McCormick Harvesting Machine Co. pushed the idea that Cyrus was a heroic farmer and mechanical genius who single-handedly invented the reaper, making him a savior of world farming.
This legend was pushed partly to justify higher prices and to improve the company’s standing with populist farmers, who were major reaper customers but who tended to be suspicious of big business (which by this time included the McCormick Harvesting Machine Co.).
According to the work of Daniel Ott, this propaganda peaked at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where a large banner over
the company’s exhibit proclaimed that “all harvesters of today are based
upon the features C.H. McCormick invented and built in 1831.”
Ott wrote that McCormick’s competitors at the Exposition complained the claim was false. As a result, the exhibition’s jury “forced the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company to take down all of its placards claiming inventive priority.”
In 1896, the company tried to convince the U.S. Treasury Department to have Cyrus’ image printed on the $10 silver certificate. However, when the company’s competitors challenged the story that Cyrus alone had invented the reaper, Treasury Secretary John Carlisle declined to proceed, resulting in more bad publicity.
Eventually, the publicity wars took a toll on both the company’s image and sales. At the same time, grain prices were falling. A lengthy price war led, in 1902, to McCormick Harvesting Machine merging with four of its largest competitors to form International Harvester – which is still going
strong.
