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'Cyrus Hall McCormick, Sr.' (February 15 1809 – May 13 1884) was an American inventor and founder of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, which became part of International Harvester Company in 1902. Cyrus Hall McCormick

Contents

Birth

Reaper

Marriage and children

Awards

Death

Archive

External links

References

Further reading

Birth

He was born at Walnut Grove, the McCormick family farm in Rockbridge County, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley on the western side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. His parents were, Mary Ann Hall; and Robert Hall McCormick. His siblings included: Leander J. McCormick and William Sanderson McCormick.

Reaper

His father, the inventor Robert Hall McCormick, worked for 16 years on a horse-drawn reaper. However, he was not able to finish his project and stopped developing it. Cyrus was given the project, and developed a final version of the reaper in 2 months. The reaper was demonstrated in tests in 1831 and was patented by Cyrus in 1834.
In 1847, Cyrus and his brother Leander moved to Chicago, where they established large centralized works for manufacturing agricultural implements; they were joined by their brother William in 1849. The McCormick reaper sold well, partially as a result of savvy and innovative business practices. Their products came onto the market just as the development of railroads offered wide distribution to distant market areas. He developed marketing and sales techniques, developing a vast network of trained salesmen able to demonstrate operation of the machines in the field. William H. Seward said of McCormick's invention that owing to it "the line of civilization moves westward thirty miles each year." One of the the company's most famous advertisement featured an epic painting by Emanuel Leutze with the slogan, “Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way with McCormick Reapers in the Van”.

Marriage and children

In January of 1858, McCormick married Nancy Maria Fowler (1835-1923), also known as Nettie Fowler. She was 23 years old. They had the following children: ^{[1] [2]}

★ Cyrus Hall McCormick II (1859-1936) who was born in Morristown, New Jersey. His son, Cyrus Hall McCormick III (1891-1970) would become Chairman of the company. ^[3]

★ Mary Virginia McCormick (1861-1941)

★ Robert McCormick (1863-?)

★ Anita McCormick (1866-1954) who married Emmons Blaine (1857-1892). ^[4]

★ Alice McCormick (1870-?)

★ Harold Fowler McCormick (1872–1941), who married Edith Rockefeller, youngest daughter of John D. Rockefeller. Their son was Harold Fowler McCormick, Jr. (1898-1973). ^{[5] [6]}He was a very active member of The Commercial Club of Chicago.

★ Stanley F. McCormick (1874-1947) who worked for the firm, but developed schizophrenia and retired early in 1906. ^[7] His wife Katharine, a suffragette, funded Gregory Pincus's research of the first birth control pill.

Awards

Numerous prizes and medals were awarded for his reaper, and he was elected a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences, "as having done more for the cause of agriculture than any other living man." The invention of the reaper made farming far more efficient, and resulted in a global shift of labor from farmlands to cities.

Death

McCormick died in Chicago in 1884, he had been an invalid for the past three or four years. ^[8] The company passed on to his son, Cyrus Hall McCormick III The McCormick factories were later the site of urban labor strikes that led to the Haymarket Square riot in 1886. One of the reasons the employees were striking was because they were earning only $9 a week.

Archive

Cyrus McCormick's papers are held by the Wisconsin Historical Society.

External links

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References

1. Died.
2. Mrs. Cyrus McCormick Ill. Husband and Son Race to Bedside on Special Train.
3. Cyrus McCormick, 79, of Reaper Company
4. Progressively Progressive
5. Fowler McCormick Dies at 74. Ex-Chairman of Harvester.
6. World War I draft registration; Harold Fowler McCormick, Jr.
7. Stanley F. McCormick, Son of International Harvester Company Founder Was 72.
8. Cyrus H. McCormick Dead.

Further reading

★ Casson, Herbert N. ''Cyrus Hall McCormick: His Life and Work''. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1909.

★ Lyons, Norbert. ''The McCormick Reaper Legend: the True Story of a Great Invention''. New York: Exposition Press, 1955.

★ Sobel, Robert. ''The Entrepreneurs: Explorations Within the American Business Tradition''. New York: Weybright & Talley, 1974, ch. 2.

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