Cyrus Hall McCormick

From New World Encyclopedia
Revision as of 00:36, 26 November 2007 by Robert Brooks (talk | contribs) (approved)

Cyrus McCormick

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. [1]Among other honors, McCormick was was elected a corresponding member of the prestigious French Academy of Sciences, "as having done more for the cause of agriculture than any other living man." He invented a machine that positively benefited the world economy. It helped to bring about the mechanization of the agricultural industry, making it possible to harvest more food to feed a hungry world. All 36 wheat producing countries in the world made use of his Reaper, which has been described as, "the liberator of the land-serf in twenty countries, and the bread-machine of one half of the human race." [2] It also freed up workers to be employed by the Industrial Revolution and the Union Army during the American Civil War. A philanthropist and committed Christian, he founded the McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. Too often, those who are gifted with the ability to innovate in science or in technology fail to place their skills at the service of humanity. Instead, what they invent is either destructive, potentially destructive or adds nothing to human welfare. McCormick may well have been guided by his Calvinist faith, which Calvinism stresses self-denial, sobriety, thriftiness, efficiency and morality, which can result in high production and low consumption, creating a surplus that cannot be consumed, which is instead invested for the greater glory of God. McCormick decided at an early age that he wanted to fight hunger, and saw this as a Christian task.

Birth

Cyrus McCormick was born at Woodridge, the McCormick family farm in Woodridge, 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

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 two months. The reaper was demonstrated in tests in 1831 and was patented by Cyrus in 1834. [1] [3]

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 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."

Peace Maker

McCormick also owned the Times and Herald newspapers in Chicago, writing numerous editorial calling for the North and the South to reconcile themsleves, trying to explain the South's viewpoint to the North, and vice-versa.[4]. He was also a peace-maker, and once the war began he visited both sides to try to "bring the severed nation back to union", proposing a peace-plan that called for a Board of Arbitration between the two sides which would examine the causes of the war and identify "a just basis on which both sides could agree to disband their armies and reestablish peace." [5]"He actually believed", says Casson, "that he could establish peace". He was also a strong supported of Church Unity, which he believed would strengthen the hands of those who worked for peace, calling for "mutual forebearance and the pursuit of those things which tend to peace." [6] McCormick pioneered the idea of an international mechanism to control the production and distribution of food

Marriage and children

In January of 1858, McCormick married Nancy Maria Fowler (1846-1912), also known as Nettie Fowler. She was 23 years old. They had the following children: [7] [8]

  • Cyrus Hall McCormick II (1859-1932) who was born in Morristown, New Jersey. His son, Cyrus Hall McCormick III (1889-1970) would become Chairman of the company. [9]
  • Mary Virginia McCormick (1861-1941)
  • Robert McCormick (1863-1910)
  • Anita McCormick (1866-1954) who married Emmons Blaine (1857-1892). [10]
  • Alice McCormick (1870-1945)
  • Harold Fowler McCormick (1872–1941), who married Edith Rockefeller, youngest daughter of John D. Rockefeller. Their son was Harold Fowler McCormick, Jr. (1898-1973). He was the great uncle of Robert R. McCormick. [11] 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. [12] 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. In 1855, his machine won the Grand Medal at the Paris Exhibition.

Death

McCormick died in Chicago in 1884, he had been an invalid for the past three or four years. [13] The company passed on to his grandson, Cyrus Hall McCormick III [1] 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.

Legacy

McCormick invented a machine that would have great impact for the world economy. In his own life-time, 36 wheat producing nations in the world used his Reaper, and increased their productivity. His machine has been decribed as "the liberator of the land-serf in twenty countries, and the bread-machine of one half of the human race." [14] His machine lowered the cost of bread, enabling more people to purchase this basic food. His machine helped to bring about the mechanization of agriculture and could be utilized to feed world populations. It also helped to reduce the manpower required in agricultural pursuits and freed up more workers to be employed by the Industrial Revolution and the Union Army during the Civil War. The reaper was not the first implement of its kind, but McCormick effectively perfected the instrument and built a large corporation from its marketing and sales.[15] He hated hunger, and made eliminating this his life's work; "he picked up the task of feediong the the hungry masses - the Christly task that had lain unfulfilled for eighteen centuries, and led the way in organizing it into a system of internation reciprocity." [16]

McCormick was a devout Christian. His favorite Bible passage was Romans chapter eight, which promises that nothing can separate people from God's love. [17]. What he believed, and what he did, were related; "He was a man of faith and works" and "felt that he was born into the world with certain things to do", the main task being to combat hunger. [18]

Hutchinson says that McCormick "believed that religion was a remedy for all the ill of life" , "contributed generosuly to the Church and was instrumental in increasing its influence and membership". He supported many Presbyterian organizations and founded the McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago (by paying for an existing seminary in Indiana to be transferred to Chicago) [19]. He was also active within the Democratic Party. The Farm in Virginia is now the Cyrus McCormick Farm Museum. Casson compares McCormick with Abraham Lincoln:

It is interesting to note how closely the destinies of Lincoln and McCormick were interwoven. Both were born in 1809, on farms in the south. Both struggles through a youth of adversity and first came into prominence in Illinois. Both labored to preserve the Union, and when the War of Secession came to an end it was the Reaper that enabled Lincoln to feed his army. Both mere were emancipators; the one from slavery and the other from famine; and both today sleep under the soil of Illinois. No other two Americans had heavier tasks than they, and none worked more mightily for the common good. [20]

Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Cyrus H. McCormick (1809-1884) was an industrialist and inventor of the first commercially successful reaper, a horse-drawn machine to harvest wheat. He was born at the family farm (Walnut Grove) in Rockbridge County, Virginia on February 15, 1809. His father Robert experimented with a design for a mechanical reaper from around the time of Cyrus' birth." Wisconsin Historical Society, Cyrus McCormick - International Harvester Company Collection, Cyrus Hall McCormick Retrieved August 26, 2007.
  2. Casson, p 122
  3. Harold Evans, They Made America (New York & Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2004), 81.
  4. Casson, p 166
  5. Casson, p 167
  6. Casson, p 168
  7. "Mrs. Nettie Fowler McCormick, 88, widow of Cyrus H. McCormick, inventor of the grain reaper, at Lake Forest, Illinois, of acute bronchitis." Time, "Died," July 16, 1923.
  8. New York Times, "Mrs. Cyrus McCormick Ill. Husband and Son Race to Bedside on Special Train," January 17, 1921.
  9. "Cyrus McCormick, former vice president and director of the International Harvester Company and grandson of the inventor, died yesterday of a cerebral hemorrhage in a hospital here. He was 79 years old and had lived here for about 15 years. He retired in 1931." New York Times, "Cyrus McCormick, 79, of Reaper Company," April 1, 1970.
  10. "The idea attracted Mrs. Emmons Blaine, daughter of Reaper Inventor Cyrus McCormick, who gave the colonel $1,000,000 to launch the Parker School in 1901. The colonel spawned all sorts of innovations in U.S. education—specialized teachers, morning assemblies, the teaching of art, music and drama." Time, "Progressively Progressive," June 8, 1962, Progressively ProgressiveRetrieved August 21, 2007.
  11. "Fowler McCormick, former chairman of the board of the International Harvester Company, the world's largest manufacturer of agricultural implements, died here today after a lingering illness, company officials announced. He was 74 years old." New York Times, "Fowler McCormick Dies at 74. Ex-Chairman of Harvester," January 7, 1973.
  12. New York Times, "Stanley F. McCormick, Son of International Harvester Company Founder Was 72," January 20, 1947.
  13. "The Hon. Cyrus Hall McCormick died at his home in Chicago at 7 o'clock A.M. yesterday. He had been an invalid for the past three or four years, his troubles being caused by paralysis of the lower limbs. For two years he has not been able to walk, and for over a year past has moved..." New York Times, "Cyrus H. McCormick Dead," May 14, 1884.
  14. Casson, p 122
  15. Evans, 79.
  16. Casson, p 244
  17. Casson, p 161
  18. Casson, p 186
  19. Hutchinson, p 463
  20. Casson, p 100

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Aldrich, Lisa J. Cyrus McCormick and the Mechanical Reaper. Greensboro, N.C.: Morgan Reynolds Pub, 2002 ISBN 978-1883846916
  • Casson, Herbert N. Cyrus Hall McCormick: His Life and Work. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1909.; NY: Cosimo Classic, 2005 ISBN 978-1596051201
  • Evans, Harold. They Made America. New York & Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2004. ISBN 0-316-27766-5
  • Hutchinson, William Thomas. Seed-time, 1809-1856. Vol. 1, Cyrus Hall McCormick. New York & London: The Century Co., 1930.; Hutchinson Press, 2007 ISBN 978-1406761382
  • Hutchinson, William Thomas. Harvest, 1856-1884. Vol. 2, Cyrus Hall McCormick. New York & London: The Century Co., 1930.
  • New York Times. "Cyrus H. McCormick Dead." May 14, 1884.
  • New York Times. "Cyrus McCormick, 79, of Reaper Company." April 1, 1970.
  • New York Times. "Fowler McCormick Dies at 74. Ex-Chairman of Harvester." January 7, 1973.
  • New York Times. "Mrs. Cyrus McCormick Ill. Husband and Son Race to Bedside on Special Train." January 17, 1921.
  • New York Times. "Stanley F. McCormick, Son of International Harvester Company Founder Was 72." January 20, 1947.
  • Time. "Died." July 16, 1923.
  • Time. "Progressively Progressive." June 8, 1962. Progressively ProgressiveRetrieved August 21, 2007.
  • 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.
  • Wisconsin Historical Society. Cyrus McCormick - International Harvester Company Collection. Cyrus Hall McCormick Retrieved August 26, 2007.
  • This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

External links

Warning: Default sort key "McCormick, Cyrus" overrides earlier default sort key "McCormick, Cyrus Hall".


Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.