Cyrus McCormick is well-known not only in the USA but also far beyond its borders thanks to his invention, which greatly contributed to the development of agriculture. Learn more about him at ichicago.net.
Unique invention
Cyrus was born on February 15, 1809. His father Robert was a farmer and blacksmith. The boy was determined and serious. He spent most of his time in his father’s workshop.
For more than 28 years, Robert actively worked on the horse-drawn reaper project, but he never completed it. In 1830, the father gave all his drawings to his son, who was 21 years old at that time. Cyrus decided to make some changes to the design and implemented the idea in a year and a half.
His invention looked like a horse-drawn two-wheeled chariot. The machine consisted of a vibrating cutting blade, a grain-feeding drum and a grain-receiving platform. However, the equipment had one defect, it was very loud when operating.
Cyrus demonstrated his reaper in action in 1831 and received a patent for this invention in 1834. It became very popular among farmers very quickly. Having realized that everything was fine and the product was popular, McCormick and his family started a large-scale production of reapers in 1840. It took place in the blacksmith workshop on the family farm in Walnut Grove. In addition, during that period, Cyrus made several trips around the Midwest, where he demonstrated his products to local manufacturers, thereby doing advertising.
Successful entrepreneur
The inventor moved to Chicago in 1847. A year later, together with his brother Leander, Cyrus founded a small enterprise that was engaged in the sale of agricultural machinery. The business was flourishing thanks to the brothers’ ingenuity and knowledge of marketing techniques. Having achieved good sales results, Cyrus and Leander created a large network of the company’s representative offices employing trained salespeople. Their duties included demonstrating the operation of the reaper in the field.
In a short time, McCormick managed to increase the annual production to 1500 pieces. In addition, the demand for his invention was actively growing. The company needed to expand its production, which contributed to the fact that Cyrus sold a share to the Mayor of Chicago, William Ogden, for $ 25,000. Under the new name, McCormick, Ogden & Co, the company doubled its output. A year later, Cyrus had the opportunity to buy out his partner’s share for $5,000. After that, the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company turned into an exclusively family enterprise. The younger brothers began to work on the well-established production too, while Cyrus focused on the development of the sales system.
In 1851, McCormick gained international recognition by winning the Gold Medal at the famous Great Exhibition at London’s Crystal Palace. By 1856, the entrepreneur was selling more than 4,000 machines a year. In 1871, a great fire destroyed the factory in Chicago, but the family managed to rebuild it and continued to produce and market their products.
As a result of his activities, the inventor and entrepreneur Cyrus McCormick entered the list of the richest people in the United States in 1918. Just imagine, his fortune was $60 million at the time.
Cyrus McCormick is called the founder of modern agriculture because he enabled farmers to expand their small holdings into larger enterprises. His invention put an end to long and difficult field work and also contributed to the production of other important agricultural machinery.