Cyrus McCormick, in full Cyrus Hall McCormick, (born February 15, 1809, Rockbridge county, Virginia, U.S.—died May 13, 1884, Chicago, Illinois), American industrialist and inventor who is usually credited with the event (from 1831) of the mechanical reaper.
McCormick was the eldest son of Robert McCormick—a farmer, blacksmith, and inventor. McCormick’s schooling, in native colleges, was restricted. Reserved, decided, and serious-minded, he spent all of his time in his father’s workshop.
The elder McCormick had invented a number of sensible farm implements however, like different inventors within the United States and England, had failed in his try to construct a profitable reaping machine. In 1831 Cyrus, aged 22, tried his hand at constructing a reaper. Resembling a two-wheeled, horse-drawn chariot, the machine consisted of a vibrating chopping blade, a reel to convey the grain inside its attain, and a platform to obtain the falling grain. The reaper embodied the rules important to all subsequent grain-cutting machines.
For farmers within the early nineteenth century, harvesting required a lot of labourers, and, in the event that they might be discovered, the price of hiring them was excessive. When McCormick’s reaper was examined on a neighbour’s farm in 1831, it supplied the hope that the yield of the farmer’s fields would quickly not be restricted to the quantity of labour accessible. The machine had defects, not the least of which was a clatter so loud that slaves have been required to stroll alongside to calm the frightened horses.
McCormick took out a patent in 1834, however his chief curiosity at the moment was the household’s iron foundry. When the foundry failed within the wake of the financial institution panic of 1837, leaving the household deeply in debt, McCormick turned to his still-unexploited reaper and improved it. He offered 2 reapers in 1841, 7 in 1842, 29 in 1843, and 50 the next yr.
An 1844 go to to the prairie states within the Midwest satisfied McCormick that the way forward for his reaper and of the world’s wheat manufacturing lay on this huge fertile land somewhat than within the rocky, hilly East. In 1847, with additional patented enhancements, he opened a manufacturing facility within the then small, swampy, lakeside city of Chicago in partnership with the mayor, William Ogden, who capitalized the enterprise with $50,000 of his personal cash. The first yr, 800 machines have been offered. More have been offered the following yr, and McCormick was capable of purchase out Ogden.
McCormick’s foremost rival was Obed Hussey, whose machine proved to be inferior as a reaper however superior as a mower. When McCormick’s fundamental patent expired in 1848, competing producers—Hussey amongst them—tried to dam renewal. The ensuing authorized battle was however one among many in McCormick’s profession. He was concerned in countless litigation not solely with rival producers and infringers but in addition with the New York Central Railroad, which he sued for $20,000 damages following an altercation over an $8.75 overcharge on his spouse’s baggage. He fought this specific case as much as the Supreme Court 3 times—and gained, although it took 20 years. He didn't win his 1848 patent renewal battle, nonetheless. Except for enhancements on the reaper patented after 1831, the essential machine handed into the general public area. McCormick then got down to beat his manufacturing opponents one other manner: by outselling them.
Pockets filled with order blanks, McCormick rode over the plains promoting his reaper to farmers and would-be farmers. To enhance gross sales, he used improvements similar to mass manufacturing, promoting, public demonstration, guarantee of product, and extension of credit score to his prospects. Soon the manufacturing facility expanded, and the corporate had a touring gross sales drive. By 1850 the McCormick reaper was identified in each a part of the United States, and on the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London it was launched to European farmers. Although mocked by The Times of London as “a cross between an Astley Chariot, a wheelbarrow, and a flying machine,” the reaper took the Grand Prize. In 1855 it gained the Grand Medal of Honour on the Paris International Exposition. There adopted an extended collection of prize honours and awards that made the McCormick reaper identified to farmers all through the world.
By 1856 McCormick was promoting greater than 4,000 machines a yr. In the 1858 account of his marriage to Nancy (Nettie) Fowler, the Chicago Daily Press referred to him because the “massive Thor of industry.” Business didn't take in all of his power, nonetheless. He turned energetic within the Democratic Party and within the Presbyterian church, establishing the McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago.
In 1871 the Great Chicago Fire gutted his manufacturing facility. Then—greater than 60 years outdated, his fortune lengthy since made—he rebuilt. When he died, his enterprise was nonetheless rising. In 1902 the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company joined with different firms to kind International Harvester Company, with McCormick’s son, Cyrus, Jr., as its first president.