Cyrus Hall McCormick

American inventor

• Born: February 15, 1809
• Birthplace: Rockbridge County, Virginia
• Died: May 13, 1884
• Place of death: Chicago, Illinois

McCormick revolutionized American agriculture through his invention of the reaper and his marketing innovations. He also helped to shape American theological development by his patronage of a northwestern seminary.

Early Life

Cyrus Hall McCormick was born in his family home in the Virginia Valley. His father, Robert McCormick, and his mother, Mary Ann Hall, came from strong Scotch-Irish stock, and they represented two of the most influential families in the community. Cyrus was the eldest of eight children born to Robert and Mary Ann McCormick, two of whom died in their infancy.

McCormick’s education was gained in a field school where he was taught the three R’s, geography, and religion. At home he was daily instructed in the Shorter Catechism. Although Washington College (founded in 1782) was located at nearby Lexington, neither he nor any of his brothers received higher education. His constant instruction in the principles of the Bible and Calvinism molded his thought and faith throughout his life. He attended New Providence Church, eight miles from his home, and for several years led the congregation in singing. In 1834, he joined that church. Three years later he moved his membership to the Mount Carmel Presbyterian Meeting House at Steele’s Tavern, it being closer to home.

Both of McCormick’s parents were about five feet, eight inches in height. Cyrus was just under six feet tall. He was of powerful physique. This permitted him to work almost tirelessly in his later years, much to the dismay of associates who were obliged to follow him through the day. He once described himself thus: “My hair is a very dark brown,—eyes dark, though not black, complexion fresh and health good, 5 ft. 11 1/2 inc. high, weighing 200 lbs.”

Much of McCormick’s good health and strong physical condition he attributed to his refusal to drink alcohol and his disdain for smoking tobacco. Even as a youth he abstained from many of the debilitating habits of his peers. In 1857, at the age of forty-eight, he married Nancy Fowler. Before then, he had eschewed feminine companionship, but his new wife entered into his work, serving as a secretary who copied all his letters. Their marriage endured for twenty-six years and produced seven children.

Life’s Work

McCormick’s first reaper was demonstrated on the fields of Walnut Grove. It was a workable horsepowered reaper with a reciprocating cutting blade protected by metal fingers, a reel to bring the grain against the blade, a divider to separate the grain to be cut from the grain in the field, and a platform to catch the felled grain. In 1840, McCormick began to manufacture and sell his reapers locally. His first models exhausted the horses that pulled them, and they were constantly breaking down. So expensive were the repairs that hand reaping still remained the most economical way to harvest. In 1844, seeking increased sales, McCormick visited the Northwest. The large, flat fields of that region proved more conducive to his machinery than the small, rocky fields of Virginia. He moved his manufacturing operations to Chicago in 1847, and by 1850 he was producing McCormick reapers in his own factories.

Harvesting machinery thus became practicable through McCormick’s inventions and those of Obed Hussey, a New Englander, who constructed a successful reaper in Cincinnati and obtained a patent in 1833, a year before McCormick received his; it is quite probable, however, that the latter’s invention preceded Hussey’s. The ensuing rivalry between the two inventors over patents and markets was long, bitter, and led to considerable controversy and numerous court battles.

McCormick’s 1840 machine, in spite of its weaknesses, proved superior to Hussey’s. As sales expanded, his reaper proved revolutionary. With only two men the McCormick machine could do ten times the work of two scythe or cradle harvesters. The reaper’s entrance into the Midwest made extensive wheat growing possible, and it further encouraged frontier migration. William Seward once commented that McCormick pushed the line of civilization westward at least thirty miles per year.

McCormick entered the field of merchandising, and by 1856 more than four thousand McCormick reapers were being sold annually on the installment plan. On the eve of the Civil War, between eighty thousand and ninety thousand reapers were in use, primarily in midwestern farms. McCormick improved the method of harvesting hay. In 1856, he patented a two-wheeled mower with a flexible cutter bar. This permitted operation on rough, uneven ground. By 1860, a variety of types of mowing machines similar to modern mowers were on the market, for it was easy for inventors to make minor alterations to any of McCormick’s machines—a practice that also involved him in numerous patent-infringement suits.

McCormick’s inventions contributed indirectly to the ultimate Northern success in the Civil War, increasing the amount of grain and forage for human and animal consumption. His inventions permitted more men to leave the farm either to go into the army or to the city to work in factories that produced war materiel. The South, with its paucity of factories for civilian consumption, in addition to its hilly, rocky terrain, simply could not produce the necessary quantity of field-grown foodstuff.

McCormick entered the international trade scene with his reaper. He was awarded numerous prizes and medals for this invention, and in 1878, for the third time, he received a grand prize at the French Exposition for his reaping and self-binding machine. The rank of officer in the Legion of Honor was also conferred upon him. At that time 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.” Reverdy Johnson remarked in 1859 that the McCormick reaper alone contributed an annual income of fifty-five million dollars to the whole country.

McCormick’s religious training and discipline remained a part of his entire life. His Calvinistic philosophy was a source of comfort in the midst of his failures, and a beacon of direction through success. The greatest monument to his devotion to the church is the seminary that bears his name: McCormick Theological Seminary, located in Chicago. He stands in the company of men such as John D. Rockefeller, John Wanamaker, Jay Cooke, and W. H. Vanderbilt: successful businesspeople who contributed liberally to the institutions of their respective churches—institutions that now bear witness to their dedicated commitment.

McCormick represented that portion of the Presbyterian Church denominated the “Old School.” His move to Chicago brought him into a strong New School community. His move to that city stirred within him religious pride to the point that he wanted more than merely an Old School congregation in which to worship, he desired a school of the prophets to train men to convert the Northwest to Old Schoolism.

A floundering seminary in New Albany, Indiana, attracted him, and it was primarily because of his beneficence that it was moved to Chicago in 1859. He ultimately endowed the seminary—the Presbyterian Seminary of the Northwest—with $100,000, a figure sufficient to underwrite four chairs. As the shadows of war began to creep across the Presbyterian horizon, none pleaded more than he that the church should not divide. When the war was over, he was in the front ranks of those who called for a reunion of the Old School wings, North and South, rather than a union of the Old School North with the New School, whose doctrinal soundness he questioned. He also contributed generously to several of the institutions of the southern Presbyterian Church in the days of reconstruction, helping them to get back on their feet.

At the Seminary of the Northwest—renamed the McCormick Seminary in 1886—McCormick fought to acquire and retain scholars from the Old School. For a time he appeared willing to tolerate a degree of liberalization within the seminary in order to increase financial support from other sources. When this additional financial support did not materialize, however, McCormick’s financial contributions, and consequently his influence upon the seminary, increased. As a result, the seminary dominated the rapidly growing midwestern portion of the church, and exerted a large, if not decisive, influence on the Church’s theological history at a critical point in the twentieth century. McCormick remained active in the Presbyterian Church until his death on May 13, 1884.

Significance

The genius of Cyrus Hall McCormick lay in his unrelenting dedication to improving his inventions and his personal commitment to the Presbyterian Church; in him, vocation and faith were blended. He revolutionized agricultural economics. He initiated the installment plan, whereby ordinary farmers could afford to buy large machines. He made possible a more rapid expansion of the American drive to the West, and he presented his church with a valuable tool for the conversion of that portion of America. The Shorter Catechism, on which McCormick was nurtured as a youth, begins by asking: “What is the chief end of man?” McCormick’s life was directed by the answer he learned by heart: “To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.”

Bibliography

Brands, H. W. Masters of Enterprise: Giants of American Business from John Jacob Astor and J. P. Morgan to Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey. New York: Free Press, 1999. A collection of profiles of 25 American entrepreneurs. Chapter 3, “Golden Grain,” recounts how McCormick invented the reaper and established a harvesting machine company.

Hounshell, David A. “Public Relations or Public Understanding? The American Industries Series in Scientific American.” Technology and Culture 21 (1980): 589-593. Points out that the article regarding the McCormick Harvesting Machine Co. that appeared in a series of the Scientific American (May 14, 1881) was actually written and paid for as an advertisement.

Hutchinson, William T. Cyrus Hall McCormick. 2 vols. New York: Century, 1930. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1968. The definitive biography of McCormick. Thoroughly documented and based primarily on material in the McCormick Historical Association Library (Chicago).

Loetscher, Lefferts A. The Broadening Church: A Study of Theological Issues in the Presbyterian Church Since 1869. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1957. Discusses the theological developments that emerged following the reunion of the Presbyterian Old School and New School in 1869. Presents McCormick’s efforts to establish in Chicago a seminary grounded on Old Schoolism.

McClure, James G. K. The Story of the Life and Work of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary Chicago Founded by Cyrus H. McCormick. Chicago: Lakeside Press, R. R. Donnelley & Sons, 1929. Traces the history of the McCormick Theological Seminary, emphasizing the role of McCormick in establishing it in Chicago.

McCormick, Cyrus. The Century of the Reaper: An Account of Cyrus Hall McCormick, the Inventor of the Reaper; of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, the Business He Created; and of the International Harvester Company, His Heir and Chief Memorial. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931. As the author admits in his foreword, “It must be obvious that I, his grandson, am not in a position to write a coldly impartial account of his contribution to history.” Written on the occasion of the centennial celebration of McCormick’s invention of the reaper. Weaves together the technological accomplishments with McCormick’s religious propensities. Contains thirty-one illustrations.

Wendel, Charles H. One Hundred Fifty Years of International Harvester. Sarasota, Fla.: Crestline, 1981. A study of McCormick’s business enterprises written to celebrate the sesquicentennial of McCormick’s first reaper and to “show the evolution of the farm implement industry.” Essentially a photographic essay, with a brief biography of McCormick. Contains short accounts of the numerous companies that joined to form the International Harvester Co.