He ultimately started a factory in Chicago. The McCormick Reaper revolutionized agriculture , making it possible to harvest large areas of grain much faster than could have been done by men wielding scythes. Because farmers could harvest more, they could plant more.
So McCormick's invention of the reaper made the possibility of food shortages, or even famine, less likely. It was said that before McCormick's machinery changed farming forever, families would have to struggle to cut enough grain during the fall to last them until the next harvest.
One farmer, highly skilled at swinging at scythe, might only be able to harvest two acres of grain in a day. With a reaper, one man with a horse could harvest large fields in a day. It was thus possible to have much larger farms, with hundreds or even thousands of acres.
The earliest horse-drawn reapers made by McCormick cut the grain, which fell onto a platform so it could be raked up by a man walking alongside the machine. Later models consistently added practical features, and McCormick's farm machinery business grew steadily. By the end of the 19th century, McCormick reapers did not just cut wheat, they could also thresh it and put it into sacks, ready for storage or shipment.
The American machine was the source of much curiosity. McCormick's reaper, during a competition held at an English farm in July , outperformed a British-made reaper. In the crowds attending the exhibition, the machine from America became a must-see attraction. In the s McCormick's business grew as Chicago became the center of the railroads in the Midwest, and his machinery could be shipped to all parts of the country.
The spread of the reapers meant that American grain production also increased. It has been noted that McCormick's farming machines may have had an impact on the Civil War, as they were more common in the North. And that meant farmhands going off to war had less impact on grain production. In the South, where hand tools were more common, the loss of farm hands to the military had much more impact. In the years following the Civil War the company founded by McCormick continued to grow. When workers at McCormick's factory struck in , events surrounding the strike led to the Haymarket Riot , a watershed event in American labor history.
Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, McCormick derived his interest in invention from his father, a Virginia landowner who patented several improved farming implements and worked without success for many years to perfect a mechanical reaper.
In July , McCormick succeeded where his father had failed, producing a model reaper with all the essential components of later commercial machines. Patenting his invention in , after Obed Hussey had announced in the construction of a reaper of his own, McCormick started to manufacture the machine on the family estate in Six years later he began to license its manufacture in other parts of the country.
Although the McCormick reaper was invented in it did not come into general use until and was a Important invention in the American industrial revolution. One of the important events during his presidency was the invention of the McCormick reaper.
A reaper is a person, or a farming machine, that reaps gathers and cuts crops at harvest, when they are ripe. The McCormick mechanical reaper replaced the manual cutting of the crop with scythes and sickles. The McCormick reaper for kids: Wheat in the North The climate of the Northern states was ideal for the production of wheat.
The early farmers only had wooden plows to break the grass cover and roots of the turf. In Jethro Wood patented an iron-bladed plow then in , John Deere engineered a plow with sharp-edged steel blades that cut cleanly through the sod.
This invention reduced the amount of labor required to prepare an acre for farming by half. However, the invention of the mechanical reaper by Cyrus McCormick, and its use in the Northern states, equaled the importance that the Eli Whitney Cotton Gin and the development of the Samuel Slater cotton mills had made to the Southern States.
The McCormick reaper for kids: What crops are reaped? The grain crops that are reaped include wheat, rye, oats and maize.
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