Mechanical Reaper (Edited from Wikipedia)
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Mechanical Reaper (Edited from Wikipedia) SUMMARY A reaper is a farm implement or person that reaps (cuts and often also gathers) crops at harvest, when they are ripe. Usually the crop involved is a cereal grass. All mechanical reapers cut the grass; most also gather it. Modern machines that not only cut and gather the grass but also thresh its seeds (the grain), winnow the grain, and deliver it to a truck or wagon it are called combine harvesters or simply combines; they are the engineering descendants of earlier reapers. Hay is harvested somewhat differently from grain; in modern haymaking, the machine that cuts the grass is called a hay mower or, if integrated with a conditioner, a mower- conditioner. As a manual task, cutting of both grain and hay may be called reaping, involving scythes, sickles, and cradles, followed by differing downstream steps. Traditionally all such cutting could be called reaping, although a distinction between reaping of grain grasses and mowing of hay grasses has long existed; it was only after a decade of attempts at combined grain reaper/hay mower machines (1830s to 1840s) that designers of mechanical implements began resigning them to separate classes. Mechanical reapers substantially changed agriculture from their appearance in the 1830s until the 1860s through 1880s, when they evolved into related machines, often called by different names (self-raking reaper, harvester, reaper-binder, grain binder, binder), that collected and bound the sheaves of grain with wire or twine. Today reapers and grain binders have been largely replaced by combines in commercial farming, but some smaller farms still use them. HISTORY The 19th century saw several inventors in the United States claim innovation in mechanical reapers.The various designs competed with each other, and were the subject of several lawsuits. Obed Hussey in Ohio patented a reaper in 1833, the Hussey Reaper. Made in Baltimore, Maryland, Hussey's design was a major improvement in reaping efficiency. The new reaper only required two horses working in a non-strenuous manner, a man to work 1 the machine, and another person to drive. In addition, the Hussey Reaper left an even and clean surface after its use. The McCormick Reaper was designed by Robert McCormick in Walnut Grove, Virginia. However, Robert became frustrated when he was unable to perfect his new device. His son Cyrus asked for permission to try to complete his father's project. With permission granted, the McCormick Reaper was patented by his son Cyrus McCormick in 1837 as a horse-drawn farm implement to cut small grain crops. This McCormick reaper machine had several special elements: • a main wheel frame • projected to the side a platform containing a cutter bar having fingers through which reciprocated a knife driven by a crank • upon the outer end of the platform was a divider projecting ahead of the platform to separate the grain to be cut from that to be left standing • a reel was positioned above the platform to hold the grain against the reciprocating knife to throw it back upon the platform • the machine was drawn by a team walking at the side of the grain. Cyrus McCormick claimed that his reaper was actually invented in 1834, giving him the true claim to the general design of the machine. Over the next few decades the Hussey and McCormick reapers would compete with each other in the marketplace, despite being quite similar. In 1861, the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued a ruling on the invention of the polarizing reaper design. It was determined that the money made from reapers was in large part due to Obed Hussey. The commissioner of patents declared that Hussey's improvements were the foundation of their success. It was ruled that the heirs of Obed Hussey would be monetarily compensated for his hard work and innovation by those who had made money from the reaper. It was also ruled that McCormick's reaper patent would be renewed for another 7 years. Although the McCormick reaper was a revolutionary innovation for the harvesting of crops, it did not experience mainstream success and acceptance until at least 20 years after it was patented by Cyrus McCormick. This was because the McCormick reaper lacked a quality unique to Obed Hussey's reaper. Hussey's reaper used a sawlike cutter bar that cut stalks far more effectively than McCormick's. Only once Cyrus McCormick was able to acquire the rights to Hussey's cutter-bar mechanism (around 1850) did a truly revolutionary machine emerge. 2 Other factors in the gradual uptake of mechanized reaping included natural cultural conservatism among farmers (proven tradition versus new and unknown machinery); the poor state of many new farm fields, which were often littered with rocks, stumps, and areas of uneven soil, making the lifespan and operability of a reaping machine questionable; and some amount of fearful Luddism among farmers that the machine would take away jobs, most especially among hired manual laborers. Another strong competitor in the industry was the Manny Reaper by John Henry Manny and the companies that succeeded him. Even though McCormick has sometimes been simplistically credited as the [sole] "inventor" of the mechanical reaper, a more accurate statement is that he independently reinvented aspects of it, created a crucial original integration of enough aspects to make a successful whole, and benefited from the influence of more than two decades of work by his father, as well as the aid of Jo Anderson, a slave held by his family. CYRUS MCCORMICK Cyrus McCormick was born on February 15, 1809 in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. He was the eldest of eight children born to inventor Robert McCormick, Jr. (1780– 1846) and Mary Ann "Polly" Hall (1780–1853). As Cyrus' father saw the potential of the design for a mechanical reaper, he applied for a patent to claim it as his own invention. He worked for 28 years on a horse-drawn mechanical reaper to harvest grain; however, he was never able to reproduce a reliable version. Cyrus took up the project. He was aided by Jo Anderson, an enslaved African American on the McCormick plantation at the time. Cyrus McCormick held one of his first demonstrations of mechanical reaping at the nearby village of Steeles Tavern, Virginia in 1831. He claimed to have developed a final version of the reaper in 18 months. The young McCormick was granted a patent on the reaper on June 21, 1834, two years after having been granted a patent for a self- sharpening plow. However, none were sold, because the machine could not handle varying conditions. The McCormick family also worked together in a blacksmith/metal smelting business. The panic of 1837 almost caused the family to go into bankruptcy when a partner pulled out. In 1839 McCormick started doing more public demonstrations of the reaper, but local farmers still thought the machine was unreliable. He did sell one in 1840, but none for 1841. 3 Using the endorsement of his father's first customer for a machine built by McPhetrich, Cyrus continuously attempted to improve the design. He finally sold seven reapers in 1842, 29 in 1843, and 50 in 1844. They were all built manually in the family farm shop. He received a second patent for reaper improvements on January 31, 1845. Moving Out West As word spread about the reaper, McCormick noticed orders arriving from farther west, where farms tended to be larger and the land flatter. While he was in Washington, DC to get his 1845 patent, he heard about a factory in Brockport, New York, where he contracted to have the machines mass-produced. He also licensed several others across the country to build the reaper, but their quality often proved poor, which hurt the product's reputation. In 1847, after their father's death, Cyrus and his brother Leander (1819–1900) moved to Chicago, where they established a factory to build their machines. At the time, other cities in the midwestern United States, such as Cleveland, Ohio, St. Louis, Missouri, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, were more established and prosperous. Chicago had no paved streets at the time, but the city had the best water transportation from the east over the Great Lakes for his raw materials, as well as railroad connections to the farther west where his customers would be. When McCormick tried to renew his patent in 1848, the US Patent Office noted that a similar machine had already been patented by Obed Hussey a few months earlier. McCormick claimed he had really invented his machine in 1831, but the renewal was denied. William Manning of Plainfield, New Jersey had also received a patent for his reaper in May 1831, but at the time, Manning was evidently not defending his patent. McCormick's brother William (1815–1865) moved to Chicago in 1849, and joined the company to take care of financial affairs. 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 markets. McCormick developed marketing and sales techniques, developing a wide network of salesmen trained to demonstrate operation of the machines in the field, as well as to get parts quickly and repair machines in the field if necessary during crucial times in the farm year. In 1851, McCormick traveled to London to display a reaper at the Crystal Palace Exhibition. After his machine successfully harvested a field of green wheat while the Hussey machine failed, he won a gold medal and was admitted to the Legion of Honor.