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To expedite sales orders, he used his strategic Midwest location and
the new American rail system to quickly and inexpensively deliver
partially assembled machines to customers, complete with written
instructions for the final assembly that were simple and aided by
numbers painted on parts.
McCormick set his price high and didn’t haggle, but unlike his
competitors, he accepted term payments – a novel idea in the early
1850s when the reaper cost $125 ($3,800, today). The farmer could
deposit $35 plus the cost of freight, with the balance due after the next
harvest was paid. McCormick’s credit loss turned out to be less than
5%. He also offered absolute satisfaction or a return of the money,
which was an unheard-of guarantee for any product, let alone the most
expensive farm implement you could buy. To ensure complete
satisfaction, he offered fast after-sale service from his sales agents and
trained farmers to take care of their machines properly so they would
operate well for a long time.
Knowing that a satisfied customer was his best sales tool, he liberally
used word-of-mouth testimonials in his marketing to help prospects
understand the cost-benefit analysis inherent in the investment, and Image from the 1904 McCormick Division Catalog of the
stayed connected to his customers after the sale by publishing his own International Harvester Company of America
magazine that shared the latest advice on farming.
As a marketer and showman, McCormick also understood the were not far short of $2,000,000; their expenditures in rebuilding will
power of publicity, and sought out participation in contests against be even greater than this amount.”
competitors’ products in front of large crowds. By 1851, McCormick Then—at more than 60 years old and his fortune long since made—
was immortalized worldwide when his reaper successfully harvested a he rebuilt. As noted in the same Chicago Tribune article, “They have
field of green wheat while the Hussey machine (a rival, patented now, however, in process of construction, a new factory, or rather a new
invention of Obed Hussey, an American inventor of another reaper) set of factories, which will enable them [to] manufacture 25,000
failed, and won a Gold Medal at the landmark Great Exposition in machines per annum, more easily than they could turn out 1,500 only
London’s Crystal Palace. That same year, the French government thirteen years ago.” The works covered an area of 21 acres, and the
named McCormick an Officier de la Légion d’honneur. In 1855, buildings contained six acres of floor-room just for production. The
McCormick’s invention won the Grand Medal of Honor at the Paris company also built a 3-story boarding house with fifty cottages for his
International Exposition. workers, along with several other “first-class buildings” within the city.
Soon, the McCormick-brand reaper was known to farmers A testament to McCormick’s determination to create and improve.
throughout the world. In 1878, McCormick was elected a corresponding member of
the French Academy of Sciences “as having done more for the cause
McCormick’s Legacy of agriculture than any other living man.” It was high praise for
In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire gutted McCormick’s factory. this reserved and serious-minded boy from the Shenandoah Valley
According to a Chicago Tribune article published a year later on of Virginia.
October 9, 1872, “Scarcely any other name stood out so prominently By the time of his death in 1884, there were a half-million
in the list of losers by the fire as that of McCormick, and scarcely any McCormick harvesters in operation. In 1902, J.P. Morgan joined The
is so extensively identified with its restoration. The McCormick losses McCormick Harvesting Machine Company with five other companies
to form International Harvester (IH). McCormick’s son, Cyrus, Jr.,
served as its first president. The new company dominated the field until
the 1950s when poor management led to a decline that ended with IH
selling off its farm equipment unit in 1985. When he died in 2006,
then-CEO Brooks McCormick became the last of Cyrus’ descendants
to manage the business.
The Cyrus McCormick Farm, operated by other family members
after Cyrus and Leander moved to Chicago, was ultimately donated to
Virginia Tech, which operates the core of the property as a free muse-
um, and other sections as an experimental farm. A marker memorializ-
ing Cyrus McCormick’s contribution to agriculture had been erected
near the main house in 1928.

“[T]he first Harvesting machine ever used in the township, and we have heard, the
first in Columbia Co[unty], N.Y.” – Photograph of Brother Levi Shaw and a
McCormick Grain Binder at the Shaker Swamp Meadow, North Family, Mount
Lebanon, NY, ca. 1900. The machine, a reaper-binder, or usually just called a
binder, had been invented in 1872 by Charles Baxter Withington. Many
improvements were made by various mechanics before McCormick’s machine
was available in 1884. McCormick’s binder used twine and a knotting mechanism
to tie the grain into sheaves. The sheaves were dropped on the ground to be
gathered into stocks. photos: The Shaker Museum, Mount Lebanon, NY

20 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles