McCormick Reaper
Cyrus McCormick, USA, patent of 1834. The machine that turned grain farming industrial.
Overview
McCormick patented his horse-drawn reaper and built Chicago's largest factory on it. The 1851 Crystal Palace exhibit dazzled Britain. Rival Obed Hussey's competing patents triggered decades of litigation, ending in an 1848 interoperable truce. Reaper productivity pushed labor off farms into factories, feeding industrial cities. The McCormick fortune founded the dynasty behind International Harvester. His mechanical reaper is still the textbook case of agricultural patent leverage.
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