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Article: McCormick Reaper
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
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McCORMICK REAPER
McCORMICK REAPER.
The machine with which the name of Cyrus Hall McCormick has always been associated had many inventors, notably Obed Hussey, who patented his machine in 1833, a year before the first McCormick patent. Hussey's machine was the only practicable one on the market before 1840. It was the McCormick reaper, however, that invaded the Midwest, where the prairie farmer was ready for an efficient harvester that would make extensive wheat growing possible. In 1847 McCormick moved from the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, where the first machine was built, to Chicago.
Perhaps, as his biographer contends, McCormick (or his father, Robert McCormick) did most ...