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McCormick's invention would make him prosperous and famous, but he was a religious young man who believed his mission was to help feed the world. For farmers in the early 19th century, harvesting required a large number of laborers. He set out to reduce the number of hands needed for the harvest. He drew on the work of many other people in developi...

A visit to the Midwest convinced McCormick that the future of his reaper was in that sprawling, fertile land instead of the rocky soil in the East. Following more improvements, he and his brother Leander opened a factory in Chicago in 1847 and sold 800 machines that first year. The new venture, the McCormick Harvesting Machine Co., eventually becam...

McCormick died in 1884, and his eldest son, Cyrus Jr., took over as president at only 25 years old. Two years later, though, the business was marked by tragedy. A workers' strike in 1886 that involved the McCormick Harvesting Machine Co. eventually turned into one of the worst labor-related riots in American history. By the time the Haymarket Riote...

Cyrus McCormick is remembered as “The Father of Modern Agriculture" because he made it possible for farmers to expand their small, personal farms into much larger operations. His reaping machine brought an end to hours of tedious fieldwork and encouraged the invention and manufacture of other labor-saving farm implements and machinery. McCormick an...