International Harvester: from McCormick's reaper to Farmall tractors and Navistar trucks
Cyrus McCormick showed off his horse-drawn reaper in 1831. Seven decades later his family firm joined Deering and three smaller rivals in a merger financed by J. P. Morgan, creating a Chicago giant later famous for Farmall tractors, Scout vehicles and trucks, until it was broken up in the 1980s.
The Virginia inventor patented his reaper in 1834, and in 1847 he and his brother Leander moved to Chicago to be near the Midwestern grain belt, founding the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company. Railroads were just opening distant markets, and McCormick built a large network to demonstrate machines in the field. After his death in 1884 the business went to his son, Cyrus Jr.
In 1902 McCormick, Deering and the Milwaukee, Plano and Champion-brand makers combined, chiefly to stamp out competition and lift profits. George W. Perkins, a Morgan executive whom McCormick called the most brilliant negotiator he had known, engineered the deal, and the new company was valued at $150 million. By 1908 it was close to a monopoly in reapers, turning out 700,000 harvesters worth $73 million, with 25,000 staff and 42,000 more at local agencies. In 1919 it bought the Parlin and Orendorff plow factory in Canton, Illinois, renaming it Canton Works.
A Farmall plant opened in Rock Island in 1926, and the 100,000th Farmall rolled out by 1930. The 1939 letter series, styled by Raymond Loewy, aimed at the ordinary family farm and let IH lead the market through the 1950s against John Deere, Ford, Massey Ferguson and Allis-Chalmers. During World War II it ranked 33rd among American firms by production contract value, building torpedoes, artillery and shells.
Decline brought a sell-off. Construction equipment went to Dresser Industries in 1982, and in November 1984 farm machinery went to Tenneco's Case, surviving as Case IH under CNH, while the European arm became McCormick Tractors, owned by ARGO SpA. The truck business became Navistar in 1986, Volkswagen agreed to buy it outright in 2020, and in 2024 it took the name International Motors. The old brand still draws a cult following in rural America.
Source: International Harvester
