Invention: Reaper Inventor: Cyrus McCormick Year: 1831 Location: Virginia
Background: Agriculture was the main economic activity in the midwest, specifically corn and wheat. An agrarian society was steadily growing as more people moved westward looking for the American dream. Many farmers in the south and the midwest had to harvest their crops by hand with special tools such as the scythe . Harvesting by hand could take hours and reduced the quantity of crops harvested every day.
Cyrus McCormick and six others, worked together to find a way to help farmers harvest their crops at faster rates. McCormick's father original began the work on creating a reaper but soon became frustrated when he could not prefect it, McCormick asked his father's permission to use the original plans as a guide line while working on the reaper. McCormick, and one of his slaves, Jo Anderson, worked together to create a tool that could be drawn by a horse, while cutting the stocks of crops and placing the stocks into a cart.
In 1834, McCormick was officially and finally given a patent for his mechanical reaper. By 1846, McCormick had not sold many reapers in the south and was becoming discouraged that his invention would not be profitable. McCormick met with Senator Stephan Douglas, who convinced McCormick to move his operations to the midwest, were farm lands were flat and in much need of new tools for harvesting. McCormick took the advice and soon, the reaper was being sold to all the farms in the midwest for $120 each.
By 1860, McCormick was selling up to 4000 reapers a year, causing Chicago to become the greatest grain port in the world.
Significance: The reaper increased the amount of crops a farmer could harvest in one setting, which meant, the farmer could in turn plant more crops. In the midwest, wheat became the crop of choice for the farmers. Along with the invention of the reaper, and the nearness of railroads, farmers were able to ship out wheat at faster rates, causing farmers to grow wheat at faster rates which helped boast the economy in the midwest.