We extend a warm thank you to the Iowa State University Center for On-Line Learning
and the Iowa State University Department of History for their support of this project.
From Manpower to Horsepower:
Technological Change in the
Nineteenth Century
Agriculture has always been a labor intensive way of life. From planting and
weeding to harvesting and preparation for the market, farmers performed every
aspect of raising crops by hand. In the nineteenth century however, an era of
improvement came about where farmers, scientists, and inventors worked to
develop new technologies in order to help the farmer work the land with a
lessened need for manual labor, as well making crops more profitable. This
period of rapid change enabled American farmers to produce larger crops more
efficiently.
To illustrate these changes, one need look only at the changes that occurred in the cultivation of America's great crop of the nineteenth century, wheat. The wheat farmer plowed the land and then used a harrow in order to break up clods and even the surface. The farmer then sowed wheat over the land, and again used the harrow to cover the seed with a layer of soil. The most labor-intensive task related to wheat, however, was the harvesting and cleaning of the grain. Harvesting required a farmer to manually cut the plants with either a sickle or a grain cradle. The use of these tools was physically demanding to say the least. Compounding the problem of the tools required to harvest wheat, once the grain ripened there was a small window of time in which to harvest the crop before it became over ripe and the seeds shattered or fell off the plant during harvesting. Once harvested, the wheat was threshed by hand with a flail which separated the seeds from the straw and other undesirable material.
With the advance of technology during the nineteenth century, wheat cultivation required less physical labor yet produced larger yields in bigger fields. Companies designed seed drills and end-gate seeders, devices intended to make planting the crop easier. The largest improvements came in harvesting and threshing. Obed Hussey and Cyrus McCormick both developed working grain reapers in the 1830s. A team of horses pulled the machine through the fields, powering a blade that uniformly cut the grain quickly. Men still needed to follow the machine and bind the crop as it was cut and stack it to dry. As the century progressed, companies modified the reaper to gather and bundle the crop mechanically, further reducing the amount of labor required.
The threshing of wheat also changed over the course of the nineteenth century. Grain was separated originally either through the use of a flail, a wooden shaft with a smaller wooden head attached by a piece of leather or chain, or by treading out, where horses or oxen walked over the grain. As early as the 1840s, inventors such as J. I. Case developed threshing machines designed to separate grain from chaff, the undesirable parts of the plant. Horses walking on treadmills called powers ran these early machines. By the 1850s, many began to experiment with the use of stationary steam engines to power threshers at a more reliable pace. By the turn of the twentieth century, threshing was a task completed by mobile steam engines and threshing rigs that traveled in neighborhoods and regions in order to do custom work, rather than an individual farmer making the substantial investment required to own and operate his own machine.
Perhaps this marks the most important technological development that occurred over the course of the nineteenth century. In 1800 a farmer might utilize livestock, primarily oxen, to pull a plow in the spring or a harvest wagon in the fall. By the 1870s, horses almost universally replaced oxen for power as reapers, mowers, corn planters, and other labor-saving devices reached the fields of the Midwest. Prior to mechanization, it took three hours and forty minutes for a farmer to harvest one bushel of wheat; by the 1880s, the farmer's grandson needed only ten minutes to produce the same bushel. At the same time, the belching smoke of steam engines spelled the eventual end of animal draft power on the farm.
Machines could work more efficiently than animals and did not require crops to feed them or pasture for rest. In 1892, the machine that ultimately ushered in the twentieth century and pushed out animal power was invented. In that year, John Froelich developed the first successful gasoline powered engine. In the course of one hundred years, labor on the farm underwent a period of massive change that continued to evolve as the twentieth century unfolded.
Robert C. Welch
References
Beck, Berton E. "Grain Harvesting in the Nineteenth Century." Pennsylvania Folklife, Volume 23, Number 4 (1974): 43-46.
Bogue, Allan G. From Prairie to Corn Belt: Farming on the Illinois and Iowa Prairies in the Nineteenth Century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963.
The Froelich Foundation. "The Froelich Tractor." http://www.froelichtractor.com/tractor.htm
Hurt, R. Douglas. "Out of the Cradle: The Reaper Revolution." Timeline 3, (October-November, 1986): 38-51.
Olmstead, Alan L. "The Mechanization of Reaping and Mowing in American Agriculture, 1833-1870." Journal of Economic History, Volume 35, Number 2 (June, 1975).
Further Reading
Argersinger, Peter H., and Jo Ann E. Argersinger. "The Machine Breakers: Farmworkers and Social Change in the Rural Midwest of the 1870's." Agricultural History, Volume 58, Number 3 (1984): 393-410.
Barlow, Ronald S. 300 Years of Farm Implements and Machinery, 1630-1930. Iola: Krause Publications, 2003.
Dahlstrom, Neil, and Jeremy Dahlstrom. The John Deere Story: A Biography of Plow Makers John and Charles Deere. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2005.
Danhoff, Clarence H. "The Tools and Implements of Agriculture." Agricultural History, Volume 46, Number 1 (1972): 81-90.
Fee, Art. "Steam Tractors: Monsters That Changed the West." American West, Volume 10, Number 3 (1973): 24-31.
Gies, Joseph. "The Great Reaper War." American Heritage Magazine. Winter, 1990 (Volume 5, Number 3).
Hammer, Kenneth M. "Bonanza Farming: Forerunner of Modern Large Scale Agriculture." Journal of the West, Volume 18, Number 4 (1979): 52-61.
Hurt, R. Douglas. American Farm Tools: From Hand-Power to Steam-Power. Manhattan: Sunflower University Press, 1982.
Miller, Lynn R. Horse-Drawn Tillage Tools. Sisters: Small Farmer's Journal, Inc., 2001.
Midwest Ox Drovers Association. www.modaox.us
Nader, John. "The Rise of an Inventive Profession: Learning Effects in the Midwestern Harvester Industry, 1850-1890." Journal of Economic History, Volume 54, Number 2 (June, 1994).
Olmstead, Alan and Paul W. Rhode. "Beyond the Threshold: An Analysis of the Characteristics and Behavior of Early Reaper Adopters." The Journal of Economic History, Volume 55, Number 1 (March, 1995).
Post, Charles. "The 'Agricultural Revolution' in the United States: The Development of Capitalism and the Adoption of the Reaper in the Antebellum U. S. North." Science and Society, Volume 61, Number 2 (1997): 216-228.
Rikoon, J. Sanford. Threshing in the Midwest, 1820-1940: A Study of Traditional Culture and Technological Change. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988.
Rogin, Leo. The Introduction of Farm Machinery in Its Relation to the Productivity of Labor in the Agriculture of the United States During the Nineteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1931.
Steward, John Fletcher. The Reaper, A History of the Efforts of Those Who Justly May Be Said to Have Made Bread Cheap. New York: Greenberg, 1931.
Tillers International, Inc. www.tillersinternational.org
Van Vleck, Richard. "American Grain Cradles." American Artifacts: Scientific Medical and Mechanical Antiques. http://www.americanartifacts.com/smma/grain/cradle.htm
Wendel, C. H. Encyclopedia of American Farm Implements and Antiques. Second Edition. Iola: Krause Publications, 2004.
Wollenberg, Gale. "Steam Power and Horse Power: The Men and Their Machines in the Washington County Area, Specifically Hollenberg and Lanham Communities, Kansas." Journal of the West, Volume 30, Number 2 (1991): 101-107.
To illustrate these changes, one need look only at the changes that occurred in the cultivation of America's great crop of the nineteenth century, wheat. The wheat farmer plowed the land and then used a harrow in order to break up clods and even the surface. The farmer then sowed wheat over the land, and again used the harrow to cover the seed with a layer of soil. The most labor-intensive task related to wheat, however, was the harvesting and cleaning of the grain. Harvesting required a farmer to manually cut the plants with either a sickle or a grain cradle. The use of these tools was physically demanding to say the least. Compounding the problem of the tools required to harvest wheat, once the grain ripened there was a small window of time in which to harvest the crop before it became over ripe and the seeds shattered or fell off the plant during harvesting. Once harvested, the wheat was threshed by hand with a flail which separated the seeds from the straw and other undesirable material.
With the advance of technology during the nineteenth century, wheat cultivation required less physical labor yet produced larger yields in bigger fields. Companies designed seed drills and end-gate seeders, devices intended to make planting the crop easier. The largest improvements came in harvesting and threshing. Obed Hussey and Cyrus McCormick both developed working grain reapers in the 1830s. A team of horses pulled the machine through the fields, powering a blade that uniformly cut the grain quickly. Men still needed to follow the machine and bind the crop as it was cut and stack it to dry. As the century progressed, companies modified the reaper to gather and bundle the crop mechanically, further reducing the amount of labor required.
The threshing of wheat also changed over the course of the nineteenth century. Grain was separated originally either through the use of a flail, a wooden shaft with a smaller wooden head attached by a piece of leather or chain, or by treading out, where horses or oxen walked over the grain. As early as the 1840s, inventors such as J. I. Case developed threshing machines designed to separate grain from chaff, the undesirable parts of the plant. Horses walking on treadmills called powers ran these early machines. By the 1850s, many began to experiment with the use of stationary steam engines to power threshers at a more reliable pace. By the turn of the twentieth century, threshing was a task completed by mobile steam engines and threshing rigs that traveled in neighborhoods and regions in order to do custom work, rather than an individual farmer making the substantial investment required to own and operate his own machine.
Perhaps this marks the most important technological development that occurred over the course of the nineteenth century. In 1800 a farmer might utilize livestock, primarily oxen, to pull a plow in the spring or a harvest wagon in the fall. By the 1870s, horses almost universally replaced oxen for power as reapers, mowers, corn planters, and other labor-saving devices reached the fields of the Midwest. Prior to mechanization, it took three hours and forty minutes for a farmer to harvest one bushel of wheat; by the 1880s, the farmer's grandson needed only ten minutes to produce the same bushel. At the same time, the belching smoke of steam engines spelled the eventual end of animal draft power on the farm.
Machines could work more efficiently than animals and did not require crops to feed them or pasture for rest. In 1892, the machine that ultimately ushered in the twentieth century and pushed out animal power was invented. In that year, John Froelich developed the first successful gasoline powered engine. In the course of one hundred years, labor on the farm underwent a period of massive change that continued to evolve as the twentieth century unfolded.
Robert C. Welch
References
Beck, Berton E. "Grain Harvesting in the Nineteenth Century." Pennsylvania Folklife, Volume 23, Number 4 (1974): 43-46.
Bogue, Allan G. From Prairie to Corn Belt: Farming on the Illinois and Iowa Prairies in the Nineteenth Century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963.
The Froelich Foundation. "The Froelich Tractor." http://www.froelichtractor.com/tractor.htm
Hurt, R. Douglas. "Out of the Cradle: The Reaper Revolution." Timeline 3, (October-November, 1986): 38-51.
Olmstead, Alan L. "The Mechanization of Reaping and Mowing in American Agriculture, 1833-1870." Journal of Economic History, Volume 35, Number 2 (June, 1975).
Further Reading
Argersinger, Peter H., and Jo Ann E. Argersinger. "The Machine Breakers: Farmworkers and Social Change in the Rural Midwest of the 1870's." Agricultural History, Volume 58, Number 3 (1984): 393-410.
Barlow, Ronald S. 300 Years of Farm Implements and Machinery, 1630-1930. Iola: Krause Publications, 2003.
Dahlstrom, Neil, and Jeremy Dahlstrom. The John Deere Story: A Biography of Plow Makers John and Charles Deere. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2005.
Danhoff, Clarence H. "The Tools and Implements of Agriculture." Agricultural History, Volume 46, Number 1 (1972): 81-90.
Fee, Art. "Steam Tractors: Monsters That Changed the West." American West, Volume 10, Number 3 (1973): 24-31.
Gies, Joseph. "The Great Reaper War." American Heritage Magazine. Winter, 1990 (Volume 5, Number 3).
Hammer, Kenneth M. "Bonanza Farming: Forerunner of Modern Large Scale Agriculture." Journal of the West, Volume 18, Number 4 (1979): 52-61.
Hurt, R. Douglas. American Farm Tools: From Hand-Power to Steam-Power. Manhattan: Sunflower University Press, 1982.
Miller, Lynn R. Horse-Drawn Tillage Tools. Sisters: Small Farmer's Journal, Inc., 2001.
Midwest Ox Drovers Association. www.modaox.us
Nader, John. "The Rise of an Inventive Profession: Learning Effects in the Midwestern Harvester Industry, 1850-1890." Journal of Economic History, Volume 54, Number 2 (June, 1994).
Olmstead, Alan and Paul W. Rhode. "Beyond the Threshold: An Analysis of the Characteristics and Behavior of Early Reaper Adopters." The Journal of Economic History, Volume 55, Number 1 (March, 1995).
Post, Charles. "The 'Agricultural Revolution' in the United States: The Development of Capitalism and the Adoption of the Reaper in the Antebellum U. S. North." Science and Society, Volume 61, Number 2 (1997): 216-228.
Rikoon, J. Sanford. Threshing in the Midwest, 1820-1940: A Study of Traditional Culture and Technological Change. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988.
Rogin, Leo. The Introduction of Farm Machinery in Its Relation to the Productivity of Labor in the Agriculture of the United States During the Nineteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1931.
Steward, John Fletcher. The Reaper, A History of the Efforts of Those Who Justly May Be Said to Have Made Bread Cheap. New York: Greenberg, 1931.
Tillers International, Inc. www.tillersinternational.org
Van Vleck, Richard. "American Grain Cradles." American Artifacts: Scientific Medical and Mechanical Antiques. http://www.americanartifacts.com/smma/grain/cradle.htm
Wendel, C. H. Encyclopedia of American Farm Implements and Antiques. Second Edition. Iola: Krause Publications, 2004.
Wollenberg, Gale. "Steam Power and Horse Power: The Men and Their Machines in the Washington County Area, Specifically Hollenberg and Lanham Communities, Kansas." Journal of the West, Volume 30, Number 2 (1991): 101-107.