Article ID: CBB001320831

Producing a Past: McCormick Harvester and Producer Populists in the 1890s (2014)

unapi

During the 1880s and 1890s the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company created a brand based upon Cyrus H. McCormick's supposed invention of the mechanized reaper in 1831. The company's "prestige of priority" functioned to break the industry price-slashing deadlock of the "reaper wars" while assuaging populist criticism directed at their company as a parasitic monopoly. Its interpretation of the past reimagined McCormick as a heroic producer-inventor from the farm, who freed successive generations of agrarians from toil and enabled their rise to civilized affluence. This brand modified the producer-populist "labor theory of value" to create a "technological surplus value ideology," which framed invention as productive labor. The firm's initiative to mold McCormick heritage into recognized national history through advertising, sales agents, exhibitions, and ultimately a campaign to have McCormick Senior's image printed on federal currency, left the brand susceptible to competing claims on the past from the company's competitors.

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Authors & Contributors
Metz, John D.
Feeley, Lynne
Van Lanen, Amanda
Saffell, Cameron
Russell, Peter A.
Matz, Brendan A.
Concepts
Agriculture
Farmers
Farms
Agricultural technology
Labor and laborers
Industrial agriculture
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
18th century
Places
United States
Germany
Southern states (U.S.)
Arkansas (U.S.)
Georgia (U.S.)
Eastern Europe
Institutions
Bureau of Plant Industry (United States)
United States. Office of Indian Affairs
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