The Mechanized Harvester in Imperial Germany: The Cultural Biography of a Single Transatlantic Commodity (2009)
Shealy, Gregory P. (Author)
University of Wisconsin at Madison
Koshar, Rudy
Edition Details: Advisor: Koshar, Rudy
Physical Details: 481 pp.
Language: English
This dissertation explores the expansion of North American mechanized harvester manufacturers into Germany in the years before the First World War. In an effort to compete with the low cost of foreign wheat, many Germany's farmers adopted the mechanized harvester at astonishingly rapid clip. This dissertation explores interactions and tensions between German consumer and foreign manufacturers by charting the path of the machine throughout its commodity life. Specifically, it relates how the harvester was designed, advertised, exhibited, financed, sold. In the process, this dissertation advances broad arguments. First, the mechanized harvester is an object allowing one to chart a wide array of economic and cultural anxieties held by different individuals in the Kaiserreich's countryside as revealed by the everyday economic interactions. In particular it focuses on consumer patriotism and farmer's reaction to the being increasingly enmeshed in global networks of trade and exchange. Second, it is wrong to assert that rural Wilhelmine Germany lacked a mass consumer culture or was not enmeshed in the global, industrial marketplace. It was instead the target of incredibly sophisticated sales and advertising campaigns by some of the America's largest multinational companies. These companies introduced methods of advertising, distribution, and corporate organization that would not be common elsewhere in Germany for decades. Third, it rejects the notion that corporations imposed American systems of agriculture and consumer culture on Germany. Individual Germans--whether they were farmers, salesmen, or agriculturalists--exerted tremendous agency in directing the path of the American multinationals as well as shaping the commodities presented to them. Germans took the lead role of informing the American conglomerates of the Germany's unique social, cultural, and physical environments. The "Americanization" of German field management and the intrusion of American agricultural firms could not have happened without this cooperation. The harvester is an artifact allowing one to chart these broad, seemingly disparate themes into a history of everyday interaction between farmers, repairmen, dealers, and advertisers.
...MoreDescription Cited in ProQuest Diss. & Thes. . ProQuest Doc. ID 305033387.
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