Talk:Cyrus McCormick

comments
Small joke found in compilations of student history reports. "The McCormick raper did the work of 100 men." --Jmccorm 06:01, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

This article needs to be broadened if not reorganized because the information is all into paragraphs and is not sectioned off. - OttOO —Preceding undated comment added 14:41, 19 December 2006

McCormick
Is it mentioned about the castle-like structure he built in Pennsylvania. I know you might not believe this, but it's true. The house he built in 1810 in Marion Center, PA, is my current home. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Unknown Interval (talk • contribs) 03:05, 7 August 2007


 * Even more amazing since he was only a year old at the time! Probably nonsense. W Nowicki (talk) 04:30, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

labor to cities
"The invention of the reaper made farming far more efficient, and resulted in a global shift of labor from farmlands to cities."

This needs more explanation, it's probably at least partially true, but without some more background it verges on meriting a fact template. --babbage 16:38, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Does it end here??
Say, are all the McCormicks dead??

Eenyminy 03:51, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Patent Denied?
History International's program on harvesters in the "Modern Marvels" series states that McCormick was denied a patent in 1848, presumably because the US Government did not want so important a product in limited production. However, if that were the case, other manufacturers could have paid royalties to McCormick. Anybody have more info? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.223.6.208 (talk) 21:28, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Not a good idea to "presume". Also television shows tend to at least compress the truth into the short time they have. My guess is that they are mentioning one of the many court challenges, of which more mention is needed. For example, Obed Hussey who patented a reaper before McCormicks (was not as a good a self-promoter). W Nowicki (talk) 04:28, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Reapist, not Rapist
In the notes section —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.193.164.236 (talk) 06:15, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Manny/Lincoln
The Manny/Lincoln factoids are interesting, to be sure. But I'm not sure if that much side- information is really relevant and encyclopedic -- in the article about Cyrus McCormick. (24.68.250.200 (talk) 17:46, 17 May 2010 (UTC))
 * Agreed. That section, tangential to McCormick, should be trimmed way back. MarmadukePercy (talk) 17:48, 17 May 2010 (UTC)


 * "Tangential" is an understatement. The section, aside from the fact of the suit itself and McCormick's loss is completely irrelevant to McCormick. Even Lincoln's involvement is irrelevant as Lincoln had no bearing on the outcome. Furthermore, it contains a lot of subjectively written narrative. The whole bit should be moved into Lincoln article.

Alex.deWitte (talk) 20:57, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Edward Nicholl Dickerson the very famous patent attorney from NYC who defended Samuel Colt and Goodyear - his middle initial is not M dispite the incorrect use of M frequently by others in the past.

W. M. Dickson is the Cincinnati attorney, not "Dickerson" but Dickson - both easily confirmed from primary sources.

This section on McCormick would be an article unto itself linked by the names of the various participants - here it is more about Lincoln than McCormick —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.59.154.14 (talk) 20:15, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Some qualified person should remove or greatly truncate the section about Lincoln and the Manny case. It has virtually nothing to do with McCormick.Jdcrutch (talk) 15:13, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Worse yet, it seems to be a total plagerism of http://www.lib.niu.edu/1995/ihy950230.html an article in February 1995 Illinois History magazine. Will summarize. W Nowicki (talk) 21:50, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Last words

 * His last words, before passing into unconsciousness, were "It's all right. It's all right. I only want...."

I have not been able to verify this, and it conflicts with other sources that say his last words were "work, work". So I will remove it. [added later] I was able to get this book from archive.org. However, it does not have elipses but the sentence is "I only want Heaven". Still conflicts with Casson. Either way, not sure this is apropriate for a modern encyclopedia. W Nowicki (talk) 21:08, 18 January 2011 (UTC)


 * W, it's all nonsense, since it is almost certainly apocryphal, as most stories of this nature are. Try to focus on substance and spell "plagiarism" correctly. Alex.deWitte (talk) 04:09, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Seven Children
The article states; "On January 26, 1858 he married Nancy Fowler (1835–1923), better known as "Nettie".[20] They had seven children:" Only six are listed. Who was "the black sheep of the family"? ```Buster Seven   Talk  00:47, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Given the era, it's likely this seventh child died young, and is therefore unnamed.-- Auric    talk  02:23, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Point understood. But if you check the other McCormick family pages, they name deceased young children. Ill do some research and see what turns up. ```Buster Seven   Talk  02:32, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Cyrus Hall McCormick was famous for inventing the mechanical reaper. Could you add in more about some thing like that. Also, this article need an area for kids like me, 10, which I use this website a lot. For everything really, Thanks! :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.52.11.208 (talk) 18:36, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

More cleanup needed
I passed the Cyrus McCormick Farm yesterday and upon returning home noticed this article needed lots of cleanup, for which I really don't have the time. However, especially since I benefitted from access to the International Harvester archives as a student, I squeezed in some revisions this morning.Jweaver28 (talk) 12:48, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Santa Domingo, a questionable reference, and credit
As of 2020-07-13 I perceive multiple problems with the current verbiage:

Santa Domingo
The current "Activism" section includes the following:


 * He also supported efforts to annex Santa Domingo into the United States.

I don't know of any place called "Santa Domingo". There is a city called "Santo Domingo", which is the capital and largest city in the Dominican Republic.

A further brief search for this identified:


 * https://books.google.com/books?id=lPIB100VVuoC&pg=PA163&lpg=PA163&dq=cyrus+mccormick+santo+domingo&source=bl&ots=uOfhszRUWR&sig=ACfU3U1OkH3-nv2zkLmJsnD-oZf6B82oXQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjRn-mZzMnqAhUVHM0KHV5mDlEQ6AEwCXoECA0QAQ#v=onepage&q=cyrus%20mccormick%20santo%20domingo&f=false

This says that McCormick invested money in a project that "explored the Dominican Republic with rather misleading results -- they denied, for example, that it contained any yellow fever and estimated that at least half of its land was public domain".

I'm deleting that sentence for several reasons. First, this makes me wonder if this exploration was honest. If it wasn't, was McCormick aware of the dishonesty. Or was he only a passive investor and may himself been victimized by the people who did it. If the latter, it's not notable and doesn't belong in this article unless it materially affected his life. If you think it belongs, it needs a better reference AND some indication that McCormick was more than a passive investor.

encyclopedia.jrank.org
I found the following immediately following the reference to "Santa Domingo":


 * Beginning in 1872, McCormick served a four-year term on the Illinois Democratic Party's Central Committee.

That reference is to:



This sends me to a web page that says it "provides totally FREE access to several encyclopedias" but doesn't mention McCormack. It may have worked when that link was added to this article. It doesn't today.

I'm NOT deleting the reference to "encyclopedia.jrank.org", but it doesn't direct to where it may have when it was created. I'll leave this for someone else.

inventing credit
I read years ago that one of the keys to McCormick's success was that he in effect invented credit: He realized that the farmers could make more money and pay for his reaper if they had it. I don't know if this is accurate. If it is, I think it would be great to have documentation of how it worked as part of this article.

Sadly, I'm overwhelmed with other commitments at the moment and don't feel I should devote more time to this. I'm writing this in the hopes that someone more familiar with McCormick will either dispel my error or confirm it and modify the article appropriately.

Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 14:45, 13 July 2020 (UTC)


 * David, this article gives some details of how he extended credit to farmers: https://www.investors.com/news/management/leaders-and-success/cyrus-mccormick-mechanical-reaper-revolutionized-farming/


 * Really, you didn't have time to google that? It took less than 5 seconds for me to find that. 2601:281:D480:47F0:9827:C96C:E76A:81F2 (talk) 13:42, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Jo Anderson
The lede mentions that Jo Anderson had a role in developing the mechanical reaper, but the article gives no further details about this.

If he really had a significant role, please add details to the article.

If not, delete: Wikipedia is not a place for racism. 2601:281:D480:47F0:9827:C96C:E76A:81F2 (talk) 13:37, 31 July 2022 (UTC)