100 Entrepreneurs Who Changed The World
19. Cyrus McCormick 1809-1884
“Equal prices to all and special rebates to none.”
Cyrus McCormick was an American farmer and inventor. His invention, the mechanical reaper, transformed agriculture and allowed for much greater crop yields. It dramatically reduced the labor needed to harvest a field, dramatically increasing the food a farmer could produce and the profits he would see. Prior to McCormick’s horse-drawn reaper, the only tool available for such a task was a hand held scythe, a method which had remained unchanged for over 5000 years. Cyrus’s father, Robert McCormick had worked on inventing a mechanical reaper for over two decades, but was never successful. Cyrus took up his father’s endeavor and was successful, patenting his reaper in 1834.
