History and Development of International Harvester -- 1976

              acquired by the consolidation were located in or around Chicago. The plant of the Piano Manufacturing Company on Chicago's south side became the Company's West Pullman Works. The Company also established its General Offices in Chicago, where they have remained ever since. In addition, the Deering Company, which had reached the forefront in its field latgely through its manufacturing sagacity, contiibuted to the corporation coal, iron' and timber lands and a steel mill in South Chicago, now Wisconsin Steel Wotks, giving the Company a source of raw materials sufficient to provide for expansion and product diveisification.'
The effect of the merger upon foreign trade became apparent almost immediately. Spurred on by new capital, new resources and a larger organization, the Company's foreign business doubled within five years and within ten had incieased fivefold, with the extension of trade par¬ ticularly effective in Great Britain, Western and Central Europe, Russia, South America and Austtalia. By 1909 factories had been established in several European countries, and sales outlets had been set up in most of the civilized countries of the world. The Harvester Company's world-wide character had become firmly established.
AU the companies enteiing into the original com¬ bination weie engaged in the manufactuie of grain harvesting equipment: binders, hay and corn harvesting machines, and twine, but it was soon realized that the industry's tradition of service to the farmer and the nation, which had begun with the invention of the teaper, could not be maintained solely by fuither development of these machines but must include expansion into all lines of agricultural implements and excursions into types of machinery which were then merely in the planning stage.
Ever sensitive to the needs of the farmer, the directors of the new corporation made plans to incorporate into the Harvester line implements which would seive every purpose of the farm — many of which had not even been drearped of a few years before. It was felt, too, that a more diversified line of products would remove the seasonal character from the harvesting machine business and provide employment on a year-round basis to the thousands of Haivestei factory employes and dealers. The addition of new products would lequire production at a plant duting the periods it was not ordinarily manufactuiing har- vestmg equipment.
The first step in the development of a complete line was the acquisition of the D. M. Osborne Company, at Auburn, New York, which manufactured a line of harvesting and tillage implements designed to meet the eastern trade. Because of its location near the eastern seaboatd the addition of that plant was also in line with the Company's desire to expand its foreign trade. In 1904, the purchase of the Keystone Company at Rock Falls, Illinois, added an historic line of tillage and haying tools.
This factory, subsequently sold, became known as Rock Falls Wotks. About this time the Weber Wagon Works of Chicago became a Harvester property. The Company's line of farm implements became complete with the acquisition in 1918 of steel and chilled plows through the purchase of companies which operated the present Canton Works at Canton, Illinois, and a plant at Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the addition of a line of seeding machines manufactuted at Richmond, Indiana.
During these years, the Company had been rapidly developing and putting into pioduction new lines at its otiginal plants. By 1912, corn binders, ensUage cutters, seeding machinery, harrows and manure spreaders had been added to the catalog of implements offered to Harvestet'dealers. The pioneet light harvesrer-thresher was introduced in 1914; the stationary thresher four years latet.
Throughout this period there was a general tendency to simplify the various lines of traditional harvesting machinery inherired by the Company, tesulting finally in the Company's dropping entiiely the Champion, Osborne and Milwaukee lines of harvesters. Later the two lemaining lines wete merged into one — the McCormick-Deering — with the best features of each pioneer machine retained. Consequently, work was simplified for dealers and the Company's sales and servicing departments. This change also serfed to. concentrate experimentation and attempts at improvement upon one identifying line of machinery.
The gradual broadening of the Company's manu¬ factuiing field has been in complete accord with Cyrus Hall McCormick's original desire to anticipate and meet the farmer's needs. Every new machine developed has been a response to definite needs of agiiculture. This has resulted not only in a constant betteting of the farmer's standatd of living but has also redounded to the advantage of the Company by giving its employes more regular employment and its dealers something to sell at every season of the year.

The Company was identified by the "I.H.C." monogram until adoption, in 1945, of the modern IH symbol.