Farmall IH line up at Muskingum County Fair '07

 

  

Wilbur & Betty Rambo's Farmall IH

INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER

The McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, formed by Cyrus Hall McCormick, merged with several other manufacturers and formed the International Harvester Company. They were primarily known for the production of harvesting equipment.  They began experimenting with tractors around 1905.  These tractors were huge, powerful and clumsy and although they were useful for large areas, they did not work well for the small acreage farmer.

A Tractor Company is born. In 1902 after months of negotiations J.P. Morgan and Company purchased both the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company and the Deering Harvester Coompany, along with two smaller harvester companies. Thus The International Harvester Company was created.

International Harvester began building gasoline tractors in 1906, making them the first company in the small tractor business.  The earliest lightweight International Harvester tractors had a friction drive system which gave the tractor a 15 belt horsepower rating.

Two Tractor lines one company. In 1908, International Harvester introduced the Titan model that was sold by Deering dealers and produced at the companies Milwaukee, WI plant.  The company's Mogul line that followed in 1910 was manufactured at the Chicago plant and sold by McCormick dealers. Because of Antitrust regulations that resulted from the 1902 merger International Harvester had to operate several separate entities within its corporation for a few years.

The first attempt at a smaller tractor was the International Harvester's Mogul 8-16 tractor which began rolling out of the Chicago factory in 1914.  The Mogul 8-16 was a simple and easy to operate single-cylinder tractor that was also easy to maintain and repair.  Its price was affordable and it became very popular. The famous letter series tractors, including the A, B, H and M began production in 1939.

In 1919, IHC began experimenting with PTO- equiped International 8-16s, and in 1921, the PTO became available as special order equipment on the International 15-30.  The new McCormick-Deering 10-20 and 15-30 also appeared in 1921, and the PTO was available on both machines.  The Farmall used a PTO as early as 1922, and it became an integral part of the tractor's design.  The next hurdle was standarization of PTO shaft rotation speeds, coupling size, and splining. Under the auspices of the American Society of Agricultural Engineering (ASAE), representatives from tractor manufacturing companies met to attempt to standardize the PTO coupling so that tractors and implements from different manufactores would be interchangeable.  It took about five years to become reality, but by 1931 ASAE had mediated a standard for the PTO and it was being applied to any imaginable implement.  The PTO continued to develop with tractors, eventually shaking our 540.

IH produced many tractors during their reign and were ranked as one of the largest manufactures of farm tractors.  In 1984 IH was purchased by Tenneco and merged with the Case Corporation.