Overview

How farmers shaped the development of agricultural machinery Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, farmers in the midwestern United States and in Ontario began adopting new agricultural machines: threshers, reapers, and drills for more efficient production of grains, as well as sewing and washing machines for more efficient production within the farm household. By using, maintaining, and altering these machines within the natural and social contexts of their farms, rural people produced new technological systems of industrial agriculture. They also struggled with machine manufacturers and their agents for control of those systems-both individually and through farmers’ organizations. Cultivating Machines contributes to historiographies of capitalism, technology, and agriculture as it demonstrates the importance of everyday know-how and informed tinkering to the mechanization of grain agriculture. In this study, James Rick moves from the middle decades of the nineteenth century, and the introduction of horse-powered machines, to the end of the century, when mechanized technologies became indispensable and central parts of farms themselves. Ultimately, large-scale wheat production, the increased complexity of machines, the need for replacement parts, and the efforts of manufacturers and their agents to assert themselves as authorities over industrial agriculture diminished the technological independence of farming people.

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Reviews

""With deep research and vivid prose, Cultivating Machines tells a compelling story of mechanization and automation in the nineteenth-century American heartland. Students of agriculture, technology, and capitalism will enjoy James Rick’s many contributions, including his spotlight on the essential work of maintenance and repair."" - Andrew L. Russell, provost, SUNY Polytechnic Institute ""The industrialization of agriculture is one of the most important developments in human history. James Rick’s wonderfully written Cultivating Machines sheds new, fascinating light on this story by examining how farmers created, maintained, and repaired the technological systems that made this transition possible."" - Lee Vinsel, associate professor, Virginia Tech

Author Information

James Rick is a scholar of the nineteenth-century United States with particular interest in the histories of agriculture, technology, and the Midwest. He received his PhD in history from William & Mary and teaches in the social studies department at St. John's College High School in Washington, DC.

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