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INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER COMPANY

INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER COMPANY. To solve bitter competition among farm machinery manufacturers, Cyrus McCormick Jr., son of the inventor of the reaper, spearheaded the 1902 consolidation of the industry's leading companies, including the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company; Deering Harvester Company; Plano Manufacturing Company; Warder, Bushnell and Glessner Company; and Milwaukee Harvester Company. Capitalized at $120 million, the merger acquired other concerns as its lines diversified. The federal government brought action against the company, and in 1914 the Supreme Court found the company an illegal combination under the SHERMAN ANTITRUST ACT and ordered division of the company's property among independent corporations (United States v. International Harvester Company, 214 U.S. 987).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

McCormick, Cyrus H. The Century of the Reaper: An Account of Cyrus Hall McCormick, the Inventor of the Reaper. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931.

Sullivan, E. Thomas, ed. The Political Economy of the Sherman Act: The First One Hundred Years. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Roger Burlingame/ C. W.

See also Agricultural Machinery; Antitrust Laws; McCormick Reaper.