Cultivating Machines: The Use and Maintenance of Technology in Midwestern Agriculture, 1845–1900 (New Approaches to Midwestern History)
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How farmers shaped the development of agricultural machineryThroughout 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. Read more
Publisher : Ohio University Press
Publication date : October 21, 2025
Language : English
Print length : 284 pages
ISBN-10 : 0821426591
ISBN-13 : 93
Item Weight : 14.4 ounces
Dimensions : 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #2,612,728 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #676 in Machinery Engineering (Books) #6,168 in Evolution (Books) #7,624 in Agricultural Science (Books)
#676 in Machinery Engineering (Books):
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