Reid, Debra A.

English

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Eastern Illinois University
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Faculty Research & Creative Activity History
November 2011
Review: McCormick-International Harvester
Company Collection McCormick-International
Harvester Company Collection by Lee Grady
Debra A. Reid
Eastern Illinois University, dareid@eiu.edu
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Reid, Debra A., "Review: McCormick-International Harvester Company Collection McCormick-International Harvester Company
Collection by Lee Grady" (2011). Faculty Research & Creative Activity. 42.
http://thekeep.eiu.edu/history_fac/42
Special Review Section: 
Corporate Archives
At the suggestion of our editorial board,  The Public Historian has sought to
expand its coverage of the work of our colleagues in the business world. In the
February 2011 issue we offered a special reviews section on corporate pre-
sentations of history. In this issue we extend that coverage to the work of cor-
porate archives. Because the majority of corporate archives are closed to the
public, we offer only a small sampling of this unique form of public history.
In addition to a review of content, we asked our reviewers to address the role
of the public historian in the corporate context and to answer the question,
what might other public historians learn from the efforts of a particular cor-
porate archive?
We hope this special section proves of interest to our readers and spurs
further exploration of the practice of public history beyond the public sec-
tor. We welcome your recommendations for additional archives to review in
future issues.
L.S.
McCormick-International Harvester Company Collection, Wisconsin Histori -
cal Society, Madison, Wisconsin. Lee Grady, archivist. http://www.wiscosin
history.org/ libraryarchives/ihc/
Corporate archives do not normally serve the general public. A notable ex-
ception exists in the McCormick-International Harvester Company Collec-
tion (McCormick-IHC). Anyone can access the rich resources with a click of
their computer keyboard, thanks to the support of McCormick family mem-
bers, McCormick business affiliates, a historian who dedicated his career to
managing the archives, and generous funding from a variety of sources in-
cluding individuals, businesses, special interest groups, and taxpayers. The
massive collection includes more than 12 million manuscript pages, 250,000
photographs, 300 films, and hundreds of artifacts, many of which are exhib-
The Public Historian, Vol. 33, No. 4, pp. 106–116 (November 2011). ISSN: 0272-3433, 
electronic ISSN 1533-8576.
© 2011 by The Regents of the University of California and the 
National Council on Public History. All rights reserved. 
Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the
University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions Web site:
www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10/1525/tph.2011.33.4.106.
106
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ited at Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) sites, specifically Stonefield, which
includes the state’s agricultural museum.
The collection began in 1884 when members of the McCormick family
memorialized Cyrus Hall McCormick, launching an organized effort to doc-
ument him and his contributions to early agricultural implement develop-
ment. By 1915 the family hired a professional, historian Herbert A. Kellar,
to manage what by then had become the McCormick Family Association.
Kellar expanded the collection to more than one million items by 1951. This
includes McCormick family history and genealogy, business records of the
McCormick Harvesting Machine Company (1848–1902), and three compa-
nies that merged with McCormick in 1902 to form the International Har-
vester Company (1881–1984), namely the Deering Harvester Company, Mil-
waukee Harvester Company, and Plano Harvester Company. The business
records include advertising literature, meeting minutes, financial records,  legal
and patent records, and payroll records. 
The collection moved from the private association to the public historical
society in 1951. Kellar curated the collection until his death in 1955 and then
his wife, Lucile, continued in his stead until her retirement in the mid-1960s.
During the late 1980s the Navistar Inter national Transportation Corporation
donated more International Harvester records that ensured an unparalleled
documentation of major changes in agricultural machinery innovation, pro-
duction, marketing, and distribution spanning the 1750s to the 1980s. 
A wide range of researchers will find much of interest in the wealth of in-
formation in the McCormick-IHC Collection. Curators, rural and agricultural
CORPORATE ARCHIVE REVIEWS  107
Herbert A. Kellar and Clifford Lord
(left) in the McCormick Collection,
Wisconsin Historical Society. Image
ID: 28098 (Courtesy of the Wisconsin
Historical Society)
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historians, genealogists, elementary school students, international business-
men, advertising executives, gift shop managers, and museum interpreters can
orient themselves easily. Preservation takes on a sense of urgency with so many
potential users of such a large collection. Finding aids and microfilming helped
collection staff realize the dual goals of preservation and access.1 Digitization
has made access even more seamless. Patrons can peruse more than 30,000
selected items via a digital collection accessible through the Wisconsin Histor-
i cal Society website. They can explore the collection in more depth by perus-
ing 166 descriptive finding aids online, or they can search the entire collec-
tion using ArCat, the historical society’s archival computer catalog. 
108  THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN
1. Microfilm reels facilitated research by cliometricians such as Alan L. Olmstead and Paul W.
Rhode, who analyzed McCormick Reaper Orders and McCormick Reaper Sales books to de-
termine who adopted reapers and how they integrated the machine into farming culture during
the 1850s and 1860s; see “Beyond the Threshold: An Analysis of the Characteristics and Behavior
of Early Reaper Adopters,” Journal of Economic History 55, no. 1 (March 1995): 27–57.
Digitized IHC photographs provide significant information to users, as in this example, showing
men repairing a replica of an 1831 reaper on the set of Romance of the Reaper, a motion picture
by Fox Hearst, filmed c. 1929 and produced by International Harvester to celebrate the Reaper
Centennial. The description includes the complete text of the caption written on the back of the
photograph: “1831 reaper. Replacing grain wheel with skid to correct historical error. Left to right:
L. K. Swendsen, Deering Works expert; Dan Smith, expert from McCormick Works, and H. A.
Kellar.” Location: McCormick’s Walnut Grove Farm, near Steele’s Tavern in Rockbridge County,
Virginia. Image ID: WHi-58595 (Courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society)
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Antique machinery collectors frequently utilize the digital archives. In fact,
their interests in a particular piece of equipment can rival the zeal of geneal-
ogists on the trail of ancestors. Collectors account for a significant number of
visitors to the lobby exhibits, museums, and public holdings of competing agri-
cultural implement manufacturers still in business, such as John Deere. The
McCormick-IHC Collection archivist serves this constituency well, and the
International Harvester Collectors Club provides valuable assistance.
Carefully crafted answers to frequently asked questions help owners and
other researchers find what they need to know to document or restore their
machinery most completely. This includes access to operators’ manuals, parts
manuals, service manuals, photographs, and advertising literature for par-
ticular models. For example, those seeking accurate paint colors for a one-
row Farmall corn picker made in 1930 can access the digitized memo doc-
umenting the IH Paint Committee Decision No. 82, made on June 13, 1930,
to paint specific components of one- and two-row pickers Harvester Blue,
Harvester Red, and Indian Red, and to galvanize and varnish other parts. If
owners have the serial number for an engine, tractor, power unit, truck, or milk-
 ing machine, they can search the digitized lists of serial numbers recorded
monthly at the plants that manufactured the equipment [Deering Works
(1925–1933), Indianapolis and Fort Wayne Works (1934–1944), Louisville
Works (1947–1967), Motor Truck (1928–1966), Tractor Works (1911–1944),
West Pullman Works (1939–1957), Milwaukee Works (1905–1963), and  Farmall
Works (1926–1971)]. 
In addition to the wealth of information on agricultural machinery, engines,
and trucks, International Harvester Company produced domestic technology,
specifically refrigerators, freezers, and air conditioners, between 1947 and
1955. The collection includes advertising information, operator’s manuals, and
photographs of these items. Creative staff increased public awareness of the
domestic line in 2009 by adapting three advertisements of IHC refrigerators
as refrigerator magnets, a use in keeping with the spirit of the original intent. 
The archival collection cannot answer all questions that collectors or other
researchers might have about a specific piece of equipment such as the exact
manufacture date or shipping destination. Researchers can submit requests
for assistance in identifying an IHC product. They must provide a photograph
and part numbers and pay a fee ranging from $12.50 to $17.50 per hour de-
pending on whether the patron is a member of the WHS or not, or lives in
Wisconsin.
The interpretation of evidence in the McCormick-IHC Archives reaches
as wide-ranging an audience as any archival collection could hope to reach.
Teachers who seek to engage their students in primary document research to
fulfill the social science standards in the state of Illinois could point their stu-
dents to the digital archive. There students can read primary and secondary
sources to learn more about McCormick family history and the McCormick
Harvesting Machinery Company as examples of innovation, entrepreneurship,
and economic systems. The best lesson, however, would also have students
CORPORATE ARCHIVE REVIEWS  109
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consult the collections of the McCormick Museum and the First Division Mu-
seum at Cantigny (http://www.cantigny.org/) to learn about Robert R. Mc-
Cormick, who founded the Chicago Tribune and who is actually mentioned
in the Illinois state standards [16.C.2b (US)].
The McCormick-IHC Collection constitutes the largest single collection
that the Wisconsin Historical Society holds. The collection would not exist if
it had not been for the proactive measures taken by the McCormick family
and the long-time service of Herbert A. Kellar. He worked diligently for the
preservation of the family and corporate records that he curated, but he also
advocated for more public interpretation of agricultural history. By June 1919,
Kellar supported formation of a museum to interpret harvesting machinery
and in 1922 he encouraged the Agricultural History Society to publish a guide
to help those developing agricultural museums at the local, regional, and na-
tional levels. Kellar held numerous committee chair and officer positions in
major history and public history organizations including the American His-
torical Association, the Mississippi Valley Historical Association (now the Or-
ganization of American Historians), the Agricultural History Society, the In-
dustrial History Society, and the Economic History Society. He helped found
the Society of American Archivists and took an active role during the early
years of the American Association for State and Local History. He took his
duties to collect, preserve, and interpret history to the general public seri-
ously. The McCormick-IHC Collection exists today because of Kellar’s ded-
ication, the WHS’s allocation of resources, and the enthusiasm of the diverse
audiences who use it.2
Debra A. Reid
Eastern Illinois University
2. Kellar (1887–1955) served as curator (1915–1931) and then director (1931–1951) of the
McCormick Historical Association in Chicago, Illinois. He oversaw relocation of the collection
to the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, Wisconsin in 1951, and continued as its steward
until his death in 1955. “Biography/History [Herbert Anthony Kellar],” Herbert Kellar Papers,
1887–1955, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin; Don R. McNeil, “Herbert An-
thony Kellar,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 39, no. 1 (Autumn 1955), 10; Margaret C. Norton,
“Herbert Anthony Kellar 1887–1955,” American Archivist 19 (April 1956), 151–53; William B.
Hesseltine and Donald R. McNeil, editors, In Support of Clio: Essays in Memory of Herbert A.
Kellar (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1958); Debra A. Reid, “Agricultural Ar-
tifacts: Early Curators, Their Philosophy and Their Collections,” ALHFAM Proceedings 2010,
vol. 33 (North Bloomfield, Ohio: Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Muse-
ums, 2011), 30–52. 
Sears Holdings Archives. Sears, Roebuck and Co., www.searsarchives.com
In the late 1990s, Sears, Roebuck and Co. began to stake out its online pres-
ence. In 1998, the company’s iconic “Wish Book” holiday-gift catalog was
placed online for customers, and early in 1999, it launched its online digital
archive: searsarchives.com. 
The digital archives’ homepage boasts that Sears, Roebuck and Co. has
110  THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN
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Review: McCormick-International Harvester Company Collection McCormick-International Harvester Company Collection by Lee Grady

https://thekeep.eiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1041&amp;context=history_fac

Review: McCormick-International Harvester Company Collection McCormick-International Harvester Company Collection by Lee Grady

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