Misplaced Pages

Cyrus McCormick Jr.
1900 portrait of McCormick
Born	Cyrus Hall McCormick Jr. (1859-05-16)May 16, 1859 Washington, D.C.
Died	June 2, 1936(1936-06-02) (aged 77) Chicago, Illinois
Burial place	Graceland Cemetery
Occupation	Businessman
Spouse	Harriet Bradley Hammond ​ ​(m. 1889)​
Children	3
Parent(s)	Cyrus Hall McCormick Sr. Nancy Fowler
Relatives	McCormick family
Signature

Cyrus Hall McCormick Jr. (May 16, 1859 – June 2, 1936) was an American businessman. He was president of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company from 1884 to 1902. His tenure was marked by bitter conflict with the union, culminating in the death of two striking workers on May 3, 1886, the event which precipitated the Haymarket affair.

Life and career

McCormick was the eldest child of inventor Cyrus Hall McCormick Sr. and philanthropist Nancy Fowler. He was born in Washington, D.C., on May 16, 1859. McCormick married Harriet Bradley Hammond on March 5, 1889. They had three children – Cyrus Hall McCormick III was born September 22, 1890; Elizabeth McCormick was born July 12, 1892; and Gordon McCormick was born June 21, 1894.

He was president of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company from 1884 to 1902. In 1885, striking workers forced McCormick to restore a 15 percent wage cut. From then on, McCormick was set on breaking the union. He replaced iron molders, skilled workers who had led the 1885 walkout, with new machinery. In February 1886, he locked out workers, replacing them with non-union labor (“scabs”), under the protection of 300 armed Pinkertons. On May 3, 1886, a clash occurred between striking workers and scabs. The police fired into the crowd of unarmed workers, wounding many and killing two. It was in response to this incident, that the Haymarket meeting of May 4, 1886 was called. McCormick was later president of the merged International Harvester Company starting in 1902. He was also a member of the Jekyll Island Club (aka The Millionaires Club) on Jekyll Island, Georgia.

McCormick's daughter, Elizabeth, died at the age of twelve; in 1908, her parents established the Elizabeth McCormick Memorial Fund, which supported child health and welfare efforts in Chicago and nationwide for many years. Physician and public health advocate Caroline Hedger worked for the fund from 1920 to 1942.

On June 2, 1936, McCormick died in Chicago and was buried at Graceland Cemetery. His brother Harold Fowler McCormick was the husband of Edith Rockefeller. McCormick's son Cyrus Hall McCormick III wrote a history of his grandfather's life and times, his company, and the successor company.

Family tree

See also

• McCormick reaper

References

1. "A Brief Biography of Cyrus Hall McCormick, (1809-1884)". Wisconsin Historical Society. October 3, 2012. Retrieved February 8, 2019.
2. Avrich, Paul (1984). The Haymarket tragedy. Princeton, N. J: Princeton university press. ISBN 978-0-691-04711-9.
3. ^ "Cyrus M'Cormick Dies". The Kansas City Star. Chicago. June 2, 1936. p. 9. Retrieved November 19, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
4. Leander James McCormick (1896). Family record and biography. L.J. McCormick. p. 305.
5. Avrich, Paul (1984). The Haymarket tragedy. Princeton, N. J: Princeton university press. ISBN 978-0-691-04711-9.
6. "Cyrus Hall McCormick". Wisconsin Historical Society. Archived from the original on March 19, 2012. Retrieved August 26, 2007.
7. "About The Resort". Jekyll Island Club Resort. Retrieved February 8, 2019.
8. https://www.cct.org/2019/07/a-daughters-legacy-a-lasting-impact-for-chicago-children/ "A Daughter's Legacy, A Lasting Impact for Chicago Children", Lorca Jolene, July 16, 2019, Chicago Community Trust
9. McCormick, Cyrus (1931). The Century of the Reaper. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Further reading

• Aldrich, Lisa J. Cyrus McCormick and the mechanical reaper (2002), for middle schools; online
• Casson, Herbert. Cyrus Hall McCormick: His Life and Work (1909) popular biography online.
• McCormick III, Cyrus Hall. The Century of the Reaper (1933), popular history online
• Messer-Kruse, Timothy. "Strike or anarchist plot? The McCormick riot of 1886 reconsidered" Labor History, (2011) 52(4), 483–510. https://doi.org/10.1080/0023656X.2011.632552
• Rosenberg, Chaim M. The International Harvester Company: A History of the Founding Families and Their Machines (McFarland, 2019). online, popular history with emphasis on family ties..
• Sobel, Robert (1974), "Cyrus Hall McCormick : From Farm Boy to Tycoon", The Entrepreneurs: Explorations Within the American Business Tradition, New York: Weybright & Talley, pp. 41–72, ISBN 0-679-40064-8.

• Steward, John, and Arthur Pound. The Reaper: A History of the Efforts of Those Who Justly May Be Said to Have Made Bread Cheap (New York: Greenberg, 1931), popular.

• Thwaites, Reuben Gold. Cyrus Hall McCormick and the reaper (State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1909) online, brief scholarly history

• Winder, Gordon M. "A trans-national machine on the world stage: representing McCormick's reaper through world's fairs, 1851–1902" Journal of Historical Geography (2007) 33#2 pp.352-376.

External links

• McCormick Family Financial Records at the Newberry Library

• 1859 births
• 1936 deaths
• McCormick family
• 19th-century American businesspeople
• Philanthropists from Illinois
• Burials at Graceland Cemetery (Chicago)