John Deere was an American blacksmith and manufacturer who transformed Midwestern farming with the self-scouring steel plow. Having emigrated from Vermont to Grand Detour, Illinois, to escape bankruptcy, he opened a blacksmith shop there in 1837 and fashioned a broken Scottish steel saw blade into a plow whose polished steel surface, unlike traditional iron or wooden plows, shed the region's sticky prairie soil instead of clogging with it. The innovation solved a problem that had held back cultivation of the Midwest's thick prairie sod, and demand grew quickly: the business he founded expanded from around 100 plows a year to more than 200 a month by 1849. The company he started grew into Deere and Company, later the world's largest agricultural machinery manufacturer, and the Smithsonian named his plow design one of the objects that changed American history.
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1. Wikipedia: John Deere (inventor)
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John Deere (February 7, 1804
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May 17, 1886) was an American blacksmith
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was an American blacksmith, businessman, inventor and politician
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(1804-02-07)February 7, 1804
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May 17, 1886(1886-05-17) (aged 82)
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Why did John Deere's steel plow matter for Midwestern farming?
His polished steel plow shed sticky prairie soil, solving the problem that had held back Midwestern cultivation.
Traditional iron or wooden plows clogged with the sticky prairie soil of the Midwest, which had held back cultivation of its thick prairie sod. In 1837, after moving from Vermont to Grand Detour, Illinois, Deere opened a blacksmith shop and fashioned a broken Scottish steel saw blade into a plow whose polished steel surface shed the soil instead of clogging. Demand grew from around 100 plows a year to more than 200 a month by 1849, and the company he started became Deere and Company. The Smithsonian named his plow design one of the objects that changed American history.
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