The International Harvester Company (often abbreviated IH or International) was an American manufacturer of agricultural and construction equipment, automobiles, commercial trucks, lawn and garden products, household equipment, and more. It was formed from the 1902 merger of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, Deering Harvester Company, and three smaller manufacturers: Milwaukee; Plano; and Warder, Bushnell, and Glessner (manufacturers of the Champion brand). Its brands included McCormick, Deering, and later McCormick-Deering, as well as International. Along with the Farmall and Cub Cadet tractors, International was also known for the Scout and Travelall vehicle nameplates. In the 1980s all divisions were sold off except for International Trucks, which changed its parent company name to Navistar International.
Given its importance to the economies of rural communities the brand continues to have a cult following. The International Harvester legacy non-profits host some of the largest agriculture related events in the United States.
Following years of financial and economic decline, International began selling its separate equipment divisions, starting with the sale of the construction division to Dresser Industries in 1982. In November 1984 IH finalized a deal with Tenneco to sell the farm equipment division to Tenneco's subsidiary Case Corporation, and the brand continues as Case IH, which is owned by CNH. The European division exists today as McCormick Tractors and is owned by ARGO SpA of Italy. International became solely a truck and engine manufacturer and brand and reorganized as Navistar International in 1986. Throughout its existence International Harvester was headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. In 2020, Volkswagen agreed to fully purchase the remaining shares of Navistar. In 2024, Navistar changed its name to International Motors, LLC.
History
Founding
The roots of International Harvester run to the 1830s, when Virginia inventor Cyrus Hall McCormick perfected his version of a horse-drawn reaper, which he field-demonstrated in 1831 and patented in 1834. He and his brother Leander J. McCormick moved to Chicago in 1847 to be closer to the Midwestern grain fields, and there founded the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company. The reaper sold well, partially as a result of savvy and innovative business practices. Their products came onto the market just as the development of railroads offered wide distribution to distant territories. He developed a vast support network to demonstrate field operations. McCormick died in 1884 and his company passed to his son, Cyrus McCormick, Jr.
In 1902, the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company and Deering Harvester Company, along with three smaller agricultural equipment firms (Milwaukee Harvesting Machine Co., Plano Manufacturing Co., and Warder, Bushnell, and Glessner—manufacturers of Champion brand) merged to create the International Harvester Company. The most important motivation for the merger was the elimination of competition to increase profits. Banker J. P. Morgan provided the financing. The architect of the merger was George W. Perkins, one of the Morgan executives who Cyrus McCormick described as the "most brilliant negotiator he had ever known." The new company was valued at $150 million.
After a few more years of squabbling the young International Harvester became a near monopoly in reapers, and a major factor in many other farm implements. In 1908 it made 700,000 harvesters worldwide, for $73 million. In addition to 25,000 IH employees there were 42,000 working in its local agencies all over the U.S. and parts of Europe.Herbert N. Casson, The Romance of the Reaper, (1908) p 96. online In 1919, IH bought the Parlin and Orendorff factory in Canton, Illinois, a leader in plow manufacturing, renaming it Canton Works.
Sustained success In 1926, IH's Farmall Works built a new plant in Rock Island, Illinois. By 1930, the 100,000th Farmall was produced. IH next set their sights on introducing a true 'general-purpose' tractor to satisfy the needs of the average American family farmer. The resulting 'letter' series of Raymond Loewy-designed Farmall tractors in 1939 proved a huge success. IH dominated the market through the 1950s despite stiff competition from Ford, Allis-Chalmers, Massey Ferguson and John Deere.
IH ranked 33rd among United States corporations in the value of World War II production contracts.Peck, Merton J. & Scherer, Frederic M. The Weapons Acquisition Process: An Economic Analysis (1962) Harvard Business School p.619 Different plants of the corporation produced torpedoes and their components, artillery systems and their parts, artillery shells and some civilian products for the military like bulldozers and truck engines. In 1946 IH acquired a defense plant in Louisville, Kentucky, which was adapted for production of the Farmall A, B, and the new 340 tractors. It acquired the Metropolitan Body Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1948. The commercially successful Metro line of forward control vans and trucks were produced here from 1938 until 1964.
In 1970, Pacific Trucks was purchased. In 1974, the five-millionth IHC tractor, a 1066, was produced at the Rock Island Farmall plant.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, despite good sales, IH's profit margins remained slim. The continual addition of unrelated business lines created a somewhat unwieldy corporate organization. Overly conservative management and a rigid policy of in-house promotion tended to stifle new management strategies and technical innovation. IH faced strong competition and increased production costs, primarily due to labor and government-imposed environmental and safety regulations.
Downfall In 1977, International Harvester named Archie McCardell as its new CEO, who embarked on a strategy to drastically cut costs and improve profit margins. Unprofitable lines were terminated, and factory production was scaled back, resulting in profits reaching their highest levels in ten years by the end of the year, although cash reserves remained low. This strategy led to growing dissatisfaction among union members. In anticipation of labor disputes, IH braced for a strike. On November 1, 1979, just as the company announced a $1.8 million bonus for McCardell, the United Auto Workers called a strike the following day.Loomis, Carol J. "The Strike That Rained on Archie McCardell's Parade." Fortune. May 19, 1980; Friedman, Raymond A. "Interaction Norms as Carriers of Organizational Culture: A Study of Labor Negotiations at International Harvester". Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. 18:1 (April 1989); Zimmerman, Frederick M. The Turnaround Experience: Real-World Lessons in Revitalizing Corporations. New York: McGraw–Hill, 1991. The protracted strike eventually cost the company almost $600 million, equivalent to $ billion in .
By 1981, IH's finances were at their lowest point ever, and investors had lost faith in the company and its management. In 1982, Louis W. Menk, who was a former president and CEO of the Burlington Northern Railroad, was appointed as IH's new chairman and CEO. Under Menk's guidance, IH went through a twenty-month reorganization process, and he hired a new management team. Menk also ensured that IH made necessary cutbacks, and it involved the sale of the company's Payline division of construction equipment to Dresser Industries. Further assets were sold to Tenneco Inc., in 1984.
Following the merger, tractor production at Farmall Works ceased in 1985. Production of the new Case IH tractors moved to J.I. Case in Racine, Wisconsin. Production of IH Axial-Flow combines continued at the East Moline, Illinois, factory. The Memphis Works plant was closed. The truck and engine divisions remained and in 1986, Harvester changed the corporate name to Navistar International Corporation, having sold the International Harvester name to Tenneco. Navistar International Corporation continues to manufacture medium- and heavy-duty trucks, school buses, and engines under the International brand name.
Divisions and products Agriculture Division
The International Harvester Agricultural Division may have been second to the Truck Division but it was the best-known subsidiary. One of its early products was the Traction Engine, a frame manufactured by Morton Traction Truck Company (later bought by IHC) featuring an IHC engine.
From 1902 to the early 1920s, the McCormick and Deering dealerships kept their original branding with Mogul tractors sold by McCormick and Titan tractors at Deering due to the still-present competitiveness of the former rivals.
The early tractors IH produced a range of large gasoline-powered farm tractors under the Mogul and Titan brands. Sold by McCormick dealers, the Type C Mogul was little more than a stationary engine on a tractor chassis, fitted with friction drive (one speed forward, one reverse).Placard at WDM. Between 1911 and 1914, 862 were built. These tractors had varied success but the trend going into the mid-1910s was toward "small" and "cheap".The company's first important tractors were the 10-20 and 15-30 models. Introduced in 1915, they were primarily used as traction engines to pull plows and for belt work on threshing machines. The 10-20 and 15-30 had similar Mogul and Titan versions.
Concurrently, IHC purchased a number of smaller competitors. Parlin & Orendorff (P&O Plow) and Chattanooga Plow were purchased in 1919. Other brand names they incorporated include Keystone, D.M. Osborne, Kemp, Meadows, Sterling, Weber, Plano, and Champion.
In 1924 IH introduced the Farmall, a smaller general-purpose tractor, to fend off competition from Ford Motor Company's Fordson tractors. Farmall was a leader in the emerging row-crop tractor segment.
Following IH's introduction of Farmall, they introduced several similarly styled "F Series" models while continuing to sell the original design as the "Regular."
In 1932, IH produced their first diesel engine for the McCormick-Deering TD-40 crawler. This engine would start on gasoline and then switch to diesel. Other diesel engines of this era were difficult to start in cold weather and using gasoline allowed the engine to thoroughly warm up first. In 1935, it was used in the WD-40, becoming the first diesel tractor on wheels in North America (the world's first diesel tractor was Germany's Benz-Sendling BS 6 in 1922).
Heavy tractors The market for industrial tractors grew in the 1930s. The TD-40, the first of IH's heavy-equipment crawlers, was suited for a wide range of environments. As demand for construction equipment grew, so did the competition. The diversification of the agricultural tractor range into genuine construction equipment whetted appetites for further expansion. In 1937 IH engaged designer Raymond Loewy to revamp its product line and logo. In 1938 the first such model was the TD-65 heavy tractor, later renamed the TD-18.
The letter and standard series
For model year 1939, Raymond Loewy created the styling for the Farmall "letter series" (A, B, BN, C, H, and M) and the McCormick-Deering "standard series" (W-4, W-6, and W-9). For 1941 the MD model was introduced as the first row crop diesel-powered tractor; over a decade later, IH's largest competitor, John Deere, introduced a diesel option on their row crop models. The letter series tractors were updated to the "super" series in 1953 (with the exception of the A, which had become a "super" in 1947, and the B and BN, which were discontinued in 1948). Many of these tractors (especially the largest, the H, M, and W models) are still in operation on farms today. Especially desirable are the diesel-powered MD, WD-6, and WD-9's.
The letter and standard series of tractors was produced until 1954 and was a defining product in IH history.