7 The 100 Most Influential Inventors of All Time 7mower. When McCormick’s basic patent expired in 1848,
competing manufacturers—Hussey among them—tried
to block renewal. The ensuing legal battle was but one of
many in McCormick’s career. He was involved in endless
litigation not only with rival manufacturers and infringers
but also with the New York Central Railroad, which he
sued for $20,000 damages following an altercation over
an $8.75 overcharge on his wife’s baggage. He fought this
particular case up to the Supreme Court three times—
and won, even though it took 20 years. He did not win
his 1848 patent renewal battle, however. Except for
improvements on the reaper patented after 1831, the basic
machine passed into the public domain. McCormick then
set out to beat his manufacturing competitors another
way: by outselling them.
Pockets stuffed with order blanks, McCormick rode
over the plains selling his reaper to farmers and would-be
farmers. To increase sales, he used innovations such as mass
production, advertising, public demonstration, warranty
of product, and extension of credit to his customers. Soon
the factory expanded, and the company had a traveling
sales force. By 1850 the McCormick reaper was known in
every part of the United States, and at the Great Exhibition
of 1851 in London it was introduced to European farmers.
Although mocked by the Times of London as “a cross
between an Astley Chariot, a wheelbarrow, and a flying
machine,” the reaper took the Grand Prize. In 1855 it won
the Grand Medal of Honour at the Paris International
Exposition. There followed a long series of prize honours
and awards that made the McCormick reaper known to
farmers throughout the world.
By 1856 McCormick was selling more than 4,000
machines a year. In the 1858 account of his marriage to
Nancy (Nettie) Fowler, the Chicago Daily Press referred
to him as the “massive Thor of industry.” Business did not