Tractor Wars: John Deere, Henry Ford, International Harvester, and the Birth of Modern Agriculture

Before John Deere, Ford, and International Harvester became icons of American business, they were competitors in a forgotten battle for the farm.From 1908-1928, against the backdrop of a world war and economic depression, these brands were engaged in a race to introduce the tractor and revolutionise farming.By the turn of the twentieth century, four million people had left rural America and moved to cities, leaving the nation’s farms shorthanded for the work of plowing, planting, cultivating, harvesting, and threshing.That’s why the introduction of the tractor is an innovation story as essential as man’s landing on the moon or the advent of the internet - after all, with the tractor, a shrinking farm population could still feed a growing world.But getting the tractor from the boardroom to the drafting table, then from factory and the farm, was a technological and competitive battle that until now, has never been fully told. A researcher, historian, and writer, Neil Dahlstrom has spent