The McCormick Harvesting Company Started life building reapers in 1847 in Chicago. The company merged with Deering in 1902 to form the International Harvester Company (IHC). A number of products were branded as McCormick-Deering.
The roots of International Harvester can be traced back to the 1830s, when Cyrus Hall McCormick, an inventor from Virginia, finalized his version of a horse-drawn reaper. The reaper was demonstrated in tests in 1831 and was patented by Cyrus in 1834. Together with his brother, McCormick moved to Chicago in 1847 and started the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company. The McCormick 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 market areas. He developed marketing and sales techniques, developing a vast network of trained salesmen able to demonstrate operation of the machines in the field.
McCormick died in Chicago, with his company passing on 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; Plano; and Warder, Bushnell, and Glessner (manufacturers of Champion brand)) merged together to create the International Harvester Company (IHC).
The McCormick-Deering tractors were renamed to just McCormick, which continued in Europe. In the USA, the tractors were later renamed International.
International Harvester sold off the Ag division in 1985 and later renamed the company. The Agricultural devision being bought by Tenneco, parent to J.I.Case, thus combining them to form Case IH tractor division and Case CE division for construction plant.
Case IH then decided to merge with Fiat's New Holland subsidiary to form CNH. This lead to the competition authorities in several countries ruling that for the merger to proceed they had to sell some production capacity in certain markets. The result was the Versatile factories in in Canada building high horse power machines were sold as the Steiger brand was retained. And in Europe the former International Harvester factory at Doncaster was sold along with some of the Case IH models built there and re branded as McCormick Tractors International Ltd owned by ARGO SpA of Italy, parent company of Landini.