The John Deere Story: A Biography of Plowmakers John and Charles Deere (2006)

The John Deere Story: A Biography of Plowmakers John and Deere. By Neil Dahlstrom and Jeremy Dahlstrom (DeKaIb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2005. Pp. ix, 204. Illustrated. Cloth, $24.00). In contrast to lengthy and detailed biographies of American business elites published recently, authors Neil Dahlstrom and Jeremy Dahlstrom provide us with lucidly written and concise biography of not just one business leader but two: Deere & Company founder John Deere and his son Charles. The focus of book enables Dahlstroms to keep narrative concise. Rather than define and develop clear thesis about Deeres in relation to company's changing business practices, labor relations, and structure during nineteenth century, Dahlstroms emphasize theme that pervades our contemporary political culture: moral values of company's founder and his son. The authors do not paint detailed and comprehensive picture of Deeres' stewardship of company as would have resulted from researching multiple perspectives embedded in diverse newspapers, labor history documents, and statistical records. Instead, they rely predominantly on reports, correspondence, and news stories housed in Deere & Company archives. The title of book actually refers to company rather than founder, for subtitle refers to both father and son. The narrative, for most part, emphasizes men's vision for company. The authors organize their research in relation to vision they claim shared with his father, vision of company engaged in rather than a ruthless destruction of competitors.''^) The story begins with birth of John Deere in Rutland, Vermont in 1804. Two years later family moved to nearby Middlebury, where Deere's enterprising father and mother established successful tailor shop. Deere's father disappeared mysteriously on trip to England in 1808, leaving Deere's mother to provide for family. John became blacksmith's apprentice at age 17. After learning trade, he left east where supply of blacksmiths was high and moved to Illinois, where rising population on frontier created demand for Deere's skills. He eventually founded business by manufacturing plows with steel blades attached to wood moldboards. (He did not invent first plow as legend has it.) Deere moved from Grand Detour to Moline, which, due to its location on Mississippi River, held potential for expanding markets for agricultural implements. In Moline industrious entrepreneur and his son managed business in good times and bad, father as an inventor and salesman, and son as college-educated marketer of company's growing line of products in late nineteenth century. Like other successful industrialists of his era, attempted unsuccessfully to create trust in order to protect company profits from what he saw as destructive effects of relentless competition. That, according to authors, was Charles Deere's greatest failure(175) but was also the greatest testament to vision he and his father shared. It was his adherence to belief in cooperative partnership . . . that prevented consolidation of trust.(175-6) That consolidation occurred under new leadership in twentieth century. The Dahlstroms provide us with portrait of Deeres as virtuous business leaders, that is, not self-seeking, greedy capitalists, like so many of their counterparts, concerned only with profit, but morally righteous men who managed interests of shareholders, laborers, farmers, and themselves in combined, delicate balance, one that depended entirely on Deeres' virtuous stewardship of Deere & Company. …