Title: Warshaw collection of business Americana - agriculture
Description: The agricultural trade literature subsection of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana at the National Museum of American History Archives, digitized and made searchable here, creates a resource of unparalleled breadth for students of the history of American agriculture, technology, business history, and advertising during the long nineteenth century. Included are the catalogs and advertising ephemera of nearly 600 manufacturing firms or distributors of agricultural machinery and farm implements, replete with woodcuts and engraved illustrations, technological description, price lists, and merchandising copy that identifies the unique contributions of those who invented and refined the tools that mechanized farming in the United States. According to the historian Carroll Pursell, in the year 1800 over 80 percent of the American people were occupied in agriculture, a sphere of production that was "still largely a hand operation, lightened only by the use of horses or oxen in certain limited, though important, tasks such as hauling and plowing" (p. 109). One hundred years later a large percentage of the agricultural process was mechanized and powered in most cases by horses and oxen, with steam, electricity, and internal combustion available for use by those who were ready to take the leap forward.
Subjects: Agriculture, Art dealers, Advertising
Places: United States