In 1979, Gleaner released its first rotary combine, the N6. Gleaners continued to be manufactured at the same factory, in Independence, Missouri, after the acquisition. The Gleaner line augmented (and later superseded) the All-Crop Harvester line, and for several years Gleaner's profits made up nearly all of Allis-Chalmers' profit. Acquiring Gleaner meant that it would also be a leader in self-propelled machines, and it would own two of the leading brands in combines. Allis was the market leader in pull-type (tractor-drawn) combines, with its All-Crop Harvester line. It also represented a great gain for Allis-Chalmers. This represented commercial renewal for Gleaner with the production and marketing success of various new models and technologies. In 1955, Allis-Chalmers acquired Gleaner. During World War II, the factory converted its production to war materiel.īy the late 1940s and early 1950s, other farm equipment manufacturers were offering increased competition to Gleaner, having introduced their own versions of self-propelled combines. The pair, along with other investors, brought the company back to profitability and maintained ownership until 1955. William James Brace acquired the company with his son-in-law, George Reuland. Texas and Oklahoma dust storms have a way of peeling paint off of machinery." As a result of the silver color of the zinc plating, the Gleaner brand ended up having a distinctive color (just as Allis had Persian Orange, IH had red, and John Deere had green), despite the sheet metal not even having any paint.ĭuring the Great Depression, owing mostly to the collapse of the farm economy and the Dust Bowl, the Baldwins' company entered bankruptcy in the 1930s as equipment sales plummeted. As Buescher said, "Baldwin reasoned that most of his combines would sit outdoors. The Gleaner's exterior sheet metal was galvanized (zinc plated), providing superior weather resistance. The bearings were chosen with service in mind: large and good quality (to obviate failure) and of common sizes (so that the operator could carry a small stock of spares in his truck, and have the size needed when a replacement became necessary). Buescher said, "Since custom cutters didn't know where their next parts supply source would be, Baldwin designed his combine so that it wouldn't need parts." (Buescher's tongue-in-cheek point is that the machines were designed and built well so that need for repairs would be minimal.) The frame was "like a bridge" in its strength. The grain header did not need to be detached for transit, because it fit over the cab of the truck. The short wheelbase and axle track allowed the combine to fit on a truck. It resulted in machines that were reliable and useful, which benefited not only custom cutters but anyone who bought a Gleaner. Buescher (1991) credited the design principally to one of the brothers, Curt Baldwin, and explained that it focused on the needs of custom cutters like the Baldwin brothers themselves: contractors who move north with the harvest season, providing harvesting services to farmers. They were often considered the "Cadillac" of the industry because of this feature and because of their solid engineering. The Gleaner was one of the pioneers in self-propelled combines. It had a retail price of USD $950 FOB at the factory in Nickerson. The original Gleaner design was mounted on a Fordson Model F. Earlier combines, the so-called pull-type or tractor-drawn combines, were towed by tractors. To that list, the Baldwin brothers' Gleaner added self-propulsion. A combine harvester combines the reaping (plus or minus binding), threshing, and winnowing functions into one machine, hence the "combine" part of its name. Thus, with the Gleaner name, the company evoked a positive connotation in potential customers' minds, of a brand of harvester that would leave none of the grain behind.
In the broadest sense, it is the act of frugally recovering resources from low-yield contexts.
Gleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops from farm fields after they have been commercially harvested, or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest. They decided to use the "Gleaner" name for their radically redesigned grain harvesting machine based on inspiration from " The Gleaners", an 1857 painting by Jean-François Millet. Gleaner combines date from 1923, when the Baldwin brothers of Nickerson, Kansas, created a high-quality and reliable self-propelled combine harvester. JSTOR ( August 2021) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message).Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.įind sources: "Gleaner Manufacturing Company" – news Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. This article needs additional citations for verification.
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