The plowmaker to the world

1857 — 1920s

A plow that crossed every ocean: James Oliver's chilled plow, patented from this ground in 1857, became the city's second great export good. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers' landmark account of the chilled plow gives the early measure: "By 1878, more than 170,000 Oliver chilled moldboard plows were being used around the world," and the works built on Oliver Plow Court in 1876 "became one of the world's largest plow manufacturing plants." The company's own catalog copy of the era says the same thing in the company's voice, and is printed as such: the Oliver "has become a household word, and its fame has extended to foreign lands, in many of which it is a staple article of trade." The machinery that carried the trade was the branch house: the National Register nomination for the company's Richmond, Virginia branch house describes the system James Oliver and his son built — branch houses that "allowed for the storage and shipping of the Indiana-based company's innovative plows to retailers," all "manufactured at the company's main South Bend, IN, plant," a network that under father and son "expanded through its 'branch houses' to cover the nation and reach a world market." The firm took for its slogan "Plowmaker to the World," and the record reached supports the substance if not the superlative: specialized models were made for different soils and sections, sales spread internationally through the branch-house system, and production at South Bend ran until 1985.

No foreign Oliver factory appears in the record reached — the world market was served from this one plant, through the branches — and the largest single foreign order in the company's history came not from a farmer but from a government, as the next entry records. The inventor and the patent wars are carried in the Inventors section; the firm in Businesses.

Sources:

1. Invention & Technology (American Society of Mechanical Engineers landmark account), "The Oliver Chilled Cast-Iron Plow" — more than 170,000 Oliver plows in use around the world by 1878; the 1876 works among the world's largest plow plants; production 1876–1985.
2. Oliver Chilled Plow Works, illustrated catalog (Iowa State University digital collections) — "its fame has extended to foreign lands, in many of which it is a staple article of trade," printed as the company's own copy.
3. Virginia Department of Historic Resources, National Register nomination, Oliver Chilled Plow Works Branch House, Richmond (127-6914) — the branch-house distribution network, all goods manufactured at the South Bend main plant, expanded "to cover the nation and reach a world market."
4. Inventors & Inventions and Businesses — the patent record and the firm in full, cross-referenced and not retold here.