BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: Waterloo Boy

DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: Waterloo Boy:

Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.

Description of Pictures: Waterloo Boy
Ongoing
In the early 1900s farmers switched from horses to tractors. While much of the world continued to rely on human brawn or draft animals, Americans adopted the new technology of gasoline-powered tractors.
The development and use of gasoline-powered tractors in the early 1900s helped change the business of American farming. Turning away from animal power and labor-intensive production, farmers modernized their rural operations, seeking the efficiency, size, and use of machines typical of urban factories.
The plow and agricultural implement maker Deere and Co. experimented in-house with tractor design in the early 1910s, but got into tractor sales by buying the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Co. in 1918. The investment was a success. By 1936 a whopping 40% of John Deere’s sales came from tractors.

Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific people (or other things) in the pictures which I haven't labeled, please identify them for the world. Or fill in any other descriptions you can. Click the little pencil icon

underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.

Slide Show: Want to see the pictures as a slide show? [Slideshow]

Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!

Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]

Share: Facebook Twitter Digg
[1] SIAHWB_180620_01.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[2] SIAHWB_180620_05.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[3] SIAHWB_180620_16.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[4] SIAHWB_180620_19.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[5] SIAHWB_180620_30.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[6] SIAHWB_180620_37.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[7] SIAHWB_180620_40.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[8] SIAHWB_180620_52.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[9] SIAHWB_180620_58.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
[10] SIAHWB_180620_60.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[11] SIAHWB_180620_67.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[12] SIAHWB_180620_73.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[13] SIAHWB_180620_77.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. SIAHWB_180620_01.JPG: Waterloo Boy tractor, 1918
2. SIAHWB_180620_05.JPG: Icon of Agriculture: The development and use of gasoline-powered tractors in the early 1900s helped change the business of American farming. Turning away from animal power and labor-intensive production, farmers modernized their rural operations, seeking the efficiency, size, and use of machines typical of urban factories. Fuel Versus Feed: Horses eat 365 days a year; tractors consume fuel only when running. Abandoning the use of animal power meant that farmers could grow cash crops on land once used for raising feed. It takes about six acres to grow enough food for a single horse. Innovation: It takes much effort to stay competitive, and often more change to become dominant. Evolutionary biologists call this the "Red Queen Hypothesis," named for the character in Through the Looking Glass. When applied to business, the idea reflects the uncertainty of adopting new inventions. Do US farmers risk bankruptcy to buy new machinery and run twice as fast, or stand still and go with tradition?
3. SIAHWB_180620_16.JPG: Fuel Versus Feed: Horses eat 365 days a year; tractors consume fuel only when running. Abandoning the use of animal power meant that farmers could grow cash crops on land once used for raising feed. It takes about six acres to grow enough food for a single horse. Replacement of horses by tractors on U.S. farms
4. SIAHWB_180620_19.JPG: Innovation: It takes much effort to stay competitive, and often more change to become dominant. Evolutionary biologists call this the "Red Queen Hypothesis," named for the character in Through the Looking Glass. When applied to business, the idea reflects the uncertainty of adopting new inventions. Do US farmers risk bankruptcy to buy new machinery and run twice as fast, or stand still and go with tradition? "... it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" -- The Red Queen
5. SIAHWB_180620_40.JPG: Selling Change: In the early 1900s farmers switched from horses to tractors. While much of the world continued to rely on human brawn or draft animals, Americans adopted the new technology of gasoline-powered tractors, motivated by clever ads, competitive prices, and a desire to be modern. New Technology: The plow and agricultural implement maker Deere and Co. experimented with tractor design in the early teens but got into tractor sales by buying the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Co. in 1918. The investment was a success. By 1936 a whopping 40% of John Deere's sales came from tractors. Competition: As is common with new technology, a large number of early developers competed for a small market. In 1916 nearly 100 manufacturers sold tractors. By the 1930s only two major companies dominated the field: John Deere and International Harvester.
Limiting Text: You can turn off all of this text by clicking this link: [Thumbnails Only]
Multi Column: Number of columns of thumbnails to appear per page (normally defaults to 3): [1 col] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]
AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.) I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
Directly Related Pages: Other pages here that have content directly related to this one: [Display ALL photos on one page]
- 2022_06_30C2_SIAH_Music_HerStory: DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: Music HerStory: Women and Music of Social Change (152 photos from 06/30/2022)
- 2022_06_18D3_SIAH_Belong: DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: We Belong Here: Marking the 50th Anniversary of Title IX (15 photos from 06/18/2022)
- 2022_05_29C4_SIAH_Daves_Dream: DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: Dave's Dream (17 photos from 05/29/2022)
- 2022_04_10D5_SIAH_Big_Money: DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: Really BIG Money (55 photos from 04/10/2022)
- 2022_04_10D2_SIAH_Sense: DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: Discovery and Revelation: Religion, Science, and Making Sense of Things (87 photos from 04/10/2022)
- 2021_DC_SIAH_Upending: DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: Upending 1620: Where Do We Begin? (40 photos from 2021)
- 2021_DC_SIAH_Till: DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: Reckoning with Remembrance: History, Injustice, and the Murder of Emmett Till (41 photos from 2021)
- 2021_DC_SIAH_Pleibol: DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: �Pleibol! In the Barrios and the Big Leagues (160 photos from 2021)
- 2021_DC_SIAH_Picturing: DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: Picturing Women Inventors (51 photos from 2021)
- 2021_DC_SIAH_Only_One: DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: The Only One in the Room: Women Achievers in Business and the Cost of Success (14 photos from 2021)
- ...More (List all 119 pages)...
Sort of Related Pages: Still more pages here that have content somewhat related to this one:
- 2022_04_10D3_SIAH_Muppets: DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: The Muppets Take American History (11 photos from 04/10/2022)
- 2021_DC_SIAH_Muppets: DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: The Muppets Take American History (27 photos from 2021)
Same Subject: Click on this link to see coverage of items having the same subject: [(Smithsonian) American History Museum (Everything)] [(Smithsonian) American History Museum (Non-Events)] [Museums (History)]
2018 photos: Equipment this year: I continued to use my Fuji XS-1 cameras but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000. Trips this year: Civil War Trust conferences in Greenville, NC, Newport News, VA, and my farewell event with them in Chicago, IL (via sites in Louisville, KY, St. Louis, MO, and Toledo, OH), three trips to New York City (including New York Comic-Con), and my 13th consecutive trip to San Diego Comic-Con (including sites in Reno, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Los Angeles). Number of photos taken this year: about 535,000.
Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].