Cyrus Hall McCormick

Cyrus Hall McCormick, the Virginia-born industrialist who made a large fortune on the sale of mechanized agricultural equipment, is the subject of this painting by nineteenth-century portraitist Charles Loring Elliott. Cyrus McCormick patented the McCormick reaper that helped mechanize—and revolutionize—the harvesting of grain; however it was his father, Robert McCormick Jr. who actually invented the original machine.