WHEN MAYTAG MEANT QUALITY FARM PRODUCTS

By Staff
Published on September 1, 1976
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Manager Public Relations Activities, The Maytag Company, Newton,
Ohio 50208

It is doubtful that a farmer in the last decade of the 19th
century would have agreed with the frivolous label ‘Gay
Nineties.’

The mechanical wonders and labor-saving devices of today were
far from reality in the 1890s. Hard work and long hours typified
the farmer’s life and the labor frequently was dangerous. Field
workers of that period knew the dangers of hand-cutting on bundles
of grain and feeding grain into the whirling cylinders of big
threshing machines.

Frederick Louis Maytag, a farm youth, was conscious of threshing
dangers and, while working in the lumber business in Newton in
1892, he watched G. W. Parsons experiment with and build a band
cutting and self feeder attachment. Implement companies had failed
in many experiments to find a practical attachment of this
type.

Mr. Maytag assisted in the first test of this machine in the
autumn of 1892 and in February, 1893, Mr. Parsons invited him to
cooperate in the further development and marketing of this new
product.

Company is Formed

In March, 1893, the Parsons Band Cutter and Self Feeder Company
was formed with a capital of $2,400. Four men, each with one-fourth
of the stock, comprised the firm. W. C. Bergman was elected
president and manager; A. H. Bergman, vice-president; F. L. Maytag,
secretary and G. W. Parsons was named to direct production.

Manufacture of this thresher accessory was a first. It was the
first product of its kind to be produced and it was the first in a
long line of products that were first in their field.

During the first year of operation, Skow Brothers of Newton were
contracted to manufacture 150 attachments and later, an additional
50 feeders. About 100 were condemned or discarded by the users as
unsatisfactory and the season ended in serious financial
losses.

A Marketing Lesson

Years later, Mr. Maytag recalled that during the first
disasterous year, ‘We learned that nothing was actually
‘sold’ until it was in the hands of a satisfied user, no
matter if it had been paid for.’

He pointed out that, ‘For the first year, nobody gave his
entire attention to the company’s affairs. Each was busy at a
regular bread-and-butter occupation and was obliged, for financial
reasons, to handle his part of the new enterprise as a
sideline.’

Although first-year success eluded the four enterprising men,
they remained confident and optimistic. Mr. Maytag assumed fulltime
management of the business and offices were opened in the Newton
Opera House block. The abandoned 30 by 40 ft. Newton Stove Works
building was purchased as a factory. Losses from the first year
were made good following a successful second year of operation
during which 286 machines were built, sold and delivered.

Within a few years 28 different concerns were purchasing and
selling the Parsons Band Cutter and Self Feeder as an essential
part of their threshing machines. Improvements in the product were
made and in March, 1895, the first office building, 16 by 24 ft.
was built.

The Inventive Mr. Snyder

A young man in the growing organization, Howard Snyder, drew Mr.
Maytag’s attention because of his unusual aptitude in servicing
feeders and his ideas about the operation of the machine.

In the years that followed, Howard Snyder’s inventive
ability resulted in many ‘firsts’ in the Maytag line. One
of his early inventions was a corn husker and shredder, called the
Success. It was the first such machine to have combination husking
and snapping rolls and it handled dry, wet or frozen corn stalks,
thus eliminating the need to wait for favorable weather to perform
this chore.

Other farm equipment was developed as the company progressed and
its leadership was not challenged for 10 years. Then an opponent,
the Ruth Self Feeder, appeared on the market. After thorough
investigation, Mr. Maytag purchased the machinery and rights from
the Halstead, Kansas, company and incorporated the feeder into the
Maytag line. For years it was marketed as the Maytag Ruth Self
Feeder.

Consolidation and Expansion

The Parsons Band Cutter and Self Feeder Company built the Ruth
Feeder, the Parsons Feeder and the Parsons ‘White Wings’
Swinging Elevator Feeder and other farm accessories. Mr. Parsons
developed another company – the Parsons Hawkeye Manufacturing
Company – to manufacture another feeder, the Parsons Hawkeye, and
other products.

In 1909 an announcement was made. The original company and the
Hawkeye firm had consolidated and the new concern was to bear the
name of the man who headed it- The Maytag Company.

Several years prior to the combination of the companies, Maytag
ingenuity had been put to work on a project to make washday easier
for the farm housewife and homemakers everywhere.

The rub-a-dub-dub laundry tune was on its way out and the
washboard was about to be relegated to a role as a musical
instrument. Sweeter washday music was to be provided by a wooden
tub and hand crank on the first Maytag washer introduced in
1907.

Here are a couple of pictures of a four-wheel drive that I built
in 1949 from two Plymouth rear ends and a 1946 Ford engine and
transmission. It is a 5 x 5 x ? angle iron frame. The front axle
was of the oscillating type so all four wheels would always be on
the ground even though it was on rough ground. Steering was with
hydraulic brakes, one master cylinder for each side. It handled so
well that it was a pleasure to operate.

It pulled two 16′ plow bottoms, 7′ deep, with ease.

When I sold out due to health reasons, I sold it to a man in
Lakeville where it was used to clean off snow around town. The last
time I saw it, it was being used to pull a drag to smooth out a ski
slope called Buck Hill, just north of town. I wish I had it
back.

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