BEHOLD - THE GLEANER!

Hardly a year went by before Curtis left Baldwin Brothers and went to work in 1919 for the Savage Harvester Company in Colorado to help develop a tractor-mounted combine.  Only 25 units were built before Savage was bought out by Advance-Rumely Thresher Company.  Curtis and family then moved to LaPorte, Indiana.  While with Rumely, Curt Baldwin was credited with designing a self-propelled combine mounted on Rumely’s large kerosene-burning Oil-Pull Tractor.

The Gleaner patent application was filed in 1924 by
George Baldwin, John Michaels and Cal Stevens  

George and Ernest Baldwin – along with Cal Stevens and George Michaels – had remained in Wichita, also working on a self-propelled combine.  Theirs would be built around the popular  Fordson tractor. There’s speculation that Curtis collaborated with his brothers during this time.  His frequent visits back to Kansas suggest that such an arrangement may have existed.  In any event, the Baldwin brothers finished assembling their own tractor-mounted combine dubbed the “Gleaner,” after the famous Jean-Francois’ Millet 1857 painting.  Their 1924 patent application was filed by Cal Stevens, George Baldwin, and John Michaels.  “Gleaner” turned out to be a catchy and descriptive name for the machine – and quite durable.

In 1924, Curtis Baldwin left Advance-Rumely to rejoin his brothers back in Kansas to establish the “Gleaner Manufacturing Company.”  He told the Kansas City Star that the Gleaner would “effect a startling reduction in the cost of harvesting and threshing wheat.  The cash outlay for harvesting and threshing will be 10 cents an acre.  The machine, 11 feet wide and 14 feet long, so arranged that a small tractor, for which it is especially designed, can be bolted behind the cutting blades.” 

The Gleaner could be operated by just one man.   It was designed for the Fordson Model-F tractor, perhaps the most popular tractor of the day, due to its small size and affordability.  The Gleaner cut a swath of 8 ft. 3 in. and featured an auger instead of canvas to carry grain to the threshing cylinder, and the down front cylinder put the threshing closer to the crop.

“The machine weighs less than one ton,” he told the Star. “It can be sold at a price which will not be prohibitive to the smaller farmer.”  The quoted cost was $850 – without the tractor.

Stephen Hugh Hale 

By January 1925, the Baldwins contracted with Butler Manufacturing in Kansas City to build at least 200 of the “Gleaners” by spring.  

The growing popularity of the Gleaner encouraged an infusion of capital from Kansas businessman Stephen “Hugh” Hale, who was installed as chairman of the Gleaner Manufacturing Co. board with banker William J. Herman as president. Hale was a native Missourian who had made his fortune in southern Kansas with oil and gas leases.  He was recognized as a shrewd businessman. Curtis Baldwin – some 20 years younger than Hale – was named vice-president and general manager.  

By May 1925, Gleaner Manufacturing bought an old tool plant in Independence, Missouri, and moved its headquarters there from Wichita.  With the harvest season almost upon them, and a projected need for nearly 2,200 Gleaners in 1926, Gleaner Manufacturing announced they would expand and take over full production from Butler by late summer.

Gleaner Manufacturing couldn't keep up with
demand when the Gleaner was first produced in 1926

Although Baldwin was general manager, business dealings were the domain of Hale and Herman.   Baldwin, ever the inventor, pushed for production of a new 10-foot pull-type combine, which he dubbed the “Baldwin Gleaner.” 

The company – experiencing cash flow problems due to acquisition and expansion of facilities in Independence – found it difficult to meet production demands.   Some 640 Gleaners were built for the 1926 season, but unsold inventory was valued at more than $33,000.  The company realized a net loss of $33,619.  Hugh Hale was unhappy and demanded re-organization.  It resulted in Hale’s new “Gleaner Combine Harvester Corporation” assuming control of Gleaner Manufacturing on December 30, 1926. 

When the board still refused to build Curt Baldwin’s new pull-type Baldwin Gleaner combine, he quit.

Long-time Baldwin associates Will Herman and Cal Stevens also left, joining the Baldwin brothers in selling out to Gleaner Combine Harvester Corporation for “several hundred thousand dollars,” a tidy sum in those days.

III.  DEPRESSION ERA