A small-town American farm boy has given real traction to the fight against food insecurity.
His name was John Fröhlich.
And he helped feed the world with Bob Geldof, Boy George and a host of other celebrities associated with the Christmas hit ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’. Long after the 1980s, one could only imagine, including the efforts of the international community to feed the world.
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All it took was American ingenuity and fossil fuels.
The son of German immigrants, Froehlich (pronounced Freh-lick) invented the gas-powered tractor.
John Froehlich (1849-1933) of Iowa invented the gas-powered tractor in 1892, instantly sparking a worldwide revolution in agriculture. (public domain)
“He was an extraordinary person,” Dennis Schutte, executive director of the Iowa Froelich Foundation and Museum, told FOX News Digital.
“He had a very creative and original mind. He just wanted to make everyone’s lives better.”
His gasoline traction engine, as it was first known, ignited a remarkable increase in agricultural productivity.
“He had a very creative and original mind. He just wanted to make everyone’s lives better.”
Crops became easy to plant and harvest almost instantly. It didn’t take long for the tractors that Froehlich developed in his Iowa grain mills to be used all over the world.
Among other results, farmers no longer had to dedicate valuable land to growing food for the hungry, muscular animals that pulled the plow. As the food supply expanded dramatically, prices and availability declined.
Overproduction will ultimately hurt small farmers. However, increased efficiency and affluence have enabled us to overcome one of humanity’s great crises: hunger.
John Froehlich, an Iowa grain mill owner, invented the first gas-powered tractor in 1892, revolutionizing agriculture. (Fröhlich Tractor Museum)
“Agricultural tractors were arguably one of the most revolutionary innovations in the history of modern agriculture,” said University of California, Davis academics Alan L. Olmstead and Paul W. Lord. This is stated in an academic study on tractors.
The machines “significantly increased the supply of agricultural electricity, improved productivity and reshaped the rural landscape,” they added.
“Always think of a better way”
John Froehlich was born on November 24, 1849 near the village of Ziard in Clayton County, Iowa.
His father, Henri Fröhlich, immigrated from Hesse, Germany, just four years ago. His mother, Kathryn (Guteil), may also have been born in Germany.
John Froelich invented the tractor in 1892 with his employee William Mann at a grain elevator and flour mill they owned in Froelich Village, Iowa. This tractor was named after his family. (Fröhlich Tractor Museum)
John Froehlich was the oldest of their nine children. Tragedy struck the family when his mother died two years after giving birth to their youngest child.
The family persevered through hard work and the faith of their “kind and devout” Methodist father, Schutte said.
“He probably [John] He was a hard worker, very determined and probably very quiet,” she said.
Froehlich, Iowa, is an unincorporated village that still appears on the map.
Schütte said Froehlich had no advanced education other than what he learned at home and in the village school on his farm, but likely had some vocational or mechanical training.
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But, she added, “his brain was always thinking of better ways to do things.”
The small hamlet of the Froelich family (home to about 50 people at the time) became a railroad hub in the early days of the railroad. It was a geographical coincidence that helped change both local and international history.
Schütte said the Frohlich family lived closest to the new train station, so the railroad adopted their name for the whistle stop. Froehlich, Iowa, is an unincorporated village that still appears on the map.
John Froehlich of Iowa tinkered with a gas-powered tractor in his home workshop and took it to the field in 1892. This sparked a revolution in agricultural productivity. (public domain)
The train stop also made the village of Fröhlich a hub for local farmers to transport their grain. Froehlich, like most Iowans, went out into the fields to harvest in the summer and fall.
“Each year during harvest time, he dragged a crew of hired laborers and a heavy steam-powered threshing machine through Iowa and the Dakotas.”
But he was also a business owner. Inspired by his love of machines and mechanics, he operated Froelich His Elevator & Mill, a grain mill with a steam-powered threshing machine near the train station.
A German-American entrepreneur developed an innovation in a grain mill that ushered in a new era in global agriculture.
“Detractors were silenced”
Grains such as wheat, barley, and corn are the basis of civilization. Humans’ discovery that grains could be cultivated encouraged nomadic, hunter-gatherers to gather around the crops they used for food.
That was the birth of agriculture. Peasants gathered in villages, which grew into towns and eventually large cities. Trade, banking, business, art, and civilization as we know it grew around grain.
1916 Interstate Engine and Tractor Company poster, Waterloo, Iowa. Artist unknown. (Print Collector/Getty Images)
For thousands of years, grains have been planted, cultivated, and harvested using the most basic tools: hoes, sickles, grain cradles, and flails, along with the assistance of draft animals such as oxen, mules, and horses. I did.
The first major disruption occurred during the Industrial Revolution with the advent of steam-powered harvesters. Mechanically gifted, Froehlich was eager to take advantage of new technology.
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According to History.com, “Each year, during harvest time, he dragged a crew of hired workers and a heavy steam-powered threshing machine through Iowa and the Dakotas to remove farmers’ crops for a fee. He was threshing grain.”
Steam-powered machines were cumbersome, difficult to operate, and dangerous. Boilers can be fueled by coal or wood, “anything that can be burned,” Schutte said.
The fire needed to power the steam engine was dangerous in the dry summer wheat fields.
“On a windy day, a single spark from a boiler could ignite an entire prairie,” History.com notes.
Two farmers are sitting on a steam tractor. One fills the radiator with water. (Kirn Vintage Stock/Corbis via Getty Images)
“John Fröhlich came up with the idea that a gas-powered tractor could solve these problems,” Schutte said.
Working with longtime employee William Mann, he installed a single-cylinder 16-horsepower Van Deusen gasoline engine into a wood laminate frame and built it by hand at an Iowa grain mill along with the steam engine shaft, gears, and pulleys. I assembled it with Agriculture.
This was the first gasoline-powered tractor capable of both forward and reverse movement. In fact, it was one of the first gasoline-powered cars of any kind.
“Mr. Froelich, his team, and his gas-powered machine threshed 72,000 bushels in just 53 days.”
Froehlich was greeted with the same reaction that many visionaries have felt over the years. People laughed at him.
“His critics were silenced when he successfully used gasoline-powered tractors for threshing throughout the year’s harvest season,” the University of Iowa says in a biography of the agricultural state icon. reported.
Froehlich proved them wrong in a field in Langford, South Dakota, during the 1892 wheat harvest.
“A frail man could thresh approximately 7 bushels (420 pounds) of wheat per day,” reports the website for Living History Farms in Urbandale, Iowa.
Froehlich, his team, and his gas-powered machine threshed 72,000 bushels in just 53 days. This equates to about 1,400 bushels per day.
Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan is pictured directly behind the tractor’s engine behind the wheel of a tractor during a visit to Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Robert Lounsberry’s farm. (Getty Images)
Inspired by that success, Froehlich founded the Waterloo Traction Engine Company in 1893 in Waterloo, Iowa.
Although he left the company after just two years, he sowed the seeds of a wealth of innovation in agriculture.
Mechanized farming, powered by gas and diesel instead of steam, expanded rapidly.
Froehlich’s gasoline traction engine gained its now popular and iconic name in 1906, when farm equipment manufacturer Hartper published an ad promoting its product by combining the words traction and motor .
The word tractor was an instant hit. However, not everyone was immediately interested in the tractor business.
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One questionable Illinois farm equipment company looked at the tractor and thought, “Maybe this is the way to go, but maybe it’s not,” Schutte said.
“The company was already known for its fine plows and various agricultural implements that were pulled behind horses.”
Company founded by John Deere The company overcame its doubts and acquired Waterloo Gasoline Engine Co., a tractor company founded by Froehlich in 1918, for $2.1 million.
“He really fed the world.”
John Froehlich died on May 24, 1933 in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was 83 years old.
After leaving his equipment company in the 1890s, “he moved first to Dubuque and then settled in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he worked as a financial advisor,” the University of Iowa noted.
Tractor tilling prairie soil, South Dakota, Magic Lantern Slide, circa 1910. (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group, via Getty Images)
“He had four children with his wife, Kathryn Bickel, but died in obscurity. Despite his passion for invention, he made little future contribution to agricultural machinery innovation. It seems.”
Born in an Iowa grain mill, the gasoline-powered traction engine is a symbol of this nation’s work ethic and agricultural productivity, in addition to its immeasurable contributions to agriculture and food productivity.
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For example, American farmers rely on tractors to harvest one-third of the world’s corn crop. American corn feeds both humans and livestock and has a variety of industrial uses.
Tractors also play a central role in American pop culture and politics.
Singer-songwriter Jason poses in honor of his song “Big Green Tractor” reaching No. 1 on the country music charts on September 29, 2009 in Nashville, Tennessee. Aldean. (Getty Images for Rick Diamond/BMI)
“She thinks my tractor is sexy,” country singer Kenny Chesney sang at a 1999 concert hit. Jason Aldean shot to the top of the country charts in 2009 with “My Big Green Tractor.”
Ronald Reagan made the tractor part of the common man’s image. He rode in the vehicle for a photo shoot when he was governor of California in the 1960s.
And in 1982, he famously drove a tractor across the Wellies’ Illinois farm to celebrate the lifting of the Carter administration’s grain embargo on the Soviet Union.
Froehlich’s legacy lives on today at the Froehlich Tractor Museum located in the Iowa village that bears his family’s name.
“It was once a thriving community boasting a warehouse, sawmill, blacksmith shop, creamery, post office (still located in the general store), hatchery, stockyards, icehouse, barber shop, shipping warehouse, and church.” Museum There is a note on the website.
John Froehlich invented the gas-powered tractor in 1892 in Iowa.
The Froelich Tractor Museum opens May 11 for the 2024 season.
It attracts curious and appreciative visitors from all over the world, including as far away as Australia.
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“It is difficult to express in words the influence of Froelich tractors,” said Schutte.
“He built machines that made people’s lives easier and food more abundant around the world. He did it right here in our little corner of Iowa. Froehlich truly fed the world. It was.”
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