The Maytag Company: From Farm Equipment to Washing Machines
Let's Talk Rusty Iron
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The Maytag hand-operated washing machine.
courtesy Sam Moore
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Maytag didn’t start out with washing machines.
Nowadays, everyone has seen the ads featuring the bored and lonely Maytag repairman with nothing to do because Maytag washers never break down. Maytag is famous for its washing machines and, among engine collectors, for the little air-cooled gasoline engines used to power clothes washers in the days when many homes had no electricity. However, the company began with quite a different commodity in mind.
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George W. Parsons was born in Virginia in 1849, but his family moved to a farm in Jasper County, Iowa, in 1853. Young George grew up on the farm and began working with threshing machinery when he was 15, starting out on a groundhog-type separator and progressing through horse-powered equipment to steam-powered machines. These machines were hand-fed, as self-feeders were as yet nonexistent.
Parsons recognized the need for a reliable and safe self-feeder. Hand-fed machines required one or two men to stand at the feeder table of the thresher, receive grain bundles from men on the bundle wagons or stacks, cut the twine band on each bundle and feed the stalks head-first into the whirling thresher cylinder that was only inches from their hands (resulting in many accidents).
By 1893, Parsons was living in Newton, Iowa, and had received his first patent for a self-feeder, assigning one-half to W.C. Bergman, also of Newton. The invention provided for a conveyor to automatically advance the bundles, reciprocating arms with knives on their outer ends to cut the twine bands, and teeth to spread the stalks evenly and carry them into the cylinder.
Maytag gets his start
Meanwhile, Frederick L. Maytag, born in 1857 to German immigrant parents, was growing up on a farm near Laurel, Iowa. When he was in his 20s, he began selling agricultural supplies. He ended up in Newton, Iowa, where, in 1882, he married Dena Bergman, sister of the guy who later owned half of George Parsons’ self-feeder patent.
In 1893, F.L. Maytag and two of his brothers-in-law, W.C. and A.H. Bergman, along with George W. Parsons, each put up $600 and started the Parsons Band Cutter & Self-Feeder Co. (named in honor of the inventor) to manufacture Parsons’ self-feeder.
Construction superintendent of the new firm, Parsons continued to make improvements to his self-feeder. In 1895 he was awarded patents for a flyball-type governor, which kept the feeder from moving until the threshing cylinder reached the proper speed for efficient threshing, and an improved friction drive for the feeder. These patents were assigned equally among Parsons and his three partners.
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