Whitman Agricultural Co. was
established in 1870 by Charles E. Whitman in St. Louis, Mo.
The company’s three-story factory was located at 8th and 9th streets. Whitman’s
initial product was a hay press marketed as “Whitman’s New Rebound Plunger
Press.” It was powered by horses harnessed to a sweep that powered a series of
gears that moved the plunger back and forth.
The Whitman hay press took
honors when it was exhibited at many major fairs in the early 1880s. The
company expanded its line of agricultural machinery in the late 1880s to
include “St. Louis”
corn shellers with a single horsepower, seed sowers, feed cutters, cultivators,
harrows, cider mills, saw mill machinery and more. In the late 1890s, Whitman
added the Sultan line of gasoline engines, hoisting machinery, power and air
compressors. By the early 1900s, Whitman was producing larger belt-driven hay
balers.
Whitman Agricultural Co.
exhibited its line of machinery at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair and issued full line
catalogs as late as 1911. FC
Grateful acknowledgement
is given to David Schnakenberg, who contributed the trade card below from his
collection of pre-1910 chromolithographs of farm machinery advertising.
For
more information:
— Contact him at 10108
Tamarack Dr., Vienna, VA 22182;
(703) 938-8606; dschnakenberg@verizon.net
— View the Schnakenberg Collection.
— To submit a vintage advertisement for publication,
send it to: Iron Age Ads, Farm Collector, 1503 S.W. 42nd St., Topeka,
KS 66609;
or submit high-quality digital images by email: editor@farmcollector.com.
