Purdue University Press Releases
New Historical Work on Wheat Threshing
By Linda Weidman
The Harvest Story: Recollections of Old-Time Threshermen,
by Robert T. Rhode, tells the epic tale of wheat threshing
in turn-of-the-century North America. This book gathers into
a coherent recitation over fifty volumes of material published
in The Iron-Men Album Magazine from 1946 until the present.
From this rich mine, the author has distilled a story of hard but
honest work, of heartfelt cooperation, of triumph not unmarred by
tragedy--a complex, fascinating story about America's past.
Readers feel a child's excitement as threshing day dawns, participate
in the labor and practical jokes of the crew, and respect the power
of the reliable, but sometimes dangerous, steam engines. With the
author's skillful arrangement of the material, explanations, and
photographs from his private collection, we come to share the "iron
men's" solid values.
Robert T. Rhode was born on a farm near Pine Village in northwestern
Indiana. Every summer from the time he was one year old, he went
with his parents to the Central States Threshermen's Reunion at
Pontiac, Illinois. There, he came to appreciate the North American
agricultural heritage. His great-uncle ran steam traction engines;
his father grew up during the steam era and helped his uncle run
engines; and his mother remembered playing on steam engines parked
in the factory yard of the Keck-Gonnerman Company, manufacturers of
threshing equipment, in her hometown of Mt. Vernon, Indiana.
Rhode is a professor of English at Northern Kentucky University and,
for eleven years, he directed NKU's Honors Program for gifted
students. He has published [sixty] articles on agricultural
literature and history. He owns a 65-horsepower J. I. Case
agricultural traction engine (serial number 35654) built in 1923,
which he regularly exhibits at threshing reunions.
Two New Books Fueled by Steam Enthusiast's
Pontiac Memories
By Ann Mueller
A cloud of thick, dark smoke hung in the air the first time I
approached Threshermen's Park. I got closer and the unique smell
accompanying the cloud seemed to stir distant memories.
I thought back to my childhood and remembered my white-haired
neightbor's delight when he'd share his love for steam engines and
stories of the camaraderie at threshing reunions.
A few years ago, he was laid to rest in bib overalls and a chambray
shirt, clutching a white "Old Thresherman" hat, and it seemed right.
Photos of threshing bees scattered around the parlor left visitors
with a lasting impression of the passion which brightened this man's
life.
Prairie Grows More Than Grain
A similar passion for these giants of the prairie was the seed
which sprouted two books by a steam enthusiast with Pontiac
connections. Dr. Robert T. Rhode, an English professor at
Northern Kentucky University, has often shown his 1923 65-horsepower
Case agricultural traction engine at the Central States Threshermen's
Reunion.
Rhode is the author of The Harvest Story: Recollections of
Old-Time Threshermen (Purdue University Press, $17.95, 228 pages)
and also co-authored with Judge Raymond L. Drake, Colorado, a second
book, Classic American Steamrollers 1871-1935 Photo Archive
(Iconografix, $29.95, 128 pages).
Rhode, too, has warm childhood memories of old threshers and even
older steam engines. He first visited Pontiac when he was just a
year old, carried in his father's arms. The family's annual
pilgrimage to the reunion fueled an interest in the steam era
so strong that Rhode has read and written extensively on the
subject. He now teaches classes devoted to the impact of the
steam revolution on history and literature.
Gleaning a Harvest Tale
The Harvest Story presents readers with an in-depth look
at the companionship, work ethic, fun and dangers of the
steam era. The history of the reunion movement and the mechanics
of steam engines are also covered. The book is a "must have" for
anyone with an interest in American agriculture.
Because Rhode is a scholar, he has done his research.
Many of the stories were first told in The Iron-Men Album
Magazine. But, the author has also spent long hours covered with soot
listening to other steam enthusiasts at threshermen events. He
shares their stories as well.
The recent explosion of a steam engine in Ohio claimed five lives
and seriously injured several others. This event, still under
investigation, surely weighs heavily on the minds of visitors to this
year's reunion. This was the first deadly explosion at a North American
show. Safety has always been of the utmost importance at Pontiac and
most shows. Rhode stresses this when he says, "The bees, reunions,
and thresherees have a commendable safety record precisely because
members of steam clubs, well aware of what could go wrong, take extra
precautions."
Rolling Full Steam Ahead
Classic American Steamrollers is a comprehensive photo album
with more than 165 photos and illustrations of nearly every steamroller
built in the United States. Accompanying the photos are thumbnail
histories of all American steamroller manufacturers and informative
captions telling about specific engines.
I wondered if a book on steamrollers would keep my interest. After
all, I'm a farm girl. My passion is for agricultural engines. Boy,
was I wrong! True to form, Rhode captured me and took me on a journey
through the history of the mammoth machines of early road construction.
As I read Steamrollers, I was mesmerized by the quality of the
photos and illustrations in the book, many from Drake's private
collection. Images from 75 to 130 years old were as clear as if they'd
been taken today. The more I read about the companies and the engines,
the more I learned, yet my curiosity about these machines became as
intense as it is about farm equipment.
Growing the Next Steam Enthusiasts
In The Harvest Story, Rhode says, "To a child, a steam engine
appeared to be a mystical machine invented by a wizard." I had an
opportunity to test his analogy one morning as I sat in a bagel shop.
When I saw a young boy who looked like Dennis the Menace searching the
shelves for a picture book, I handed him Steamrollers. He
opened the book, and his big blue eyes grew even larger. He began to
fire questions at me. I knew Rhode was right.
As my five-year-old buddy showed me, the photo archive will teach and
entertain youngsters and oldsters alike. In the process, it may just
stir a passion for steam engines in new generations. Both of Rhode's
books have value for those wishing to learn more about the steam era,
but they will also appeal to those who travel for miles just to smell
the pungent smoke and hear noon whistles piercing the Midwestern
prairie. Visit www.nku.edu/~rhode/ to learn more about Rhode and
his books.
(Editor's Note: Ann Mueller [Heyworth] is a freelance writer with a
passion for keeping the history and literature of Illinois alive.)
Book Review
By Ray Hoffman
If you like steam, traction engines and memories of threshing days, a
new 228-page softback by Foundation member Robert T. Rhode will be a
popular item on your bookshelf. This new work is comprised mostly from
material distilled from the Iron-Men Album. The book reflects on
a time before the combine, when harvesting grain was not the one-man
operation we know today. It tells of harvest rings and threshing runs.
There are stories like one written by an elderly man recounting his
feelings when the first steam engine (a portable, pulled by horses)
passed their farm when he was a child in 1888.
A Kentuckian tells of burying potatoes in a tobacco bed being steamed
for a warm tasty snack on a cold day. A North Dakotan recalls watching
virgin prairie being rolled over behind a 110 Case and a 12-bottom plow.
Another story is about hoboes, the mysterious migrants that could be
counted on to appear from nowhere at harvest time, as though blown by
the winds.
Another chapter talks of threshing dangers. One writer talks about the
dark days of light bridges and heavy traction engines, remembering when
he inched a ten-ton Huber over a sagging wood span, another about the
rare boiler explosions and their aftermath. He writes of fires sweeping
through barns or across prairies started by an engine's spark. Yet
another story tells of fording the Missouri River when the smokestack
went below the water. A runaway team of Percherons harnessed to a
portable engine is frightening to relive, as are memories of an engine
at a railroad crossing surprised by a fast-approaching freight train.
Another chapter remembers men like Chris Busch, Walter Mehmke, Lyman
Knapp and LeRoy Blaker, all early engine collectors involved in some
of the first steam reunions. Others include Joseph Rynda, Nelson
Howard, Arthur Young, Ray Ernst (who started the Mt. Pleasant IA show)
and Alf Elden. Elmer Ritzman of Millerstown PA is credited with
keeping interest alive in steam engines in America with his 1946
introduction of The Farm Album. Starting with that 8-page
publication, it would become the Iron-Men Album in 1950, with
30 subscribers. By 1966, it was serving nearly 9000 subscribers.
Pages of those early issues have been combed by Mr. Rhode to relive
those stories once again. Well illustrated, you will enjoy this new
publication.
Book Review
By Dave Erb
Published this year by Purdue University Press, The Harvest Story
is a compilation of wonderful tales surrounding those years on the
American farm when grain threshing was a way of life. This work
combines the best of these stories from more than fifty years of The
Iron-Men Album. Authored by Dr. Robert T. Rhode, now a veteran
writer of things related to Case and steam power, this book is truly
delightful to read.
Dr. Rhode has been writing for the old iron hobby for the past decade.
What sets this author apart from others in the field is a unique
combination of sterling academic credentials in English and
communications coupled with empirical knowledge of his subject material,
gained through years of hands-on work with steam power and machinery.
Nowhere has this writer encountered an author with both the gift of
lucid articulation and the first-hand knowledge of the subjects about
which Robert Rhode writes. This unusual combination of talent and
ability puts the author in a class above virtually any other writer of
material available on the old iron hobby, today.
Having said this about the author, you need to read this work to
appreciate the scope of its content. Dr. Rhode has carefully picked
from hundreds of threshing-time stories the very best, and coupled
these with many unique and creative photographs from his private
collection. The combination of his own editorial skills and the
fascinating material used in this volume give the reader an unusual
perspective of threshing time on the American farm.
If you are one who appreciates the romance of steam power and the
tales of threshing times, you will find this book enjoyable. Nothing
about these subjects has been overlooked, from the farm wife's view
of satisfying many dirty, hungry threshing hands to the surprise and
delight experienced in watching all the activity, as seen through
the eyes of children. After reading through this volume, I came
away with the feeling that someone had pared the extraneous material
away from the subject and improved on the stories by offering only
the best of the best. Volumes have been written about the part played
by threshing on the farm, but to this writer's knowledge, nowhere has
the package ever been presented in more interesting fashion. After
all, this work is a compilation of viewpoints and perceptions of many
people, edited and rearranged by an expert.
If you are a regular reader of this publication, you have seen examples
of Robert Rhode's pen, over the past years. This man has the advantage
of having grown up on a farm in a family of steam power users. He also
owns a Case 65 HP engine that he regularly shows at threshing reunions
in the Midwest. His writings draw from a lifetime of memories and
knowledge learned from a childhood spent growing up in the situations
about which he writes.
The combination of a person with a PhD in English who owns and operates
his own steam engine, and who also writes about steam power, is
somehow rather special in itself. If this unusual combination alone
does not impress you, then just enjoy the work of his hand in this
interesting and unusual look at an old subject--The Harvest Story.
Review
By Marjorie Brown
The Harvest Story is to the bygone ways of agriculture what the
Foxfire books of the 1970s are to the old-time ways of Appalachian
life. Using what amount to oral histories, Robert T. Rhode draws upon
the wealth of personal recollections of threshermen originally
published in The Iron-Men Album Magazine over half a century.
The result captures a sense of earlier rural life, in addition to
farming methods, engaging the reader in steam-powered, mechanized
threshing to the point of "tasting the dust and smelling the smoke
from the stack."
The eyewitness reports are paired with facts about the technologies
and the factories that produced the machinery. Did you realize that
Ohio had the highest number of engine and thresher companies
in the United States? Historic photographs from Dr. Rhode's collection,
published for the first time, complete the story.
If you enjoy attending today's threshing reunions, this book will
enhance that experience for you. If you don't know how a steam engine
or a thresher functions, and can't tell one part from another,
explanatory appendices offer comprehensive coverage of these topics.
Additional reference components of this thoroughly researched book
include the chronological and regional variations of threshing and an
extensive bibliography.
Review
By Derek Rayner
Published in Old Glory, Britain's best-selling vintage magazine
Also published in Steaming, another British magazine
This excellent small American-published volume gives an insight into
the development of the threshing industry in America at the turn of
the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries. Taken from many
contributions over a long period from the American bimonthly magazine
The Iron-Men Album, Bob Rhode has skilfully woven them into a
number of inter-related stories.
The contributions are all well documented and referenced back to the
originals--some are eyewitness accounts going back to the late 1800s
by the threshermen who were involved. They, along with their families,
lived through the era and their recollections tell of what they did,
how they did it and why.
Accompanying the stories are around two dozen previously unpublished
photos from the author's collection--which complement the stories very
well--although the quality of reproduction of these is perhaps not
the best. There is also a large bibliography and a synopsis of the
many different practices that were found throughout the US. Much
humour is contained within and some of the practical jokes played by
the crews are recounted from first-hand experience.
For the uninitiated, the author has thoughtfully included additional
sections on how a steam engine works--and possibly more importantly--
how a threshing machine works.
In the United Kingdom, where we have only just celebrated the advent
of our first traction engine rallies, we tend to forget that threshing
bees and similar gatherings of traction engines were taking place in
the United States some time before we started. The author also tells
this story--and how The Iron-Men Album came to be founded by
the Rev. Elmer Ritzman in 1946.
If you are interested in the American steam engine scene, then this
small volume will widen your understanding of what happened in the
vast areas that America had under wheat at the time and does constitute
a "real good read."
