The United States was the first to introduce tractor mechanisation in agriculture. There were already steam-powered engines in some places, but the internal combustion tractor, which changed farming by replacing animal and steam power, came from the American Midwest.

The American Breakthrough in 1892

In 1892, John Froelich, an inventor from Iowa, made the first gasoline-powered engine that could drive both forward and backwards. Froelich was frustrated by the limitations of heavy, bulky, and fire-prone steam engines. 

He put a single-cylinder gasoline engine on the frame of a steam traction engine. During a harvest season in South Dakota, his machine proved that gasoline was a better and safer choice than steam for getting a good harvest. 

The Evolution of the Tractor

• Charles Hart and Charles Parr, owners of the Hart-Parr Gasoline Engine Company in 1901, introduced the word tractor. 

• The switch from animal labour to machines was a major change. Tractors replaced about 24 million animals in the US between 1910 and 1960.

• The new concept ensured that farming could be done on a large scale across the globe, and farming was no longer manual labour but machine-powered.