Cyrus McCormick  1809-1884

I’ve always been a fan of the prosperity created by Western civilization in general and the United States in particular. Indeed, I even created a website called Gratitude for America, where I write about American entrepreneurs who invented things like barbed wire and standardized shipping containers. But maybe there’s a downside to this prosperity because we’ve created a class of people (especially in government) completely disconnected from how the world actually works.

Cyrus McCormick, who invented the mechanical reaper, is the most important entrepreneur in human history. He basically untethered mankind from farming, one of the most dangerous occupations on earth. In 1831, when he invented the mechanical reaper, approximately 80% of the American population was involved in agriculture, and, in most places in the world, it was higher—in some cases, 95%.

but everything changed, at least in the West in the beginning,

Since they didn’t have to be on farms, people became inventors, entrepreneurs, and innovators. During the late 19th century, countless inventions (e.g., usable electricity, automobiles, and the telegraph) and innovations (e.g., drilling for oil, railroad expansion, and the widespread adoption of the assembly line) changed the Western world. Food became more abundant, transportation became easier and safer, housing became cheaper, and medicine began to improve.

and yet no one seems to realize,

Contrast all of that with what humanity endured through most of our history. Poverty and scarcity were the norm. Food availability was always an issue. War was almost constant. Work was dangerous. Slavery was everywhere. Many worked seven days a week, changing clothes was rare if at all, people rarely bathed, virtually everyone was illiterate, plumbing didn’t exist, disease was rampant, shelter was overcrowded, heating in the winter was from burning wood or dung if either could be found, infant mortality was stratospheric, and leisure was a luxury only the elites could afford.

the estimable Don Surber writes to remind us of the shoulders of giants we all we stand upon,

February marks Black History Month in which the contributions of black people are honored.

The best example is Norbert Rillieux, a freeman born in New Orleans in 1806. In 1830, he went to study engineering in Paris. There he invented a process for refining sugar. Not only did he give us white sugar but he transformed the chemical industry.

Nick Weldon wrote in 2021, “Rillieux’s invention, the multiple-effect evaporator, streamlined what had been a slow and costly process for purifying cane juice by using a series of vacuum chambers that used heat more efficiently and reduced waste. The result: cheaper, better sugar. The method changed the sugar industry — and, later, all kinds of industrial processes — such that some historians compare it to what Eli Whitney’s gin did for cotton.”

He was not the first black man to get a U.S. patent. In fact, he was turned down for one patent because the patent office thought he was a slave and slaves had no rights. They were considered property and whatever inventions they made belonged to the massa.

The first black patent honor went to Thomas L. Jennings, a freeman and a tailor who patented the process for modern dry cleaning in 1821. The National Inventors Hall of Fame said on the bicentennial of his patent, “Not only did Jennings manage to acquire a patent in 1821, but he also dedicated much of his earnings to supporting the abolitionist and desegregation movements, helping others defend their rights and achieve their goals.”

He was civil rights before there were civil rights. Back of the bus? A century before Rosa Parks, his daughter sued to get on the bus. New York City banned blacks from riding in street cars. She won the case. Her lawyer was Chester Arthur, a future president.

and what about everyone else ?,

But what about the other seven-eighths of the population? We didn’t sit around eating bonbons while watching slaves pick cotton.

Consider Italians. Most of them arrived after slavery. They are associated with pizza and the Mafia but they were far more than that.

This summer, the movie Oppenheimer drew audiences to appreciate the work of the director of the Manhattan Project which developed the atomic bombs that ended World War II once and for all. He was Jewish. Of course. Most physicists at the time were Jews.

Enrico Fermi wasn’t. He was an Italian physicist who fled Mussolini and became the father of the nuclear age. David N. Schwartz wrote in 2017, The Last Man Who Knew Everything: The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, Father of the Nuclear Age. Fermi built the first nuclear reactor as part of that Manhattan Project in Chicago.

and,

As for Jews, I can go on all day about them. They gave the country physicists, Irving Berlin and a host of comedians. Jews invented Hollywood by founding Columbia, Fox, Paramount, Universal and MGM. Even the Warner Brothers were Jewish. Could we kindly stop the anti-Semitism already?

Poles helped free America in the Revolutionary War. Casimir Pulaski was the father of the U.S. Calvary. He once saved George Washington’s life.

Tadeusz Kościuszko was the father of engineering, He stopped a British advance by felling trees and defended West Point before it was a military academy. His was the first monument dedicated at the academy on July 4, 1828.

Norwegians gave us Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution. He changed agriculture and easily saved billions of people worldwide from starvation.

Another Norwegian, Conrad Hilton, laid the foundation of a hotel empire that his son, Barron, greatly expanded.

Read both of these essays by Vince Coyner and Don Surber and thank your lucky stars you are alive to enjoy the 21st century and all of its glorious privileges and luxuries.