While the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company merged with other companies to form International Harvester in 1902, the McCormick family remained very active in the company and public life.

IH had a factory and dealerships in Russia during the early 20th century, and Cyrus Hall McCormick, Jr., travelled to Russia in 1917, as part of the Root Commission. The Root Commission, named after its leader, New York Senator Elihu Root, was a special diplomatic mission to Russia to assess and make contact with the new revolutionary government.

The Root Commission travelled across Russia by train from Vladivostok, and McCormick kept notes and a photograph scrapbook of the journey. Several of the images from this scrapbook were digitized and are available from WHI. These images can be located by searching for Root Commission on the WHI page at

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Crowd Near Train Station at Irkutsk, Russia, 1917

Irkutsk, Russia. Photograph showing people at a train station near Irkutsk. View the original source document: WHI 74313

Seminary Church Buildings at Vyatka, Russia, 1917

Vyatka, Russia. Photograph showing a church and buildings in Vyatka, Russia. View the original source document: WHI 74321

The notes McCormick took chiefly concern financial matters and business of the commission, but also include some descriptions of the countryside and people he encountered along the way.

In one such description written on July 16, 1917, McCormick describes meeting two children at a train station:

The other episode was as sweet a little pair of children selling flowers as one could find anywhere. The boy was about 7 and the girl 6. They were both bare-footed and had the plain clothes of a workman’s children. The boy had a soldier’s cap on, much too large for his head, and the girl had the customary little kerchief tied around her sweet and smiling face.

McCormick then wrote about buying some flowers from the children, and described them further:

The boy had a round, plain, typical Russian face, but very frank and straightforward, and regular in its contour. His face was the patient and rather stolid type. The little girl, on the contrary, had a very winsome, bright, intelligent and responsive face.

This description is from the Cyrus Hall McCormick, Jr., Subject File, and more information related to Russia in general also can be found in those papers. Although the material from the subject files is not online, and requests for very specific information might be too research intensive for our staff to process, patrons are encouraged to direct questions about the papers to the McCormick-International Harvester Archives staff at askmccormick@wisconsinhistory.org.

Parade on Nevski Prospekt, 1917

Petrograd (St. Petersburg), Russia. Photograph showing a parade in Petrograd (St. Petersburg). View the original source document: WHI 74354

Woman in Horse-Drawn Wagon at Vyatka, Russia, 1917

Photograph showing a peasant woman at Vyatka. View the original source document: WHI 74322