Gleaner Manufacturing Company

Gleaner combines date from 1923, when the Baldwin brothers of Nickerson, Kansas, created a high-quality and reliable self-propelled combine harvester. They decided to use the "Gleaner" name for their radically redesigned grain harvesting machine based on inspiration from "The Gleaners", an 1857 painting by Jean-François Millet. Gleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops from farm fields after they have been commercially harvested, or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest. In the broadest sense, it is the act of frugally recovering resources from low-yield contexts. Thus, with the Gleaner name, the company evoked a positive connotation in potential customers' minds, of a brand of harvester that would leave none of the grain behind. A combine harvester combines the reaping (plus or minus binding), threshing, and winnowing functions into one machine, hence the "combine" part of its name. To that list, the Baldwin brothers' Gleaner added self-propulsion. Earlier combines, the so-called pull-type or tractor-drawn combines, were towed by tractors.

First design

The original Gleaner design was mounted on a Fordson Model F. It had a retail price of USD $950 FOB at the factory in Nickerson. This design was manufactured between 1923 and 1928.

Pull-types

From 1928 until 1954, Gleaner produced pull-type combine harvesters of both large and small sizes. The large models were intended for throughput and were the favored types for customer harvesters, while the small models were made for smaller, single-farm operations. Early "Gleaner-Baldwin" combines used the Ford Model A engine. The Gleaner Baldwin Model A, built from 1930 to 1935, was so equipped, as were later Gleaner Models, the NA and NR, until 1938. The combine's Model A engine was mounted on a frame fitted for the radiator, and was coupled to a power take-off unit.

First in self-propelled

The Gleaner was one of the pioneers in self-propelled combines. They were often considered the "Cadillac" of the industry because of this feature and because of their solid engineering. Buescher (1991) credited the design principally to one of the brothers, Curt Baldwin, and explained that it focused on the needs of custom cutters like the Baldwin brothers themselves: contractors who move north with the harvest season, providing harvesting services to farmers. It resulted in machines that were reliable and useful, which benefited not only custom cutters but anyone who bought a Gleaner. The short wheelbase and axle track allowed the combine to fit on a truck. The grain header did not need to be detached for transit, because it fit over the cab of the truck. Buescher said, "Since custom cutters didn't know where their next parts supply source would be, Baldwin designed his combine so that it wouldn't need parts." (Buescher's tongue-in-cheek point is that the machines were designed and built well so that need for repairs would be minimal.) The frame was "like a bridge" in its strength. The bearings were chosen with service in mind: large and good quality (to obviate failure) and of common sizes (so that the operator could carry a small stock of spares in his truck, and have the size needed when a replacement became necessary). The Gleaner's exterior sheet metal was galvanized (zinc plated), providing superior weather resistance. As Buescher said, "Baldwin reasoned that most of his combines would sit outdoors. Texas and Oklahoma dust storms have a way of peeling paint off of machinery." As a result of the silver color of the zinc plating, the Gleaner brand ended up having a distinctive color (just as Allis had Persian Orange, IH had red, and John Deere had green), despite the sheet metal not even having any paint.

1930s

During the Great Depression, owing mostly to the collapse of the farm economy and the Dust Bowl, the Baldwins' company entered bankruptcy in the 1930s as equipment sales plummeted. William James Brace acquired the company with his son-in-law, George Reuland. The pair, along with other investors, brought the company back to profitability and maintained ownership until 1955. During World War II, the factory converted its production to war materiel.

1940s and 1950s

By the late 1940s and early 1950s, other farm equipment manufacturers were offering increased competition to Gleaner, having introduced their own versions of self-propelled combines.

In 1955, Allis-Chalmers acquired Gleaner. This represented commercial renewal for Gleaner with the production and marketing success of various new models and technologies. It also represented a great gain for Allis-Chalmers. Allis was the market leader in pull-type (tractor-drawn) combines, with its All-Crop Harvester line. Acquiring Gleaner meant that it would also be a leader in self-propelled machines, and it would own two of the leading brands in combines. The Gleaner line augmented (and later superseded) the All-Crop Harvester line, and for several years Gleaner's profits made up nearly all of Allis-Chalmers' profit. Gleaners continued to be manufactured at the same factory, in Independence, Missouri, after the acquisition.

1960s

From the start of this decade to its end, 8 different Gleaner models would be produced along with the company's first rice, tracked, and hillside machine variations. At the dawn of the 1960s the Model C self-propelled was made popular amongst custom harvest crews as it could be equipped with a 14 - 20 ft grain header or a 4 row corn head. This model had a down front threshing cylinder at 40 inches wide much like its predecessor model "A", but the cleaning area of the "C" was doubled in size in order to clean the increased grain throughput of the wider headers.

Here is a list of Gleaner Combine models built from 1951 to present.