Illinois State Museum

• Hand Tools

• Horse-drawn Machinery

• Patent Models

• Automated Machinery

Automated Machinery

The middle of the nineteenth century brought about the use of steam-powered farm machinery. The last half of the century saw many inventions and improvements in steam-powered tractors, whose power was also used to run other machines with pulleys, as with the pictured corn-sheller on the Sadorus farm at the turn of the century.

As automobiles changed the way people moved around, the gasoline engine changed the way farm machinery was powered.