Unidentified photographer / artist 1880s (ca) Harvest on the Plains
Cabinet card, oversize 4.25 x 7.75 in (image) 5.25 x 8.5 in (mount)
Christopher Wahren Fine Photographs Print shows a perhaps 30-mule team pulling agricultural equipment. Anonymous American circa 1880s. Numbered on the image upper left "1798." Early view of a large combine harvester pulled by massive mule team, along with a support wagon and visiting female in single-horse carriage.
The harvester would combine the harvesting, shelling and bagging operations for grains such as wheat, with grain bagged and ready for transfer to the accompanying support wagon as the final product. That the entire cycle could be accomplished solely based on animal power certainly seems surprising - particularly so to our modern age, addicted as it is to the use of powered machinery even for simple tasks like raking leaves or hammering nails.
This image came from the northwest Nebraska area and very possibly depicts a Nebraska scene.
