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Tractor Wars II IPT PBS

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ss55

Well-known Member
Sunday March 8, 2026 at 1 pm Iowa Public Television airs Tractor Wars II. Good documentary that covers 1930s thru early 1950s.

Iowa PBS Presents Tractor Wars II

Picking up where the first documentary ended, Tractor Wars II examines how the tractor industry changed focus.
www.iowapbs.org www.iowapbs.org
 
ss55 said:
Sunday March 8, 2026 at 1 pm Iowa Public Television airs Tractor Wars II. Good documentary that covers 1930s thru early 1950s.

Iowa PBS Presents Tractor Wars II

Picking up where the first documentary ended, Tractor Wars II examines how the tractor industry changed focus.
www.iowapbs.org www.iowapbs.org
Click to expand...
It leaked on to YouTube about a week back.
It spans a bit more than those years, but it’s well done.
 
Family had their own tractor wars, one upping each other in 70's early 80's. Would have been my grandfather and his brothers. Brother across street gets a 4030, grandfather gets 4040(which I still claim one of one until picture proof show otherwise. It is posted on here years ago), across street gets a 4240, brother up the road get a 4050. Dad always had to have first new model released 2950, 2955, 6400. Interesting times growing up.
 
On tractor wars, Blue remained as NH, not that big of an outfit, but the rest of the workhorses of the day disappeared and or merged into something else. I saw a spreadsheet one day showing who went where. Red had a good presence here back in the 60's during the "Cotton is King" days. After that the big field workers disappeared except for JD.

I was talking to the owner of the local JD dealership ( which now has a multitude of dealerships around the state) and he said that the reason for his success was that every morning his idea of going to work was to head out to the fields where farmers were working their equipment and talk to them about what they have and what would they want and need.

He then came back to the dealership and got in touch with JD and told them what he had learned and they supplied the equipment the farmers needed and the farmers stayed with them. He said that none of the other colors had folks out in the field like I was......makes sense and paid off!
 
deere4040 said:
Family had their own tractor wars, one upping each other in 70's early 80's. Would have been my grandfather and his brothers. Brother across street gets a 4030, grandfather gets 4040(which I still claim one of one until picture proof show otherwise. It is posted on here years ago), across street gets a 4240, brother up the road get a 4050. Dad always had to have first new model released 2950, 2955, 6400. Interesting times growing up.
Click to expand...
John Deere built 10727 4040's
 
deere4040 said:
Family had their own tractor wars, one upping each other in 70's early 80's. Would have been my grandfather and his brothers. Brother across street gets a 4030, grandfather gets 4040(which I still claim one of one until picture proof show otherwise. It is posted on here years ago), across street gets a 4240, brother up the road get a 4050. Dad always had to have first new model released 2950, 2955, 6400. Interesting times growing up.
Click to expand...
I bought this one new in 81. This was just before I traded it off with almost 13,000 hours on it.
 

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ss55 said:
Sunday March 8, 2026 at 1 pm Iowa Public Television airs Tractor Wars II. Good documentary that covers 1930s thru early 1950s.

Iowa PBS Presents Tractor Wars II

Picking up where the first documentary ended, Tractor Wars II examines how the tractor industry changed focus.
www.iowapbs.org www.iowapbs.org
Click to expand...
Just finished watching. Enjoyable but it seemed to spend a lot of time on WW2 industry that wasn't focused on tractors. Small point and I'll be watching out if there is a part III.
 
rrlund said:
Well, I sat through it, but unless you're a Deere or IH guy, wear a tight hat so your head doesn't explode.
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Agreed.
So far Oliver and it’s predecessors along with the likes of the Case lineage, Allis Chalmers, Massey and many more have not been elaborated on.
There also seems to be a fair amount of conjecture on the lore that’s been covered.
There was so much happening 100 years ago in the tractor industry it’s hard to track all of it.
An hour episode could be done on CW Hartsough’s involvement in the business.

CH Wendel is still one of the best resources for tractor history.
 
Not db4600 said:
Agreed.
So far Oliver and it’s predecessors along with the likes of the Case lineage, Allis Chalmers, Massey and many more have not been elaborated on.
There also seems to be a fair amount of conjecture on the lore that’s been covered.
There was so much happening 100 years ago in the tractor industry it’s hard to track all of it.
An hour episode could be done on CW Hartsough’s involvement in the business.

CH Wendel is still one of the best resources for tractor history.
Click to expand...
Saying that Deere was the ONLY one that could run on kerosene flat out pizzed me off. Now somebody's gonna be running around telling that lie for the rest of their life. Most all brands had all fuel versions of most models.
 
rrlund said:
Saying that Deere was the ONLY one that could run on kerosene flat out pizzed me off. Now somebody's gonna be running around telling that lie for the rest of their life. Most all brands had all fuel versions of most models.
Click to expand...
Here’s what we find at the Jungle Store. Again The Wall Street Journal should take a field trip. “we now know the whole story…” is more than a bit near sighted. Do they think the “American Gothic” couple is still standing out there dork in hand?

“…that until now has not been fully told.” Is not true. Several well written pieces have journaled multiple histories.

We can understand that this is an Iowa PBS production, but can we guess that Mr. Dahlstrom is a bit brand centric? Let’s hope that he realizes Floyd County is also in Iowa and we might get an episode 3. After that he can look to his neighboring states and we might get episodes 4-10.

Then maybe we would a more complete history.
IMG_8959.jpeg
 
rrlund said:
Saying that Deere was the ONLY one that could run on kerosene flat out pizzed me off. Now somebody's gonna be running around telling that lie for the rest of their life. Most all brands had all fuel versions of most models.
Click to expand...
The large tank on my McCormick-Deering 10-20 was for kerosene. Small one was for gas to get the tractor going. Never filled either one, mostly towed the dead thing around to move it.

I’d like to see the program, read the book a little while ago.
 
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