Jerome Increase Case
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Mascot and Trademark

Jerome Increase Case, also, Mascot and Trademark. . , [Front] , Jerome Increase Case, Inventor, developer and manufacturer of mechanized threshing machines and steam traction engines; business leader, mayor of Racine, state senator; president of Racine County Agricultural Society, founder of Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts and Letters. He developed threshers to replace flails and steam-powered tractors to retire the horse-drawn plow. He built and sold more threshing machines and steam engines than any other man. He founded the company now known as J I Case Company in Rochester, Wisconsin in 1842 and moved to Racine in 1844. His company grew to become an international leader in agricultural and construction equipment. Jerome Increase Case was born in Williamstown, New York, December 11, 1819 and died in Racine, December 22, 1891., [Back] , Mascot and Trademark, The original bald eagle known as "Old Abe" was the mascot of the Eighth Wisconsin [Infantry] Regiment during the U.S. Civil War, and it accompanied the regiment in 38 battles. In battle or whenever the band played, Old Abe was said to utter a piercing war cry. He later was kept at the State Capitol in Madison until his death in 1881. So impressed was Jerome Increase Case with this bird that in 1865 he chose the eagle as the trademark of his young threshing machine company in Racine. For more than a century the eagle was the symbol of J I Case Company. This Eagle and Globe trademark was used from 1894 until 1969 when it was retired for the current trademark., Donated by J I Case Company in grateful recognition of its founder - October 1980