The Osborne hay tedder was developed by the D. M. Osborne Company of Auburn, New York, in the 1890s. Between 1904 and 1917, it was manufactured by International Harvester Company.
Developed during the late-1800s, the hay tedder was made to imitate the motion of a person tossing hay into the air with a pitchfork. After cutting hay with a mower like the Milwaukee No. 5 nearby in this exhibit, a farmer might try to speed up the hay's drying and curing process by going over it with a tedder. Pulled by horses, this tedder's arms, connected by gears to the wheel axle, moved up and down. The tines at the end of the arms moved underneath the cut hay, lifting the hay off the ground and tossing it into the air. This action "fluffed" the hay, allowing air to move under and around the hay and not just over it.
Tedding hay was especially important to farmers who wished to dry their hay before future rain made drying more difficult, or after a rain in order to redistribute the accumulated moisture to speed up drying. Once the hay was sufficiently dried, a farmer could use a hay rake like the one nearby in this exhibit to gather the hay into windrows for baling.
You can view Charles S. Sharp's patent for the Osborne Tedder, patent 589796, published on September 7, 1897, as a pdf here. You can see a 25 second video of a horse pulling a similar International Harvester Company hay tedder here. For a video of a newer design of hay tedder in use, click or touch here.
Notes
You can access Wikipedia's article on hay tedders, which is very informative, here.
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