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Barbed Wire Essay

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Barbed wire helped revolutionize the West by dividing up the land evenly and cheaply. However, some people out West found it to be an impediment to moving across wide plains. Cowboys and Native Americans even came up with a new name for it, Devil’s Rope. Joseph Farwell Glidden was a very influential man in the creation of barbed wire and he forever changed the West and the World. Barbed wire helped reform the West, but it had to start somewhere. Joseph Glidden saw a wire attachment at the DeKalb County Fair presented by Henry M. Rose. He used a wood rail and hammered nails into it to hook onto a fence. Joseph Glidden was there with Jacob Haish, and Isaac Ellwood. They each saw this and began to talk to Henry about it. Joseph …show more content…

Glidden was unsure about this, and he consulted his lawyer about it. The lawyer said to go for it, but to keep the royalties so he could continue to make . Joseph signed the contract and they went into business together. Isaac Ellwood partnered up with Glidden so that he could monopolize the barbed wire industry and focus on the business aspect. His wife also said that Glidden had a better design than he did, which is part of the reason he partnered with Glidden. Haish was a fierce contender, and he went to court to see who got the patent, but Glidden eventually won. Joseph Glidden had patents already, so when he saw the barbed wire, he thought that he could make that, so he did. He was a very creative man and he was intelligent too. Before he invented barbed wire he invented something called the land roller. It had the wheels placed in special alignment so that the wheels did not go over the same land twice. Barbed wire was needed out West, and Glidden’s barbed wire was easy to transport so it went West. The wire migrated West because Texas Longhorn Cattle would trample and graze on farmer’s crops and the farmers hated it. Cattle would also get run over by trains because they would cross in front of a train on the newly built Transcontinental Railroad. Barbed was put up to line the railways for miles at a time. Some people like cattle drivers and Native Americans hated barbed wire so much that they came up with the new name

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