'The devil's rope': How barbed wire changed America

BBC ^ | 08/07/2017 | Tim Harford

[Kid Shelleen]

He rounded up some of the toughest and wildest longhorns in all of Texas. That's how he described them. Others say the cattle were a docile bunch. And there are those who wonder whether this particular story is true at all. But never mind. John Warne Gates - who would become known as "Bet A Million Gates" - took bets from onlookers as to whether the powerful beasts could break through the fragile-seeming wire.

--snip-- The advertisements of the time touted it as "The Greatest Discovery Of The Age", patented by Joseph Glidden, of De Kalb Illinois. Gates described it more poetically: "lighter than air, stronger than whiskey, cheaper than dust". We simply call it barbed wire.

[Kid Shelleen]

Interesting read.

[robroys woman]

On topic:

I bought the entire Louis L’amoure library at an estate sale about seven years ago. He was a self made historian regarding the old west. Most of these books are amazing fiction based on the old west. He incorporates the changes brought about by barbed wire in some of them.

[robroys woman]

Kinda funny that such a good article about the history of the American west is at BBC.

[JimSEA]

“Bob wore” as it is pronounced by most who string it.

[afsnco]

...Or bob war.

[pgkdan]

I love Louis L’Amour’s books. I read the entire Sackett series while recovering from surgery a few years back. enjoyed them then as much as I did the first time I read them.

[bigbob]

also known as bob war

[robroys woman]

What happened to Ang was a tragedy. The Lonely Men is a great one too.

[Jolla]

Louis “western” books are great one was the last story I read my father when he was passing away, but I prefer his adventures and Tonga Jim Mayo

[GraceG]

Grew up on farm and cut myself many times on the damned stuff trying to fix fences.

Most all the times it was my own damned fault.

Sure was cheaper / faster than trying to maintain several miles of wooden fence.

[tet68]

Changed the face of war too.

[SaxxonWoods]

Don’t know if the mean has been bred out of them over time but the Longhorns we had for a while would follow us around like docile dogs.

[KingLudd]

Predecessor of barbed wire is osage orange - hedge apples. “Bull strong, hog tight and horse high.

[dangerdoc]

It is pretty good for keeping cattle in but even better at stopping a bush hog.

[Bratch]

The English 17th Century philosopher John Locke - a great influence on the founding fathers of the United States - puzzled over the problem of how anybody might legally come to own land. Once upon a time, nobody owned anything.

 

Philosopher John Locke had a great influence on the founding fathers of the United States

Locke argued that we all own our own labour. And if you mix your labour with the land that nature provides - for example, by ploughing the soil - then you've blended something you definitely own with something that nobody owns. By working the land, you've come to own it.

Nonsense, said Jean-Jacques Rousseau, an 18th Century philosopher from Geneva who protested against the evils of enclosure.

In his Discourse on Inequality, he lamented "the first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying, 'This is mine,' and found people simple enough to believe him." This man, said Rousseau, "was the real founder of civil society".

He did not intend that as a compliment.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I still have a roll of used rusted Brinkerhoff wire in my garage. I bought it thirty seven years ago from a junk dealer. it is the flat ribbon wire.

[dangerdoc]

osage orange

We had a place fenced in with hedge and old barb wire grown into the trees. The cows would lean on the old wire and it would snap off on the tree leaving an invisible hole in the fence. Spent many hours bleeding from the hedge looking for those holes. Eventually, hired a guy with a dozer to push the entire mess out and burn it. New fence and new routine of killing any hedge before it got large was the final solution.

[treetopsandroofs]

Working on a sequel?

[Ciaphas Cain]

Joseph Glidden made one of the greatest contributions ever to America. Something that made cattle ranching a blazing profitable enterprise as it could not have been before. Without it, the nation's commerce and economy woud have been far different.

And all it took was a few pieces of thick wire.

[JimSEA]

Yep.