Joseph Glidden

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Joseph Glidden

Joseph Farwell Glidden (born January 18, 1813 in Charlestown , New Hampshire , † October 9, 1906 in DeKalb , Illinois ) was an American farmer who applied for a patent on barbed wire on October 27, 1873 . He was granted the patent on November 24, 1874.

Life

In 1814 his family moved to Clarendon , New York . He worked on his parents' farm and as a teacher. In 1837 he married Clarissa Foster, with whom he had two sons. In 1842 he moved with his brother Josiah to DeKalb (Illinois) ( Buena Vista at the time ), where he had bought a farm from cousin Russell Huntley. After his wife followed with the children in 1843, she died giving birth to her daughter. The sons died of an epidemic. In 1851 he married Lucinda Warne (1826-1895) and in July 1852 daughter Elva Frances Glidden was born. The following year he was elected sheriff. He built his stone house around 1861. He became vice president of DeKalb National Bank, director of the North Western Railroad, and owner of a newspaper and a hotel.

He had two sons and a daughter. His two sons died in their youth. His daughter Elva (1852-1906) married William Henry Bush (1849-1931), a well-known farmer, entrepreneur and businessman, in 1877.

invention

Technical and economic requirements

Herd of cattle and cowboy, circa 1902

The development of barbed wire, which began in the late 1860s, coincides with a time when a number of organic materials were being replaced by iron and steel products. Samuel Fox , for example, developed the first wire frames for umbrellas in 1852, which up until then had been made in Europe from wood or whale beard . In the same way, the manufacture of corsets was changed. In musical instruments, strings were increasingly made of steel rather than sheep intestines. The use of iron instead of hemp for ropes began in 1840 and soon afterwards machines were developed that could twist several iron wires into stable ropes. First chain link fences were also made in the 1840s, but by the late 1850s they were too fragile to pose a serious barrier to a large mammal such as a cattle.

The development was motivated by a need for cheap land containment. For a few years, large cattle ranches used the open expanses of the Great Plains to slowly drive herds of cattle to the railroad junctions in the north, from where they were then brought to the large slaughterhouses further in the east of the USA with the help of railroad cars. However, with the construction of railroads and the use of the more fertile parts of the Great Plains as arable land, the need to protect land from invasion of cattle also arose. Traditional methods of fencing - hedges, stone walls or wooden fences - were not applicable in the Great Plains: the areas to be fenced off were too large, all wood had to be imported into the Great Plains region and milk orange trees , the only plant that thrived in the Great Plains hedge planters grew too slowly to be an alternative in the rapidly changing economic conditions of the Great Plains.

Patented by Glidden

Detail from the patent filing by Joseph F. Glidden

The need for stable, cheap boundaries and the new technological requirements led to several inventors in the USA working independently and inspired by one another on spiked iron ropes. Inspired by spurs worn by riders, for example, William D. Hunt patented wires with spur wheels wound onto them in 1867. Michael Kelly patented wires with nails driven into them in 1868. Both inventions had the disadvantage, however, that they did not inflict sufficient pain on robust animals such as cattle to prevent them from breaking through the fence. Finally, in 1873, Henry Rose developed a fence consisting of wires and wooden parts that were provided with sharp spikes and that were defensive enough to prevent cattle from breaking through. He created this precursor of barbed wire, on which he had acquired the patent in the same year at a fair in DeKalb in the US state of Illinois before where Joseph Glidden saw this construction. Inspired by Rose's patent, Glidden developed a wire in which two tension wires were stranded together and spikes were inserted by winding a pointed wire around one of the two wires at regular intervals and then cutting it at an angle. The two twisted tension wires fixed the stinger, which could not twist under the weight of an animal leaning against it. Glidden applied for his patent on October 27, 1873. Glidden wasn't the only one developing Rose's idea. Five more patents for barbed wire production were registered as a result of the DeKalb exhibition.

In the patent referred Glidden his invention as wire fences ( wire fences ). After he founded the Barb Fence Company , a three-year patent litigation followed. After winning this, he sold half of the rights to Washburn & Moen Manufacturing Company for $ 60,000 and royalties . He became one of the richest men in America.

Triumphant advance of the invention

Advertisement for barbed wire in a Texan newspaper (1874)

Barbed wire marketing opportunities were not limited to just the Great Plains of the American Midwest. In other parts of the country, too, erecting barbed wire was cheaper than, for example, a traditional wooden fence. Fewer stakes were required, fewer nails, and the labor required to erect a barbed wire was only a fifth compared to a wooden fence according to an advertising leaflet by Washburn and Moen in 1880. However, wood was still necessary and the rapidly increasing use of barbed wire in the Midwest meant that timber imports even increased there, because areas were now fenced off that had previously been uneconomical. As early as 1880, a little more than six years after the first patent was granted, the length of the barbed wire fences erected in the United States was about 50,000 miles.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Answers.com: Biography - Joseph Glidden
  2. ^ Empire Builder in the Texas Panhandle: William Henry Bush ; By Paul H. Carlson, p. 97
  3. ↑ [1]
  4. ^ Reviel Netz: Barbed Wire: An Ecology of Modernity . Wesleyan University Press, Middletown 2004, ISBN 978-0-8195-6959-2 . P. 26.
  5. ^ Reviel Netz: Barbed Wire: An Ecology of Modernity . Wesleyan University Press, Middletown 2004, ISBN 978-0-8195-6959-2 . P. 27.
  6. ^ Reviel Netz: Barbed Wire: An Ecology of Modernity . Wesleyan University Press, Middletown 2004, ISBN 978-0-8195-6959-2 . P. 25.
  7. ^ Reviel Netz: Barbed Wire: An Ecology of Modernity . Wesleyan University Press, Middletown 2004, ISBN 978-0-8195-6959-2 . P. 26.
  8. ↑ Patent US157124 : Improvement in wire fences. Registered October 27, 1873 , published November 24, 1874 , inventor: Joseph F. Glidden. ‌
  9. ↑ 135 years ago: Joseph Glidden receives US patent for barbed wire. End of the endless space. WDR 2 from November 22, 2009.
  10. ↑ cf. z. B. Bill Bryson : Made in America: an Informal History of the English Language in the United States , Black Swan, 1998, ISBN 0-552-99805-2 , p. 114.
  11. ^ Reviel Netz: Barbed Wire: An Ecology of Modernity . Wesleyan University Press, Middletown 2004, ISBN 978-0-8195-6959-2 . P. 29.
  12. ^ Reviel Netz: Barbed Wire: An Ecology of Modernity . Wesleyan University Press, Middletown 2004, ISBN 978-0-8195-6959-2 . P. 30. The number was derived from the weight of barbed wire produced up to that point.
personal data
SURNAME Glidden, Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Glidden, Joseph Farwell (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American farmer who patented the barbed wire
DATE OF BIRTH January 18, 1813
PLACE OF BIRTH Charlestown, New Hampshire
DATE OF DEATH October 9, 1906
Place of death DeKalb (Illinois)