What do you think?
Rate this book
Barbed Wire: The Fence that Changed the West
Before the mid-1800s, much of the American West was a vast
expanse of open plains. Native tribes followed buffalo herds
unimpeded for hundreds of miles, cowboys ran cattle wherever
water and grass led them, and the cattleman s Law of the Open
Range ruled. All this changed when settlers pouring into the West
under the Homestead Act of 1862 brought with them the Eastern
farmer s concept of fencing in farms. With the invention and mass
production of barbed wire in the 1870s, it soon became possible
for homesteaders to fence off millions of acres of what was once
open range. But barbed wire threatened the livelihood of the
cattlemen who depended on unfenced grasslands, and a clash of
cultures was inevitable.
In a style that will capture the interest of adult and teen readers,
Barbed Wire: The Fence That Changed the West reveals the surprisingly
critical role the invention of barbed wire played in the settling of
America. From the legal battles over barbed wire patents to the
brutal fencing wars that erupted on the frontier and the ultimate
end of the open range, author Joanne Liu tells the fascinating story
of how a simple twist of wire transformed a country s landscape
and ushered in a new way of life.
expanse of open plains. Native tribes followed buffalo herds
unimpeded for hundreds of miles, cowboys ran cattle wherever
water and grass led them, and the cattleman s Law of the Open
Range ruled. All this changed when settlers pouring into the West
under the Homestead Act of 1862 brought with them the Eastern
farmer s concept of fencing in farms. With the invention and mass
production of barbed wire in the 1870s, it soon became possible
for homesteaders to fence off millions of acres of what was once
open range. But barbed wire threatened the livelihood of the
cattlemen who depended on unfenced grasslands, and a clash of
cultures was inevitable.
In a style that will capture the interest of adult and teen readers,
Barbed Wire: The Fence That Changed the West reveals the surprisingly
critical role the invention of barbed wire played in the settling of
America. From the legal battles over barbed wire patents to the
brutal fencing wars that erupted on the frontier and the ultimate
end of the open range, author Joanne Liu tells the fascinating story
of how a simple twist of wire transformed a country s landscape
and ushered in a new way of life.
141 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
2 people are currently reading
100 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
June 16, 2024
Interesting in places and provided informative historical details, but lacked a certain pizazz to captivate the reader and hold their attention throughout. Wasn't expecting a novel, but it could have been enhanced by giving more specific and intriguing stories. Instead, too much of the history was generalized like a textbook.
August 11, 2015
Barbed Wire: The Fence that Changed the West by Joanne S. Liu
ISBN 978-0-87842-557-0
Copyright 2009 Mountain Press Publishing Company
This is a history book of just how it was that a simple product made of steel managed to change history in a twist of the wire, over a period of decades.
In times preceding the advent of barbed wire, farmers in the eastern part of the country made fences of stone and of wood to mark the boundaries of their fields, as well as keep livestock, wild animals, and other people off of their fields, to protect their growing produce from damage, theft, and loss.
When the westward expansion began in the 1840s, increased in the 1850s with the 1851“Go West, Young Man” saying attributed to John L. Soule, combined with Manifest Destiny, it became impractical to farm land which could be homesteaded. One could not keep his own, nor his neighbors’ cattle or wild horses out of his oats, hay, corn, or vegetables. Hence, many homesteads which began with high hopes and expectations were abandoned after a few years when they could not make a living on their land.
There were large cattlemen, who for the most part ran their branded cattle on wild grasses, according to season and water availability, between Texas and Saskatchewan, New Mexico to Manitoba, Missouri to Alberta. The cowboys of the old west branded their livestock, and kept watch on the herds as they roamed the plains. The Native Americans too, used these wide-open spaces to hunt wild game, and follow their game wherever the herds went. The cattlemen, cowboys, and Natives were in competition. However, large-scale wars seldom broke out between these groups.
Westward settlement became even more popular in the aftermath of the US Civil War, ending in 1865. With nothing left of their homes and farms, many took advantage of the Homestead Act, and sought to make new lives in the west. Open range was the rule of the land, and “fence out” was the rule, as opposed to the eastern “herd law” and “fence in” rule. That is a matter of variation in State Laws regarding agriculture and livestock to this day.
However, when the settlers – farmers – came along, it all changed. Some of the early farmers, especially those who could afford it, had fencing materials shipped in from the east on the railroad. The less affluent tried digging trenches around their fields. Either way, this was a very expensive proposition. The book says that an 1940 publication claimed it took $1.70 worth of fencing to prevent the loss of $2.40 worth of crops. It cost $640 to put a fence around a 160 acre parcel of land. They needed a cheaper. effective form of fences to put up in the Great Plains, where there are too few trees to make wooden fences, and where rocks and stones are not nearly as plentiful as they are in the east near the Appalachian or Ozark Mountains. It also did not go over well with the cattlemen, cowboys, or Natives. Organized parties would take down or punch holes in the fences or fill in the trenches. They did not take kindly to this. Hence, many skirmishes broke out among cattlemen, farmers, cowboys, and natives.
The aftermath of the Civil War left the western cattlemen in turmoil too. As many of the cowboys left the ranches to join the war – on either side, the cattle were untended. After the war, herds roamed everywhere, many of which were unbranded. This led to people trying to get those unbranded – hence unclaimed – cattle for themselves. This was considered cattle rustling, as many of the cattlemen – large and small, claimed the cattle were theirs.
Smooth-wire fencing has been available since the 1830s. However, it lacked effectiveness. In the late 1860s and early 1870s, several people and corporations developed twisted wire, usually with barbs of their own types. They each patented their own “twist of the wire”, but patent law was not as good as it is now. The legal battles over barbed wire patents had the effect of making patent law more effective, and the operation of the patent office being effective at protecting patents. This enhanced protection of intellectual property – including inventions, processes, and operations, greatly helped the industrial revolution and the manufacture of better and better things to enhance all of our lives.
Of course, violations of patent or “pirate” imitations of the patented item are not a new phenomenon. During the late 1870s-1890s, “moonshine wire” was manufactured and sold in great quantities, and the buyers of such counterfeit products were liable as well. Hence, all sellers of barbed wire came under suspicion by the farmers and ranchers in the west. This led to what was called the “Free Wire Movement”, countered by those interested in defending their patents.
Nonetheless, putting up barbed wire angered both the cattlemen and the Natives. It also led to the deaths of millions of cattle during harsh winters. It has to do with the way that cattle put their back to the wind or incoming blizzard, and slowly move away from it – usually they would drift south. When the cattle would encounter a fence, they could no longer move, and died along the fence. This became a horrible crisis during the brutal winter of 1885. Later, it was discovered that building drift fences shelters in areas where the cattle would congregate during blizzards would save their lives. I’d always wondered why there were shelters on the same corner of pastures, mile after mile – but which corner varies among wide areas. This is my answer to that puzzle.
Cattlemen, cowboys, and Natives were even more displeased with this more effective fencing – which they called “the devil’s rope”. Fence cutting became more common, but the farmers did not just take it lying down. They’d put up new fence, certainly, especially with this new barbed wire being much less expensive than other fencing, but also used patrols to guard their fences.
Also during the 1880s, as prime farmland homesteads became more difficult to get, people would just lay claims to land. Certainly, many of these fences were cut by the cattlemen and natives. Fence cutting had become a felony while putting up an illegal fence was a misdemeanor. Gone unchallenged, after a period of years, the land enclosed by the illegal fence would become legally the property of the person so laying the claim. This is the legal philosophy of adverse possession. False claims – of someone using a fictitious name to gain a parcel of land, or a cattleman having everyone in his employ file a claim to a homestead under the agreement that the homestead would be turned over to the cattleman, were very common. To allow the title of the land to be salable, adverse possession laws had to be used here too.
So many cattle died in the winter of 1885, and demand for meat was so high, and the price went up after the death of an estimated 200,000 cattle, that there was a movement to get rid of barbed wire in the late 1880s. However, farmers resisted this. The problems with the cattle deaths were abated, the price of barbed wire, and the designs improved, and the demand returned higher than ever.
This was also the cause of the decline, and the demise of the cattle trails, once predominant in the Old West. Instead, cattlemen fenced in their huge, large, and modest spreads. To ensure enough food, they began farming grain and hay as cattle feed, or paying neighboring farmers to raise their cattle feed in fenced fields. The cattle fared better in these confined spaces, where they could be better protected from hazards of the wild. Shipping the cattle to market by railroad to large slaughterhouses in Kansas City, Chicago, and other areas was faster, cheaper, and safer than having a long cattle drive to get them to market.
As cattlemen too, adopted the practice of fencing in and claiming their land – marking the demise of the Open Range philosophy throughout the west, the Natives found their traditional ways of life following herds of buffalo and other animals destroyed. Instead, they found themselves signing treaties assigning them parcels of reservation land. The Cherokee Outlet – now the panhandle of Oklahoma, had a lot of cattle driven over it to rail heads. They began charging tolls for cattle to cross their land.
Hence, it was barbed wire that played a big part in turning the United States from a small area of populated territory with wide-expanses of land with only a few Native Americans on it into being fully claimed, populated. This change brought its new set of problems, which are not yet settled.
ISBN 978-0-87842-557-0
Copyright 2009 Mountain Press Publishing Company
This is a history book of just how it was that a simple product made of steel managed to change history in a twist of the wire, over a period of decades.
In times preceding the advent of barbed wire, farmers in the eastern part of the country made fences of stone and of wood to mark the boundaries of their fields, as well as keep livestock, wild animals, and other people off of their fields, to protect their growing produce from damage, theft, and loss.
When the westward expansion began in the 1840s, increased in the 1850s with the 1851“Go West, Young Man” saying attributed to John L. Soule, combined with Manifest Destiny, it became impractical to farm land which could be homesteaded. One could not keep his own, nor his neighbors’ cattle or wild horses out of his oats, hay, corn, or vegetables. Hence, many homesteads which began with high hopes and expectations were abandoned after a few years when they could not make a living on their land.
There were large cattlemen, who for the most part ran their branded cattle on wild grasses, according to season and water availability, between Texas and Saskatchewan, New Mexico to Manitoba, Missouri to Alberta. The cowboys of the old west branded their livestock, and kept watch on the herds as they roamed the plains. The Native Americans too, used these wide-open spaces to hunt wild game, and follow their game wherever the herds went. The cattlemen, cowboys, and Natives were in competition. However, large-scale wars seldom broke out between these groups.
Westward settlement became even more popular in the aftermath of the US Civil War, ending in 1865. With nothing left of their homes and farms, many took advantage of the Homestead Act, and sought to make new lives in the west. Open range was the rule of the land, and “fence out” was the rule, as opposed to the eastern “herd law” and “fence in” rule. That is a matter of variation in State Laws regarding agriculture and livestock to this day.
However, when the settlers – farmers – came along, it all changed. Some of the early farmers, especially those who could afford it, had fencing materials shipped in from the east on the railroad. The less affluent tried digging trenches around their fields. Either way, this was a very expensive proposition. The book says that an 1940 publication claimed it took $1.70 worth of fencing to prevent the loss of $2.40 worth of crops. It cost $640 to put a fence around a 160 acre parcel of land. They needed a cheaper. effective form of fences to put up in the Great Plains, where there are too few trees to make wooden fences, and where rocks and stones are not nearly as plentiful as they are in the east near the Appalachian or Ozark Mountains. It also did not go over well with the cattlemen, cowboys, or Natives. Organized parties would take down or punch holes in the fences or fill in the trenches. They did not take kindly to this. Hence, many skirmishes broke out among cattlemen, farmers, cowboys, and natives.
The aftermath of the Civil War left the western cattlemen in turmoil too. As many of the cowboys left the ranches to join the war – on either side, the cattle were untended. After the war, herds roamed everywhere, many of which were unbranded. This led to people trying to get those unbranded – hence unclaimed – cattle for themselves. This was considered cattle rustling, as many of the cattlemen – large and small, claimed the cattle were theirs.
Smooth-wire fencing has been available since the 1830s. However, it lacked effectiveness. In the late 1860s and early 1870s, several people and corporations developed twisted wire, usually with barbs of their own types. They each patented their own “twist of the wire”, but patent law was not as good as it is now. The legal battles over barbed wire patents had the effect of making patent law more effective, and the operation of the patent office being effective at protecting patents. This enhanced protection of intellectual property – including inventions, processes, and operations, greatly helped the industrial revolution and the manufacture of better and better things to enhance all of our lives.
Of course, violations of patent or “pirate” imitations of the patented item are not a new phenomenon. During the late 1870s-1890s, “moonshine wire” was manufactured and sold in great quantities, and the buyers of such counterfeit products were liable as well. Hence, all sellers of barbed wire came under suspicion by the farmers and ranchers in the west. This led to what was called the “Free Wire Movement”, countered by those interested in defending their patents.
Nonetheless, putting up barbed wire angered both the cattlemen and the Natives. It also led to the deaths of millions of cattle during harsh winters. It has to do with the way that cattle put their back to the wind or incoming blizzard, and slowly move away from it – usually they would drift south. When the cattle would encounter a fence, they could no longer move, and died along the fence. This became a horrible crisis during the brutal winter of 1885. Later, it was discovered that building drift fences shelters in areas where the cattle would congregate during blizzards would save their lives. I’d always wondered why there were shelters on the same corner of pastures, mile after mile – but which corner varies among wide areas. This is my answer to that puzzle.
Cattlemen, cowboys, and Natives were even more displeased with this more effective fencing – which they called “the devil’s rope”. Fence cutting became more common, but the farmers did not just take it lying down. They’d put up new fence, certainly, especially with this new barbed wire being much less expensive than other fencing, but also used patrols to guard their fences.
Also during the 1880s, as prime farmland homesteads became more difficult to get, people would just lay claims to land. Certainly, many of these fences were cut by the cattlemen and natives. Fence cutting had become a felony while putting up an illegal fence was a misdemeanor. Gone unchallenged, after a period of years, the land enclosed by the illegal fence would become legally the property of the person so laying the claim. This is the legal philosophy of adverse possession. False claims – of someone using a fictitious name to gain a parcel of land, or a cattleman having everyone in his employ file a claim to a homestead under the agreement that the homestead would be turned over to the cattleman, were very common. To allow the title of the land to be salable, adverse possession laws had to be used here too.
So many cattle died in the winter of 1885, and demand for meat was so high, and the price went up after the death of an estimated 200,000 cattle, that there was a movement to get rid of barbed wire in the late 1880s. However, farmers resisted this. The problems with the cattle deaths were abated, the price of barbed wire, and the designs improved, and the demand returned higher than ever.
This was also the cause of the decline, and the demise of the cattle trails, once predominant in the Old West. Instead, cattlemen fenced in their huge, large, and modest spreads. To ensure enough food, they began farming grain and hay as cattle feed, or paying neighboring farmers to raise their cattle feed in fenced fields. The cattle fared better in these confined spaces, where they could be better protected from hazards of the wild. Shipping the cattle to market by railroad to large slaughterhouses in Kansas City, Chicago, and other areas was faster, cheaper, and safer than having a long cattle drive to get them to market.
As cattlemen too, adopted the practice of fencing in and claiming their land – marking the demise of the Open Range philosophy throughout the west, the Natives found their traditional ways of life following herds of buffalo and other animals destroyed. Instead, they found themselves signing treaties assigning them parcels of reservation land. The Cherokee Outlet – now the panhandle of Oklahoma, had a lot of cattle driven over it to rail heads. They began charging tolls for cattle to cross their land.
Hence, it was barbed wire that played a big part in turning the United States from a small area of populated territory with wide-expanses of land with only a few Native Americans on it into being fully claimed, populated. This change brought its new set of problems, which are not yet settled.
March 14, 2019
Barbed Wire is an easy-to-read history of the role of fencing in the settlement of the American West. Both native Americans and cattlemen depended on the wide open range, but homesteaders needed a way to protect their crops. Barbed wire became the (relatively) inexpensive solution in an area where lumber and stone were scarce. Fence cutting wars and other violence ensued and loss of range contributed to the near extinction of the bison and the end of the traditional Indian way of life. Now, of course, there are fences everywhere.
August 9, 2021
An extremely well told story of the invention of barbed wire and it’s interrelationship to land grants of the westward expansion, the coming industrial revolution, the post civil war economy, the cattle industry, and the railroad industry. Throw in monopolies, politics and cut throat entrepreneurship for a well balanced look at subject rarely mentioned yet transformative in US history.
May 10, 2020
Always have been interested in the western expansion of this country. Having grown up on a farm, this book educated me on the controversy between cowboys and farmers as barb wire fences changed the “openness” of the prairie and how people in masses changed the land.
January 23, 2023
I had to read this book in History class and this is easily one of the most boring books I’ve ever read. I had a mental breakdown when I hit chapter 12 because it’s just chapter after chapter about barbed wire. This mf actually wrote an entire 15 chapter book about barbed wire.
May 14, 2025
short read but gives some thorough background on the forces driving the enclosure of the "Great American Desert." It left me wanting more info about the Fence Cutting Wars that played out in the late 19th century.
May 12, 2024
I found the writing style tricky and I would have liked more specificity. That being said, the overarching points were striking, cogent, and changed my view of the history
February 24, 2025
1.5/5 Don’t get me wrong, this books is easy to read and quick to learn from, but it’s just not a book I’m into. The reason I did read this book was because of my college history class. Although this book showed me the real importance of barbed wire and its impact on America.
October 19, 2011
I picked this book up in Pagosa Springs, Co and was eager to read it. Most readers would not find it interesting at all. But I did because I had taught Shane for so many year and the changes barbed wire was making in the West were a part of that book. I would loved to have had this book then. Not anything very exciting you can say about barbed wire, but this mere twisting of a small piece of wire had big economic impacts, changed the distribution of the country's population, and contributed the the fading of cowboys.
February 12, 2011
Biased on my rating a little because I know the author. However, I'd recommend this book to anyone who finds the subject intriguing. The author said it was supposed to be geared to a young adult reader, so it is a fairly easy read and not too long. The most interesting part for me was the description of the open range laws that ruled the plains before the age of barbed wire. The meteoric rise of the barbed wire industry is also quite interesting.
June 28, 2016
Since I was a child I was interested in the barbed wire fencing that cuts and divides the rural landscape. I picked this book up at a western historical museum and was glad to finally have some answers to why barbed wire dissects the frontier. Good read; very informative.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews