Worcester Business Journal

1822-1921 business partner, Benjamin Godard, at the Millbury Armory. When he began the wire-drawing technology, a first In Worcester, the business got a boost when it worked with the inventor of a new type of wood screw. Providing the stock for their product allowed him to reinvest and dramatically improve the equipment being used at his North Works; while investor Stephen Salisbury II paid for the building that housed the business. e development of the telegraph dramatically increased the demand for iron wire to string along the telegraph poles that followed the expanding rail network of the country, by which time Washburn was doing business as Washburn & Moen, with his son-in-law Philip Moen as partner. Piano wire and lightweight wire for fashionable hoop skirts followed, furthering the company's growth. When a successful design for barbed wire was patented by Midwestern inventor J.F. Glidden, Washburn & Moen acquired the patent and then defended it against all comers. e patent and the scale and efficiency of his Quinsigamond Iron & Wire Works (aka the South Works) complex helped it to become one of the largest industrial operations in the region largely based on its production of barbed wire. Several members of his family also played roles in the business over the years and a distant cousin, Emory Washburn, became a successful lawyer in Worcester and eventually Massachusetts governor. Ichabod Washburn was one of the key figures, along with John Boynton and Salisbury in establishing the school that became Worcester Polytechnic Institute. And while barbed wire manufacturing long ago moved west, it is a product that continues to be widely employed globally; its only real competitors being the conceptually similar razor wire and electrified fences. – Alan R. Earls Everyone wanted to get into the barbed-wire act. Here is an example of a competing patent. e front entrance of Washburn & Moen, now known as the Northworks building e rise of woven wire fencing American Steel & Wire Co. shipments of wire products more than doubled in the 15 years after the turn of the 20th century. Source: Industrial Worcester, Charles G. Washburn, 1917, Davis Press 0 50,000 100,000 150,000 200,000 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 14.9% 40.9% 79.7% 127.4% 46.4% 64.7% 41.8% 45.2% Population and percent growth, decade-to-decade 300,000 200,000 100,000 0 Barbed wire Woven wire fencing 1899 1914 400,000 500,000 Net tons shipped 166,563 28,431 193,740 293,357 W o r c e s t e r 3 0 0 : C i t y o f I n n o v a t o r s 29 Image | Worcester Historical Museum Image | Worcester Historical Museum

• Cover