How Barbed Wire Was The Ruination Of The Cowboy Lifetyle The great American cowboy is a part of our heritage that can not be repalced. Cowboys had a difficult profession, hard phyical labor, lonley days, and having to ride a horse all day long. These peaple are good people to look up to and many times over people have in books, movies and songs. Thomas Glidden and his revulationary invention of barbed wire took something from America that can never be replaced, I imagine that most people consider this progress, the never ending evolution of The United States of America, but I can not help but won