What drove the development the free group and free products of groups?

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In my modern algebra class, we've motivated the construction of the free group and free product of groups using basic category theory - that is, the discussion was framed for our purposes as a search for free objects and coproducts in the category of groups. However, category theory is a pretty modern development in mathematics and the free group and free product were around before the general notions of free objects, coproducts, and universal products. What motivated the construction of these objects in the first place?