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Inventing the Barbed Wire
The barbed wire looked simple, but it worked.
In 1868 Michael Kelley--one of the first men to patent a form of barbed wire--wrote:
“My invention [imparts] to fences of wire a character approximating that of a thorn-hedge.
I prefer to designate the fence so produced as a ’thorny fence’.”
Another inventor of an early type of barbed wire, Jacob Haish, wrote:
“You may well imagine my efforts were very crude when I state it was in my mind to plant Osage orange seed and when of suitable growth cut and weave it into plain wire and board fences, using the thorns as a safeguard against the encroachments of stock.”
Haish continued: “...Later, I saw wire married to wire and no divorce.
It looked simple, I might say foolish, just a short piece of wire coiled between its ends around a straight parallel wire.”
A wire patented in 1874 by Joseph Glidden of DeKalb, Illinois, became the best-seller.
Glidden’s design remains the most popular model of barbed wire today because of its simplicity and adaptability.
Next: Alexander Graham Bell, Telephone Inventor ›
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Email this to a friend!
Make a virtual phone call to your friends and help them
learn about Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone!
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