Reed+Taylor

 Joseph Farwell Glidden 1813-1906

Invention: Barbed Wire Date Patented: 1874 By 1870, there was a smooth wire developed that was being used to make fence, but found it was not dependable enough to with hold livestock. Joseph F. Glidden was at county fair in DeKalb, Illinois when he first thought of the idea of barb wire. He saw a Wooden railed fence with sharp nails sticking out on all sides and figured he could make a much safer and more particle fence that would still get the job done. He decided to use the smooth wire with smaller protruding objects called, barbs. Glidden first used a coffee bean grinder to make the barbs for the smooth wire. It consisted of a smooth metal wire with barbs segmented in sections along the wire. The barbs would be woven in between the metal wires. Many churches actually referred to this as "The Devil's Rope" in fear that it hurts the animals. This type of fencing was cheap and was the first fence able to with hold large livestock, which allowed farmers and live stockers to be able to have mass amounts of cattle and other live stock on their farms. This type of fence is still used in many places today and can

