Joseph Glidden's barbed wire

In 1874 an Illinois farmer named Joseph Glidden patented an invention. He advertised it as "stronger than whiskey and cheaper than air." His invention provided prairie farmers with something that, in a land without trees, they desperately needed - a cheap and efficient fencing material. Glidden's invention was barbed wire.

Barbed wire consists of two strands of plain wire twisted around one another, with short, sharp wire spikes held between them. By 1890, 100 pounds of barbed wire was being sold for only $4. Prairie farmers bought tons of it to fence in their lands.

Barbed wire fences meant that prairie farmers could plant crops knowing that straying cattle would not trample and eat the growing plants. They could breed better animals knowing that stray bulls could not mate with their cows. They could mark off their boundaries to avoid quarrels with neighbors.

Glidden's invention changed the face of the Great Plains. By the end of the century thousands of miles of barbed wire fences had divided the open prairie into a patchwork of separate farms and fields.

Bryn O'Callaghan: An illustrated history of the USA; Longman, Harlow, 1990/1996, page 64