(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] Behold, barbed wire.
But where did it come from?
Meet Joseph Glidden,
born in New York in 1813.
Joseph was originally a
school teacher in New York
but by the time he was in his
late 30s he'd already moved
to Illinois and taken a job as the Sheriff
of DeKalb County.
You may have heard the
expression good fences
make good neighbors before.
This was especially true
in DeKalb at the time.
Cattle ranchers needed reliable ways
to control their herds
and farmers needed fences
to prevent animals from
trespassing into their crops.
In 1873 Joseph saw an
interesting demonstration.
A man named Henry Rose had a new concept
for fencing.
His design featured a
wooden rail with spikes
protruding from the sides of the rail.
This idea intrigued
Joseph, but he was certain
it could be improved.
He buckled down and went to work.
By 1873 he'd patented the stuff of genius
we call barbed wire.
Here's how it works.
Joseph used a coffee grinder
to sharpen wire barbs
which he placed at regular
intervals along a smooth wire.
He twisted a second wire
around the first to hold
the barbs steady.
Joseph wasn't the first
person to invent a form
of barbed wire, nor
was he the first person
to market this product, however,
his patent is the basis
for the modern barbed wire
used in the United States
and across the world today.
(upbeat music)
