Industrial Age · North America · Technology

1874

Barbed Wire Patented

1874

Joseph Glidden, an Illinois farmer, patented a practical twisted-wire fence with steel barbs - "the devil's rope." It cost a fraction of wooden fencing and made it possible to close the open range. Within a decade cattlemen and farmers were shooting at each other over it, and the open plains of the American West were quietly being fenced in.

More from 1874 Industrial Age

In context

Also in 1874 (3 other events on record)

First Impressionist Exhibition · Europe · Culture
Universal Postal Union · Europe · Politics
Third Anglo-Ashanti Ends · Africa · War

Before and after in North America

Before: September 18, 1873: Panic of 1873
After: March 10, 1876: Bell's Telephone

Before and after in Technology

Before: May 7, 1873: Remington Typewriter
After: March 10, 1876: Bell's Telephone

Era

Industrial Age (1801–1900), one of 513 events from that era on Saeculum.

Sources

Wikipedia: Barbed wire