Who invented barbed wire?

Barbed Wire

Barbed wire was invented by an American, Joseph F. Gidden, who patented it in 1874.

If you have over visited the countryside where livestock is raised, you probably know what barbed wire is.

Barbed wire is a cable of twisted wire armed with barbs of sharp points.  It is used particularly as an economic means of fencing off large areas.

It provided an inexpensive substitute for wood fences and enabled small farmers to fence in homesteads and settle communities on the western frontier.

Barbed wire is made by feeding two strands of wire, side-by-side, into the wire making machine.  Other wires used to make the barbs are run crosswise over the strand wires.  

At regular space intervals the machine cuts a length from them and twists the barbs around one or both strand wires.  After this is done, the strand wires are twisted together to form the finished cable.  It is then rolled to shipment to dealers.-Dick Rogers