Barbed wire

Barbed wire is a wire strand fitted with sharp points at intervals, chiefly used in fences to deter people or animals from crossing.

Barb: A sharp point projecting from a surface or object. Barbs fixed along the strand snag and injure anything pressing through the fence.
Joseph Glidden: An American inventor whose 1874 patent helped make practical barbed wire commercially successful. Glidden's design became the dominant form of barbed wire in the United States.
Cattle ranching: The raising and management of cattle, often on fenced pasture or rangeland. Barbed wire made it cheaper to contain cattle across large grazing areas.
Fence Cutting Wars: A series of conflicts in Texas during the 1880s over fences restricting access to public land and water. Resistance to ranchers' barbed-wire enclosures escalated into organized fence cutting.
Wire: A long, thin metal strand formed by drawing or rolling metal. Barbed wire modifies ordinary wire with regularly spaced sharp projections.
Patent: A government-granted right that gives an inventor temporary control over an invention's commercial use. Competing barbed-wire designs emerged through patent filings in the late nineteenth century.
Great Plains: A broad region of flat or gently rolling land extending across central North America. Its open grasslands became a major setting for barbed-wire fencing and ranching.
Open range: A system of livestock grazing on unfenced land, often with little restriction on animal movement. Barbed-wire fences helped replace open-range grazing with enclosed pastures and controlled boundaries.
Fence: A barrier enclosing or dividing an area, commonly made from posts and rails or wire. Barbed wire functions chiefly as a fence material rather than as a standalone barrier.
DeKalb, Illinois: A city in northern Illinois where Joseph Glidden developed and manufactured barbed wire. Glidden's DeKalb factory helped turn his patented design into a mass-produced product.

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Maclura pomiferaRelated: Its adoption displaced living Osage orange hedges across much of the Plains.