It’s amazing how sometimes the most simplest tinkering with materials can lead to great innovations. A very simple example of this is Barbed Wire. Now when people from Europe started settling in North America their main profession was farming and cattle rearing. It’s amazing how sometimes the most simplest tinkering with materials can lead to great innovations. A very simple example of this is Barbed Wire. Now when people from Europe started settling in North A issue with cattle rearing is that the cattle may trespass into other farms and eat up crops or wild animals may enter cattle shed and eat up the animals. To overcome this problem fencing of the cattle farm was a must now creating a fence using Brick and Mortar or Wood was very expensive . So in 1867 Lucien Smith invented a basic form of barbed wire which he got patented. The invention of barbed wire lead to 10 – 100 time reduction in fencing costs . It stopped animals from running away from a farm and also protected the crops of other farms from being eaten up by stray animals.  When any cattle tried to enter a field it would get pricked by barbed wire and go away.
The design of the barbed wire was subsequently improved the below figure shows the patent application by Joseph Glidden. The barbed wires used today are mostly similar to the one Glidden invented.
In 1874 an Illinois farmer Joseph Glidden patented and improved the design which held wire barbs in place.
Another such innovation is the the skyscraper. Today all major cities of the world have multistoried skyscrapers many of them streching over hundread floors. Now with the traditional brick and mortar technique the number of floors that could be added to a building is limited however sometime in 1879 or earlier American architect and engineer William Le Baron Jenney who was thinking about this problem came across an amazing solution. He went to his home early his wife was reading a book when he arrived , she put the heavy book on a bird’s cage made of steel wire mesh. Jenny noted that hes strode across the room and dropped the book on the steel cage two or three times and exclaimed : “It works! It works! Don’t you see? If this little cage can hold this heavy book, why can’t an iron or steel cage be the framework for a whole building?”
In 1885 Jenny designed the Home Insurance Building in Chicago . The building was the first fully metal framed building and it is considered the first skyscraper. The steel frame technique is used in all skyscrapers till date. Skyscrapers were important for cities as large cities have very little ground space and skyscraper by rising vertically can solve this problem. Many skyscrapers have become symbolical to their respective cities.
Home insurance building Chicago.