This Week In History, Library Style! Oct 27: Fences

barbwire fence on wheat field
Photo by JACK REDGATE on Pexels.com

Libraries are places where we connect people to information that may be useful or interesting to them. Looking at some history, and connecting it to the materials we may have in our libraries, can be a good way to convince patrons to use and enjoy all the things we provide!

This week we are looking at October 27. Of course a lot of things have happened on this date – news and the big stories are the unusual things that are going on around us. One interesting thing that has happened today in 1873: “Farmer Joseph F. Glidden applies for a patent on barbed wire. Glidden eventually received five patents and is generally considered the inventor of barbed wire.”

Barbed wire, also known as barb wire, occasionally corrupted as bobbed wire or bob wire, is a type of steel fencing wire constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the strands. It is used to construct inexpensive fences and is used atop walls surrounding secured property. It is also a major feature of the fortifications in trench warfare (as a wire obstacle).”

Bring this historical fact to your library! You can do this with a variety of program and display ideas. We will help you to get started with a few ideas: set up a display of inventions and inventors, work on an indoor container garden, draw pictures of fences and different things you could use for fences, write a story about putting fences up on the moon, use a variety of craft items to build a new invention.

Here are a few books you might add to your collection or share with your patrons – or just enjoy yourself!