The History of Wire
16:39 Share

The modern world runs on metal wires. These thin metal strands literally circle the globe and are responsible for much of the world's electrical power and communications. It's something so basic that most people never bother to stop and think about how wires are made. It turns out wire has been made for thousands of years, although its uses have changed dramatically.

Learn more about wire, how it's made, and its many uses on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. ♪

This episode is sponsored by Quince. Vacation season is nearly upon us, and you've heard me talk before about my favorite blanket and towels that I got from Quince, but did you know that they also have a collection of great travel products? Like lightweight shirts and shorts from just $30, pants for any occasion, and comfortable lounge sets. They also have premium luggage options and durable duffel bags to carry everything in.

The best part? All Quince items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. By partnering directly with top factories, Quince cuts out the cost of the middleman and passes the savings on to us. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical, and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes.

For your next trip, treat yourself to the luxury upgrades you deserve from Quince. Go to quince.com slash daily for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash daily to get free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash daily. This episode is sponsored by Mint Mobile.

Do you say data or data? Well, I say data. And for the longest time, I thought paying a fortune on my monthly data plan was just normal. That wasn't until I found out about Mint Mobile and their premium wireless plans that start at just $15 a month. With Mint Mobile, I use the exact same network on the exact same cell towers I used before with the exact same phone and exact same phone number. The only thing that isn't the same are the monthly fees.

All plans come with high-speed data or high-speed data, your choice, as well as unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. No matter how you say it, don't overpay for it. Shop data plans at mintmobile.com slash EED. That's mintmobile.com slash EED.

upfront payment of $45 for a three-month five gigabyte plan required equivalent to $15 a month new customer offer for the first three months only then full price plan options available taxes and fees extra see mint mobile for details the genesis for this episode comes from a very simple question i had years ago how did people make wire i'm not a metallurgist and i've never tried my hand at being a blacksmith however i know the basic gist of how blacksmithing works

You heat a metal, tell it's malleable, and then you hammer it into the shape you want, be it a sword or a horseshoe. I know that's a vast oversimplification, but from a conceptual standpoint, that is pretty much how it works. So, I could understand how most basic objects could be made out of metal, but I had no clue how they could make wire. You couldn't really hammer out a wire of uniform length. Likewise, it didn't seem that you could really forge something so thin and fragile.

During my travels I saw ancient objects in museums that had wire, so people clearly had been making and using wire for a long time even before its modern uses were discovered. So it turned out my ignorance of how wire was made had a relatively simple answer. And it involved a method that was discovered thousands of years ago. The earliest evidence of wire dates back to around 2000 BC in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt.

These early wires were typically made of precious metals such as gold and silver, hammered into thin strips, and then rolled or twisted into hand into filaments. These wires were primarily used in jewelry, decoration, and ceremonial objects. The softness and malleability of these metals allowed artisans to work with them without needing advanced tools.

So, my original theory that you couldn't hammer out wire was both right and wrong. I was wrong insofar as you can hammer out wire for softer metals like gold and silver. It takes time, but it can be done. However, I was right in that it really wasn't practical for harder metals like iron.

This hammering technique was only the beginning. In ancient Egypt and Sumeria, craftsmen developed a process known as drawing by hand, where a metal rod or strip was pulled through tapered holes in stones or hard materials to produce thinner strands. Wire pulling is really the heart of the entire wire creation process, even to this day. It's pretty simple. You take some metal and you pull it through a hole that is smaller than the metal.

The hole squeezes the metal and ensures that the wire is of a consistent diameter. To make thinner strands of wire, you just keep pulling it through smaller holes. This makes the same amount of wire thinner and longer. Bronze and copper wires later appeared and archaeological finds show their use in intricately woven patterns and decorative metalwork, particularly in the Mediterranean world and South Asia.

During the Greco-Roman period, wire drawing techniques became more refined. The earliest known draw plates, that being tools with holes of diminishing sizes used to draw metal into wire, were developed in the Roman Empire. The Romans made wires of iron, bronze, gold, and silver, using them for ancient brooches, chains, musical instruments, and even some structural applications. However, the quality and uniformity of ancient wire remained inconsistent.

Most production was artisanal and limited to small-scale use. Nevertheless, these methods laid the foundation for future improvements in mechanical wire production. The Middle Ages saw significant advancements, particularly in the Islamic world and then later in Europe. In the Islamic Golden Age, craftsmen improved metalworking techniques and draw plates began to be more widely used with harder metals like steel.

Artisans in India and the Middle East developed sophisticated methods for drawing fine gold and silver wire for use in textile embellishments. In Europe, the production of wire expanded in the 13th and 14th centuries, especially in Germany and France. Nuremberg became an important center for wire production in the 14th century. The wire drawing process became increasingly mechanized, with water-powered wire drawing mills appearing in the late Middle Ages.

These mills mechanized the pulling of metal through draw plates using large wheels and axles driven by flowing water, improving both the speed and consistency of production. Wire was now being used in musical instruments, sieves, pins, and even architectural reinforcement. However, there was one really important use that had been around for centuries that necessitated the need for all of this wire, chainmail.

The history of chainmail is deeply intertwined with the development of metal wire, as the manufacture of this type of armor fundamentally depends on the ability to produce consistent, durable, and flexible metal rings. Chainmail wasn't just a military innovation, but also a metallurgical milestone that helped drive advances in wiremaking technology throughout antiquity in the Middle Ages. Chainmail is believed to have originated with the Celts in Central Europe around the 4th to 3rd century BC.

Archaeological evidence, including chainmail shirts found in burial sites like at the La Tène culture in modern-day Switzerland and Austria, points to the Celts as being the earliest known users of this armor. The Greeks and later the Romans adopted and improved upon the design, calling it "Lorica Hamata." Early Celtic chainmail was crafted by painstakingly hammering iron or bronze into thin rods and then cutting and shaping them into rings.

The rings were then riveted or butted together in a four-on-one pattern, each ring passing through four others. This design provided both flexibility and substantial protection against cutting blows, particularly from swords and arrows. I should note, chainmail is still used today. It's used for safety purposes by people who have to manipulate sharp knives, such as butchers. And I actually have a chainmail scrubber for my cast iron pan.

The Industrial Revolution fundamentally transformed wire manufacturing. In 1773, English iron master Samuel Walker introduced the continuous rolling mill, which could provide uniform iron rods for wire drawing much more efficiently than previous methods. This innovation dramatically reduced costs and increased production volumes. The development of steam power in the late 18th century further revolutionized the industry.

Steam-powered wire drawing machines could produce wire at unprecedented rates with remarkable consistency. The mechanization enabled wire to become an industrial commodity rather than a specialty craft product. Wire's material composition also evolved during this period. In the 1830s, the first practical steel wire was produced, offering greater strength than iron wire.

The Bessemer process, which was introduced in 1856, enabled mass production of steel, making steel wire economically viable for large-scale applications. Draw plates were now made from hardened steel, allowing for the drawing of stronger metals. Lubrication techniques improved the ease and quality of drawing, and multiple successive drawing dies made it possible to produce extremely fine wires.

The development of metal cables made from multiple strands of wire emerged from the need for greater strength, flexibility, and durability than single solid wires could provide. In 1831, the German engineer Wilhelm Albert created the first wire rope for use in mining hoists in the Hares Mountains. His design twisted several strands of wrought iron wire into a helical pattern, creating a cable that was far more resilient and reliable than traditional hemp ropes or single metal rods.

The technology quickly spread. In 1840, American engineer John Roebling improved on Elbert's design by developing stronger, more flexible steel wire cables. Roebling's wire rope became critical in building suspension bridges, including the iconic Brooklyn Bridge, where massive, multi-strand steel cables supported the main span. The gauge system for classifying wires was developed in the 19th century.

This original system was very simple. The gauge of a wire was based on the number of times it was pulled, so a thinner wire had a higher gauge number. Today, thinner wires still have higher gauge numbers, but the math behind it is incredibly complicated. It uses a logarithm with a base 92, which makes absolutely no sense to me. It seems like it would just be easier to give the width in millimeters. The 19th century also saw wire becoming essential to modern communication.

In 1844, Samuel Morse's telegraph system relied on copper wire to transmit messages across vast distances. Telegraph wires soon spanned continents, fundamentally changing the speed and scope of human communication. By 1861, the first transcontinental telegraph line connected the eastern and western United States. The demand for wire only increased in the later half of the 19th century.

Barbed wire, which was invented in the United States in the 1870s, consisted of strands of drawn steel wire twisted together with sharp barbs attached at intervals. Its development was made possible by advances in wire drawing technology, which allowed for the mass production of durable, uniform steel wire. Barbed wire offered a cheap, effective, and easy-to-install method of enclosing large tracts of land, particularly in the American West, where traditional wooden fencing was impractical.

I've previously done an entire episode on barbed wire, and I'll refer you to that for more information. The telephone, patented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876, created further demand for copper wire. As telephone networks expanded globally, copper wire production soared to meet the growing need for reliable communication infrastructure. Wire manufacturing techniques had to evolve to meet increasingly exacting specifications for electrical conductivity and resistance.

The late 19th century also saw wire becoming essential to electrical power distribution. Thomas Edison's first electrical power network in 1882 relied on copper wire to deliver electricity to homes and businesses. As electrification spread, wire became the literal connection between power generation and consumption, enabling the modern electrical age. The early 20th century witnessed remarkable diversification in wire types and applications.

The automotive industry created enormous demand for steel wire entire reinforcements, springs, and control cables. The Wright brothers' first successful aircraft in 1903 relied on wire for structural bracing and control systems, establishing wire's critical role in early aviation. Cable, aka wire rope, continued to revolutionize mining, construction, and transportation.

Ever-larger suspension bridges spanning previously impossible distances became feasible thanks to high-strength wire cables. World Wars I and II drove further innovations in wire manufacturing. High-tensile steel wire for aircraft control cables, specialized alloy wires for military communications, and resistance wires for electrical applications all saw rapid development under wartime pressures. Manufacturing processes became more standardized and quality control more rigorous.

After World War II, wire manufacturing became increasingly sophisticated. The basic process remained the same, drawing metal through progressively smaller dies. But the equipment, materials, and control systems transformed completely. Modern wire production typically begins with hot rolling metal into rod forms, followed by acid cleaning to remove scale and oxides.

Cold drawing, where the metal is pulled through diamond or tungsten carbide dyes without heating, enables precise control of dimensions and mechanical properties. Multiple drawing operations with intermediate heating to relieve internal stresses produce wire with specific characteristics for particular applications. Computer-controlled drawing machines can maintain tolerances measured in micrometers. As electronic devices miniaturized, wire dimensions shrank accordingly.

By the 1970s, wire manufacturers were producing ultra-fine wire for integrated circuits and microelectronic applications, with diameters measured in thousandths of a millimeter. These microscopic wires required entirely new manufacturing approaches and quality control methods. You might never think about the humble metal wire, but an enormous part of our modern world is dependent on it.

All of our modern electrical devices, communication systems, transportation, and modern engineering is at some level dependent on metal wire. All of this is built upon techniques developed thousands of years ago by ancient people who could never have guessed the way wire would be used today. And it all came from pulling a piece of metal through a very small hole.

The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Okun and Cameron Kiefer. Today's review comes from listener Dane Hood over on Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write, A good 30% of the stuff I know is from this podcast. My dad showed me maybe seven months ago, and I have listened to a thousand. I do it in the car when I wake up and when I shower. I am smarter than all the other fifth graders in overall general knowledge now. Please keep making them.

Well, thanks, Dane. I tell you what, I'll make you a deal. I'll keep making them if you keep listening. Also, if you keep listening, I think we can bump that number up from 30%. Those are rookie numbers. Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you too can have it read on the show.