Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The History of Wire

Episode Date: April 16, 2025

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 is 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. Sponsors Mint Mobile Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/eed Quince Go to quince.com/daily for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order! Stitch Fix Go to stitchfix.com/everywhere to have a stylist help you look your best Tourist Office of Spain Plan your next adventure at Spain.info  Stash Go to get.stash.com/EVERYTHING to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures. Subscribe to the podcast!  https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Austin Oetken & Cameron Kieffer   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time

to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. The Genesis for this episode comes from a very simple question I had. years ago. How did people make wire? I'm not a metalurgist, 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 in 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, craftmen developed a process known as drawing by hand, where a metal rod or strip, and 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 broaches, 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 drawplates 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 drawplates 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 chain mail is deeply intertwined with the development of metal wire, as the manufacturer of this type of armor fundamentally depends on the ability to produce

consistent, durable, and flexible metal rings. Chain mail wasn't just a military innovation, but also a metallurgical milestone that helped drive advances in wiremaking technology throughout antiquity in the Middle Ages. Chain mail is believed to have originally. originated with the Celts in Central Europe around the 4th to 3rd century BC. Archaeological evidence, including chain mail shirts found in burial sites like at the Latene 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 Hamada. Early Celtic chain mail 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, chain mail is still used today. It's used for safety purposes by people who have to manipulate sharp knives, such as butcher's. And I actually have a chain mail scrub 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 improve the ease and quality of drawing, and multiple successive drawing dyes 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 Harz 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 telegraph system relied on copper wire to transmit messages across vast distances. Telegraph wire soon, span 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 tracks 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 wires 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 1 and 2 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 dyes, but the equipment, materials, and control systems transform completely. Modern wire production typically begins with hot rolling metal into rye. 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 control 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 micro-electronic applications, with diameters measured in thousands 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. 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 Oaken 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 and 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 two can have it read on the show.