Window screen

A window screen (also known as insect screen, bug screen, fly screen, wire mesh) is designed to cover the opening of a window. It is usually a mesh made of metal wire, fiberglass, or other synthetic fiber and stretched in a frame of wood or metal. It serves to keep leaves, debris, insects, birds, and other animals from entering a building or a screened structure such as a porch, without blocking fresh air-flow. Most houses in Australia, the United States and Canada and other parts of the world have screens on the window to prevent entry of flying insects such as mosquitoes, flies and wasps. In some regions such as the northern United States and Canada, screens were required to be replaced by glass storm windows in the winter, but now combination storm and screen windows are available, which allow glass and screen panels to slide up and down.

"Wove wire for window screens" were referenced in the American Farmer in 1823. Advertisement for wire window screens appeared in Boyd's Blue Book in 1836. Two wire window screens were exhibited at Quincy Hall in Boston in 1839. In 1861 Gilberr, Bennett and Company was manufacturing wire mesh sieves for food processing. An employee realized that the wire cloth could be painted gray and sold as window screens and the product became an immediate success. On July 7, 1868, Bayley and McCluskey filed a U.S. Patent, number 79541 for screened roof-top rail-car windows, allowing ventilation, while preventing "sparks, cinders, dust, etc." from entering the passenger compartment. By 1874, E.T. Barnum Company of Detroit, Michigan advertised screens that were sold by the square foot. Apparently, window screens designed specifically to prevent insect entry were not patented in the United States, although by 1900 several patents were awarded for particular innovations related to window screen design. By the 1950s, parasitic diseases were largely eradicated in the United States in part due to the widespread use of window screens. Today most houses in Australia, the United States and Canada have screens on all operable windows.

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