We see cardboard boxes all around these days, but where did they really come from? Here, we’ll go over the origin story of cardboard boxes, and what they mean.
First Discovery
The material known by many as cardboard boxes, was first invented in China during the 1500s, and was created in the same way that it is today, utilizing pulp from plants and trees, mostly the mulberry. Over time, this started to go through Europe, all the way to the Silk Road
However, it’s something that may have ties to it, but it was first created back in 1817, and this was in Blighty by a company named M Trever ton and Son. Later on, there were future records of these boxes being made in Germany, which has been designed to contain what’s called “The Game of Besieging.”
This was incredibly popular, as it was based on a war strategy. The board of the game and the pieces that came with this are all handmade. This was effective at protecting this, but the truth of the matter was, the boxes took a ton of time to make, and were expensive too.
The Invention of the Cardboard Boxes
Now let’s go fast-forward a few decades to the silk manufacturers back in 1840s France. They realized that hey, cardboard is suitable for many needs, to the point where they made their own boxes in order to transport moths and the eggs, after discovering what ideal material cardboard has for this purpose, such as good airflow, is secure, and is lightweight in order to block out light.
Because of this success, this production became a huge part in the industry, especially in southeastern France. This lasted for the next century as well.
Now, let’s look as well at England, as in 1856, there was a patent that was lodged by Edward G. Healy along with Edward E. Allen for corrugated boxes that we know of today. This cardboard, however, wasn’t used for boxes, but rather it was for top hats. These two Edwards ended up seeing how versatile cardboard was however, and due to the wavy shape of it, it was soon found that this helped hats stay tall while also having some flexibility. The hats created from this therefore became a lot more comfortable and durable too. Then in 1871, in NYC, they finally realized the destiny of cardboard, a material used for all sorts of shipping purposes. Albert Jones was the one to patent the use of single-sided baseboard made of corrugated fibers, as a type of wrapping structure to protect bottles and glass lanterns.
This single-sided corrugated boxboard is simply just sheets of both corrugated and pleated paper as in the case of top hats and was lined on a side of this with some cardboard. 6
These days, we’re so used to corrugated paper being in between lining, this is definitely a tweak that’s unique, due to Oliver Long that pretty much took the improvements that jones made and then brought it a step further.
We ended up with the boxes that we have today thanks to a man named Robert Gair, who in 1870 represented the UK, and was a Scottish bit. He had a paper bag manufacturing plant in Brooklyn. He ended up accidentally making this one day during the manufacturing of seed bags, hence the situation that we have today.
So there you have it, the origins of cardboard boxes, in order to help you better understand the aspects of each of these, and to help with the improvements of your boxes too.
