helenprinting

 The first use of corrugated paper for packaging came in 1871. An American, Albert L. Jones, obtained a
patent for the use of corrugated paper for wrapping bottles and glass chimneys for kerosene lamps. It had better cushioning properties than plain paper wraps, was less messy than sawdust. Three years later, in 1874, Oliver Longto patented the concept of adding a liner to one side of the corrugated paper to prevent stretching of the flutes.

The next few years were devoted to the development of machinery to add one and then two liners to the corrugated sheet. The first mechanically-driven single facer (one liner) consisted of two machines built by George Smyth for the Thompson & Norris Co. in 1881. The first continuous corrugator, adding two liners on a single machine, was developed by Jefferson T. Ferres for the Sefton Manufacturing Co. in 1895. With two liners, corrugated boxes was stiff and could not be wrapped around glassware. Henry Norris and Robert Thompson teamed up to look for other packaging uses.

The concept of cutting and slotting pasteboard to make small folding cartons was already in use, so they tried similar patterns to make boxes. With the addition of slots to accommodate the thickness, they introduced "cellular board boxes" in 1894. These corrugated boxes were much lighter and less expensive than wood boxes, and appeared suitable for the shipment of light products.

Samples of the new boxes were submitted to Wells Fargo, a major handler of small freight and light express shipments. The boxes performed well in test shipments, and were accepted as shipping containers by Wells Fargo in 1895. This marked the beginning of what is today the largest segment of America's packaging industry.

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