Corrugated Boxes: From Accidental Invention to Everyday Essential

In today’s increasingly digital-first world, the humble corrugated box has become an integral part of our lives, especially with the rise of e-commerce since the pandemic.

These sturdy, reliable containers – please do not call them cardboard boxes which are a less resilient relative! – are used to ship products around the globe, ensuring that our purchases arrive safely at our doorsteps.

“Most of us have a relationship with cardboard that ranges, depending on the day and our Amazon Prime membership status, from reluctantly reliant to fully subservient,” Matthew Shaer wrote in the New York Times in November 2022. “Cardboard-box consumption spiked in the early days of the pandemic when everything we needed arrived at our homes swathed in brown-paper packaging; astonishingly, the trend lines have never really reversed course.”

Corrugated Packaging Industry Vital to U.S. Economy

The Fibre Box Association says that corrugated packaging and displays are a $35.5 billion-a-year industry that is vital to U.S. distribution systems.

“It is the most frequently used shipping material because it’s cost-effective, lightweight, functional, and versatile,” says the non-profit trade association.

Some facts about the corrugated packaging industry:

• In 2021, the industry manufactured a record 416 billion square feet of material used to make boxes and displays.
  
  
• This equated to nearly 40 billion packages that safely shipped and protected food, clothing, and durable goods for delivery to millions of domestic and worldwide customers.
  
  
• There are 1,145 corrugated manufacturing facilities with approximately 100,000 employees in nearly 1,000 cities and towns throughout the U.S.
  
  
• More corrugated packaging is recovered for recycling than any other packaging material. The recovery rate for old, corrugated containers (OCC) has hovered around 90 percent for the last decade.
  
  
• The average corrugated box contains 52 percent recycled content.
  
  

What Makes a Corrugated Box?

Before we dive into the history of corrugated boxes, let's clarify what makes a corrugated box.

These boxes are made from a material called corrugated fiberboard, which consists of a fluted (wavy) layer sandwiched between two flat liner boards.

“Architects have known for thousands of years that an arch with the proper curve is the strongest way to span a given space. The inventors of corrugated fiberboard applied this same principle to paper when they put arches in the corrugated medium. These arches are known as flutes and, when anchored to the linerboard with an adhesive, they resist bending and pressure from all directions,” explains the Fibre Box Association.

This creates air pockets that act like tiny shock absorbers, protecting the contents from bumps and bruises during transport.  The thickness and type of fluting can be adjusted depending on what the box needs to hold, making them super versatile.

This unique design provides excellent strength, durability, and cushioning properties.

The four basic types of corrugated box structures are:

• Single Face: One corrugated medium is glued to one flat sheet of linerboard.
  
  
• Single Wall: The corrugated medium is glued between two sheets of linerboard. Also known as Double Face.
  
  
• Double Wall: Three sheets of linerboard with two mediums in between.
  
  
• Triple Wall: Four sheets of linerboard with three mediums in between.
  
  

From Victorian Tall Hats to Amazon Prime

Believe it or not, all those e-commerce boxes delivered daily across America come in corrugated boxes that can trace their beginnings back to tall hats worn by Victorian Englishmen!

In 1856, two Englishmen, Edward Allen and Edward Healey received a patent for the first corrugated board, designed to be used as a hat liner.

Then in 1871, Albert Jones of New York City patented a design for single-sided corrugated board used as packaging material for glass and kerosene lamp chimneys.

By 1874, G. Smyth and Oliver Long took Jones’ design and improved it with liner sheets on both sides, a big step towards today’s corrugated box.

The real breakthrough came in 1890 by accident!

Robert Gair: The Accidental Inventor

That’s right -- one of the most significant moments in the history of corrugated boxes happened by accident.

In 1890, Scottish immigrant Robert Gair, a printer and paper bag maker from Brooklyn, New York, was printing seed bags when a metal ruler fell and cut the bags. This serendipitous event led Gair to realize that he could create pre-cut paperboard boxes, which would be quicker and cheaper to produce than hand-made boxes.

Gair's invention revolutionized the packaging industry and laid the foundation for the modern corrugated box.

“Gair arrived in the United States in the mid-19th century, fought in the Civil War on the side of the Union, and in 1864 opened his first paper-bag-printing factory in New York,” explains Shaer. “He probably would have forever remained a bag man had one of his machines not malfunctioned in such a way that the sacks came off the line marred by a series of horizontal slices.”

Schaer says this was the Eureka! moment for corrugated packaging. The pre-cut, scored, and foldable paperboard box has evolved over the last 130 years, but the basics have remained the same.

“The underlying process, the underlying science — a lot of it would be familiar to someone who worked in the industry 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago or more,” packaging veteran Troy McDaniel told The New York Times. “A lot of the bones are the same, you could say. It’s just that everything is faster, more efficient, safer. There’s more output and more customization.”

Corrugated Box Timeline Since Gair’s Invention

Of course, the corrugated box industry has evolved since Gair’s accidental invention -- here is a timeline, courtesy of the Fibre Box Association, of how things have changed since 1890:

• 1895: Wells Fargo began using corrugated boxes for small freight shipments.
  
  
• 1902: Solid fiber boxes were developed.
  
  
• 1903: Corrugated was approved by the railroads as a valid shipping material and was used to ship cereals.
  
  
• 1909: Rubber printing plates were developed which allowed for greater design creativity.
  
  
• 1920s: Corrugated containers overtook solid fiberboard as the packaging of choice.
  
  
• 1935: The Stein Hall Company reconverted the corrugated industry to starch adhesives.
  
  
• 1940s: The recovery boiler, along with the ability of the kraft process to accept a wider variety of wood species and produced stronger fibers, made the kraft process the dominant pulping process.
  
  
• 1957: Flexographic printing was introduced, replacing letterpress and oil-based ink by the 1970s.
  
  
• 1963: Equations for predicting box strength were published.
  
  
• 1974: The first 110-inch corrugators were introduced.
  
  
• 1980s: Innovations were made in corrugator design to enhance productivity and reduce waste.
  
  
• 1990s: High-performance linerboard was introduced.
  
  
• 2000s: A 130-inch corrugator was introduced.
  
  
• 2010s: Equipment became available to produce custom boxes on demand.
  
  

From their humble beginnings in the 19th century to their status as an e-commerce essential, corrugated boxes have come a long way.

The inventions and innovations of pioneers like Albert Jones and Robert Gair have shaped the packaging industry and made corrugated boxes an indispensable part of our lives.

Contact Performance Packaging today to find the right corrugated boxes and other shipping supplies to meet your business needs.