What Is the Origin of Corrugated Paper?
Corrugated paper is the successor of paperboard and predecessor of the corrugated cardboard used in shipping. Only minor changes were made to the material once it was patented for use in shipping.
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Origins of Use in Shipping
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Corrugated paper for shipping, as it is used today, first came into fashion in America when a patent was granted to Albert L. Jones in 1871 for corrugated shipping boxes. The earliest production patents for corrugated paper arise from England in the late 19th century.
Initial Uses
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Corrugated paper replaced paperboard as the liner for sweatbands in men's hats. In 1876, corrugated paper had not yet achieved its primary function as a packaging material, but instead took the place of paperboard as a cushion beneath the sweatband in men's hats.
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Prefabrication
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Robert Gair was the first to prefabricate the cuts and creases for shipping use. It was nearly 75 years after its introduction that Robert Gair in New York began to cut and crease the paperboard. Unlike the earlier paperboard, which was flat and required manual folding to create boxes, Gair's advancement pre-cut and pre-creased the material into easily foldable boxes.
Commercial Advancements
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Three years after Jones' patent, George Smyth invented the first machine to mass-manufacture corrugated paper. Later that year, Oliver Long added liner sheets to both sides of Smyth's single-sided advancement.
Evolution to Cardboard
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Corrugated paper is the forerunner to modern corrugated cardboard containers. The influence of corrugated paper on modern corrugated boxes culminated in 1894 when Robert Thompson and Henry Norris manufactured a dual-lined corrugated box that they managed to sell to Wells Fargo.
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References
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