The Box Was A Mistake! The Father of The Folding Carton.
Ingenuity, success, and a revolution in parcel and storage can disguise itself as nothing more than … a mistake? That much is true with the birth of the cardboard carton! A mistake that would make this fine gentleman pictured below with the awesome lip fur a very prosperous man and a pioneer in the paper industry!
This is Robert Gair. Robert was a native of Scotland before moving to the U.S. in 1853 at the age of 14. After fighting in the Civil War, Robert began his venture in the manufacturing of paper bags with a fellow business partner. One day, a pressman accidentally cut through thousands of paper seed bags when a ruler malfunctioned cutting them and creasing them. Like a true visionary, instead of taking the loss on material, Gair realized that the creasing and the folding of the paper gave way to pre-fabricated containers. Before then, the manufacturing of pre-fabricated boxes was time-consuming and expensive. That same year, Gair patented the very first machine designed to manufacture cardboard containers!
So the next time your Amazon package arrives, lets give homage to the man behind the box!