Grand Rapids herald. [volume] (Grand Rapids, Mich.) 1892-1959, 1893-12-26
GOODS PUT IN BOXES
Number Of Uses for Which Card
board IS Essential
HAVE BOXES FOR EVERYTHING
soase Interesting Information Regard
Ing the Beginning and Growth 81
an Important Industry

veniences the paper box holds front
place. Hall : century ago the dry
goods dealer would present an empty
box 10 the little daughter OF his regu-
lar customer ~ mark Of special favor.
Boxes were then used only by the
Wholesale houses 70 send out their
goods In. and the retaiier kept them to
snow his wares In Now the customer
insists upon His purchase being placed
Ia . neat box. Not only h this 80 Ina
the dry goods business. hut In every
other business The oyster fry In q
box as . peacemsker WAS y popular
joke half dozen years ago; now they
put iee-cream IN boxes. and oil sorts of
things Candy used to be cold In pa
per bags; the smallest purchase has To
be put In box. The sausy confection-
er might hand . paper bag to u woman
who had made . small purchase. but
never To man. The man Is probably
more particular about his parcel than
. woman. He hates TO be seen carry
ing parcels, anyway. and those he does
carry must he thoroughly well dis
guised. II he buys . bottle of whisky
he must have II In . box. 30 that his
friends may mistake II for . pair of
shoes
II Is not surprising, therefore. says
the New York Advertiser. that paper
box making should have grown into an
important industry. In this city alone
no less than Ave thousand girls are
employed In IL. It II comparatively
clean. healthy business, il regular and
Is well paid. the wages averaging be-
tween seven and ten dollars . week.
There are In this city scventy-five firms
engaged in the business, but three
fourths OF il Is done by ten large firms,
whose individual output will run from
one hundred thousand to one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars n year. As
the average cost of n paper box Is five
cents, you can form some idea from
this of the enormous number that are
used One candy maker alone during
the month of December last used ten
thousand dollars worth of boxes.
Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago
are also prominent in this industry,
and the workmen and girls employed
by the firms of those cities cannot be
much less than twenty thousand.
The first paper box maker was
George w. Plumly. who started In the
business at Philadelphia In is46. He
and his partner cut out the boxes. their
only tools being q straight edge, COM
passes. shoe knife and scissors. They
employed Ave girls TO paste, and for
six or seven years had . monopoly Of
the business. Then Charles w. Jencks
started in the business in Providence,
and introduced a rough scoring ma
chine To cut partly through the card
board where il is folded TO make the
box. At that time IL was struggle 20
obtain proper materials. There were
few paper mills in the country and the
straw board used was very poor stuff.
not two sheets coming out of the mill
of the same size. II was made by
hand OF straw, meadow hay, refuse
straw from stables, dried In the open
afr on the ground, and consequently
was often filed with sand. which made
IL interesting for the cutters The
best quality of mill board was all inn
ported.
III bAprC carly j1No litC lOunk WOIl-
en- in the paper box factories made
boxes as their mothers made pies, lone
at time and that one we'll" A girl
who could make pies quickly and well
could make boxes in q similar style.
The operations were somewhat SINH
lar. There was the same manner of
cutting out material. the same caress-
ing way of patting down and smooth
ing out the box coverings as the pie
crust and the same way of trimming
off surplus material Now everything
is done by machinery In paper box
making. and the girls have nothing TO
do but feed the material to the ma
chimes
George A. Dickerman. Of Boston,
started In the business I'm 1863 in Bos-
ton, and about 1870 a Frcnchman
named Rouyon introduced the business
II. this city. The old-fashioned way
of scoring the pasteboard with a rule
and a cobbler's knife continued until
1871. when the first machine was intro
duced- This was the invention of Mr..
Bigelow. Of New Haven. This scoring
machine was such n success that n
number of firms sprang up. Six years
after man named Marshall. of Bos-
ton. made q lighter and easier running
machine. and in 1881 John 7. RobipSon
a Co. invented the present scoring fnn-
chine. The trouble with the former
machines was In the time IL took TO nd.
just the knives 10 n new size or pattern
81 box: in the Robinson scorer there
are two sets Of knives. 80 that one can
be adjusted while the other Is being
used.
Nowadays the whole Of the material
~ made in this country. and II IL sat
isfaction IN know that the scoring ma
chimes and the box making machines
are ell the result Of Yankee ingenuity.
Paper boxes are used all over the
world now, and ell the world has to
get ita machines from this country. In
France paper boxes are still made by
hand BY many firms. but the machines
have been introduced there and u viii
not BE long before Yankee inventions
will he 40 work I'm all their factories
The box maker now receives two dol.
lars for the same work he received I've
dollars foe twenty-one year. ago. yet
l.. A. s...s.fs =.