Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1901-07-12
BOXES OF EVERY KIND.
NINETY SIZES REQUIRED BY ONE
INDUSTRY ALONE.

Millions of paper boxes are turned
out every week in New Haven from
the common cigarette holder to the
one that holds $40 creation of mil
linery shop. There are half a dozen
box shops in town, and the greater
number of operatives are women. Until
the paper box syndicate got control of
the New Haven box factories the con-
Germs We're run by different people,
but the largest here are now owned
by the National Folding Box and Pa
per company.
If you buy hat it is sent to your
home in a paper box; if you order a
dress suit it comes to your home in
paper box; you get your cuffs, your
collars, your shirts and ties in paper
boxes; your shoes, your cuff buttons,
your jewelry in paper boxes; dresses,
shirtwaists, bonnets. hose. underwear,
luncheons, cereals, oysters, milk, cod
fish, fruit, candies, perfumeries, soaps
and sausage; almost everything but
boilers and engines are packed in pa
per boxes nowadays.
The variety and size of paper boxes
is almost without limit, and modern
machinery to make them is capable of
anything in that way that it may be
called on to do. About the only hand
work now in making paper boxes is
putting on the labels, and this could,
If necessary, be done by machinery
in the factories. An ordinary we'll
equipped factory makes hundreds of
sizes and shapes and usually carries
about 200 samples in stock. The foun-
dation and body. Of a paper box is
strawboard.
Strawboard is hard thick, yellow
ish-brown paper, commonly called
cardboard by the consumer. 1t is made
of straw-usually wheat straw. The
straw used in this state, which has
some of the largest and best known
factories in the country, is usually
hauled to the factories by nearby farm
ers, or the factories buy the straw on
the farms and do their own hauling.
If at too great hauling distance the
straw is shipped in by bales. 1t is
tumbled into huge pots of lime water
and boiled to a pulpy mass. drained.
fed between web cloths which fiatten
1t and carry it to machines with many
hot rollers, which gradually compress
and make it smooth. until. when it
emerges at the other side, it is straw
board in continuous sheet of GER
tain width. 1t passes through cut
ter, which makes it into sheets 26x3S
inches. This is the regulation size
agreed upon by the strawboard manu-
facturer of the United States, appar-
emily because it is the most handy
size and the one that can be made into
most of the other sizes ordinarily used.
Unless otherwise specified, it is always
shipped in this size to paper box max
ers and other people who use straw
board. 1t cuts to great advantage for
many sizes of boxes and with the least
waste. If lined strawboard is wanted,
that is, board with, say, white paper
cover on one side of it, the paper from
large roll is made to meet the straw
board as it passes through the rollers,
and is pressed on the board before the
latter is completely dried by the last
rollers. Strawboard comes altogether
in 50-pound bundles, no matter what
the size of the sheets. Some of it is
so thick that there are only eight
sheets of the regulation size in 80
pound bundle; others thin enough to
give 1870 sheets to the bundle Of that
weight
The boXmaker first cuts the larger
sheets into the sizes he needs to make
the kind of boxes wanted. Then these
sheets of proper size are fed into a
machine that scores them, that is, cuts
half way through them in the right
places so that the sheet may be folded
and be in shape of box with bottom,
two sides and two ends. Before be-
ing folded, however, they are slipped
into machine which nips the Cor
ners Off The stay machine next gets
the folded shape and puts gummed pa
per over the corners to hold together
the sides and ends. The next machine
lines and covers the boxes with paper
in whatever color is wanted. The pa
per has blue on one side. like postage
stamps, and is in rolls on an axle. The
naked strawboard box is hung on an
other machine which turns the box up
and down and over while the operator
guides the paper over the box, outside
and in. The lid is lined and complet-
ed in the same manner being of
course, slightly larger than the box so
as to fit over it. There is q little ma
chine to make the thumb hole, the lit
tie semi-circular opening at the middle
of the bottom of each side of the lid,
which makes place to get hold of the
box while the lid is being pulled off.
Then girls, by hand. deftly and quick
ly put on the labels. The box has
made the round OF the factory, going
from the receiving room, where the
strawboard is stored, to the shipping
room, awaiting the wagons which take
them to merchant or railroad.
The largest boxes made in Indianap-
oils factories are those for shirtwaists,
26x16x10 inches: the smallest. 1x1x3-S
inches. The latter are used by dental
supply companies to send samples of