The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-06-22
4 HISTORY OF THE
 HUMBLE PAPER BOX
Large Sum Spent Yearly on T
 Package Wrappings
ORIGIN OF INDUSTRY
English Grocers Began It Years Age When They Found Paper Wrap pers Unsuitable in Making
 Neat Packages
From the New York Sun.

rom the NeW 1oTk ouH
 | When the grocer or the dry goods store
 clerk or the baker sends his goods to the
 purchaser they are wrapped up in d paper
 or card box This card box as soon as
 the contents are taken out is In nine
 cases out of 10 thrown away or cons signed 70 a shelf for future use The box
 or bag is of no further interest except
 possibly to light fire. The grocer or
 the dry goods store clerk is not much in- | terested in the box. All that he knows or cares to know is that the box or pag is
 more or less indispensable to his business
 anu that the firm has a certain price to pay for t. Yet the history of the paper | box or bag is the history of one of the big industries of the country. It's mode of | manufacture Is interesting The money
 spent patents and special machinery
 in one year would easily run a pres.desl-
 tial campaign
 Years ago the grocers of England used to wrap goods purchased of them in pas per One day one of the grocers decided | that the paper was clumsy, although they had reduced the wrapping of it around
 a parcel to a fine art, and sought for
 means whereby he could make his pack-
 age of tea or sugar attractive to the cus- | toner. He folded the paper in various 1 ways so as to form d receptacle for the goods.
 | First he cut the paper in rectangular form overlapping till the ends met and
 pasted together two of them. This bag was found to be useful for all small articles. but as soon us anything heavy | was placed in it the bag burst. Then the l grocer doubled the bottom of the bags 1 finding that most of the weight was there. | This. however, made the bottom too strong and the sides too weak. By this
 time ether grocers and small vendors | had got hold of the idea and several | brains were brought into contact with tha | bag question. Various methods of fol1- | ing paper bags came into existence and | the enromous demand for them through-
 out the country caused the paper mills
 to look into the question. The era of pa-
 per bag and box manufacturing then started.
 Every mill that handled or manufae- tured the coarse heavy papers turned it's attention to bag making. Patents were taken out thick and fast Mills began to | give up manufacturing paper alone and took up bag making as their main prod
 lct. With the rapid growth of the United States and the native inventive genius os
 the people machinery was requsitloned Into the art of paper bag and box making. l Nowadays there are hundreds of fac l tories from coast to coast whose sole product is either paper bags or boxes and | each factory specializes q certain make | or kind of bag. To do this nearly cvery
 manufacturer has some kind of pros | tective patent in the manufacturing end | of it. as the Patent office at Washington
 has decided that It Is not possible to pat
 ent a shape. These number hundreds and
 cover every form of bag and box. Some | have a special way of folding the bags l whereby they open quite flat and make It
 rasier for the grocer to place his wares l therein. Others have l1gs of a special paper through which grease will not pea citrate. others non-tearabe bags. an1 SD
 on through gamut of bags of all shapes, sizes and colors.
 While there are several classihcations of bags, the card boxes may be divided into two distinct classes the solid or set
 lip class or the collapsibe or caught up,i The former are put in sauaring machines
 and cut and folded to shape. Generaliy some patent method of fastening is usedI
 These boxes are made for various purr poses. usually for holding light articlesA such as cereals, oatmeal and allied goods. These boxes, which are made from wood pulp. usually are then bound with paper
 decorated with the trademark or band
 of the firm which Is selling the goods in
 them. folded flat and shipped in thousands to tho buyers. The caught up boxes ara
 manufactured in different way alto- gether. fer instead of cutting the card they gre put into machinery, which cx- errs terrific pressure and shapes the
 board to the form desired
 There is another form of box which has lately come on the market and is known ns non-siftng. These are for goods thae have the nature of powder or flour. fn the usual card boxes made for face pow
 der the powder works through the box
 and a good deal of it is lost. With the
 non. sfting box this is impossible.