Corrugated Paper Box

In 1856, Englishmen, Healey and Allen, received a patent for the first corrugated or pleated paper. The paper was used to line tall men's hats. However, this was not the corrugated cardboard we know today. On December 20, 1871, Albert Jones of New York NY, patented a stronger corrugated paper (cardboard) used as a shipping material. This was the first cardboard and stronger than paperboard. In 1874, G. Smyth built the first single sided corrugated board machine. Also in 1874, Oliver Long improved upon the Jones patent and invented a lined corrugated material and this was modern cardboard as we know it today - which led to the invention of the:

Corrugated Cardboard Box

American, Robert Gair promptly invented the corrugated cardboard box in 1890. These were pre-cut flat pieces manufactured in bulk that opened up and folded into boxes. Gair made his first plain paper folding box in 1870.

Containerboard or Corrugated Containers

The first use of corrugated paper for packaging came in 1871, when an American, Albert Jones, introduced an idea of wrapping bottles and glass chimneys in it. However, it was the addition of a liner to one and then to the other side of corrugated paper that signaled the birth of cardboard as we know it.

The first commercial cardboard box was produced in England in 1817, more than two hundred years after the Chinese invented cardboard. Corrugated paper appeared in the 1850s; about 1900, shipping cartons of faced corrugated paperboard began to replace self-made wooden crates and boxes used for trade.