The History of Shipping Containers: not what you think.

Malcolm Mc Lean- The Inventor of ISO Shipping Containers

Many people think the Shipping Container was invented in China. ...not true.

The first shipping container was invented and patented in 1956 by an American named Malcolm Mc Lean. Mc Lean was not an ocean shipper, but was a trucker and by 1956 he owned the largest trucking fleet in the South and the fifth largest trucking company in all the United States.

He saved his money and bought his first truck in 1934. During those years all cargo was loaded and unloaded in odd sized wooden crates. The process was very slow and certainly not standardized.

After observing this slow and inefficient process for 20 years, he finally decided to step back and develop some standardized way of loading cargo from trucks to ships and warehouses.

Malcolm then purchased Pan Atlantic Tanker Company, which owned a bunch of fairly rusted tankers. He re-named the new shipping company Sea-Land Shipping. With this shipping company he could finally experiment with better ways to load and un-load trucks and ships.

After many experiments, his final design is what we know now as the Shipping Container. ...super strong, uniform design, theft resistant, and easy to load, unload, truck, rail, ship, and certainly store.

Because is was so much faster and organized to load/unload, the cost of loading freight was reduced by more than 90%. Thus, the cost of products you sell or buy were reduced greatly becauseof the shipping container.

In 1956, loose cargo cost $5.86 per ton to load... Using an ISO shipping container, the cost was reduced to only .16 cents per ton.

The shipping container invention of Malcolm Mc Lean has certainly changed the world and thus, has changed the lives of every human on the planet.

Media Links- Malcolm Mc Lean:
- The Man Who Changed the World
- The Truck Driver Who Re-invented Shipping
- Wikipedia: Malcolm McLean
- PBS: Who Made America? Containerized Shipping
- Twentieth Century Leaders Database

Content sourced from http://www.isbu-info.org/p_malcolm_mclean.htm