Inventors
Malcom McLean
1913–2001 · The shipping box as protocol
United States
A trucker who was tired of waiting on docks put truck-sized steel boxes on a ship in 1956. The invention is dull on purpose: a standard that cranes, trains, and trucks can all grab. Globalization is, in part, this man’s impatience made of corrugated steel.
Why it mattered
- Eliminated piece-by-piece handling at the water’s edge.
- Made long supply chains ordinary — with all the politics that followed.
