The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger

by Marc Levinson

  14. Richard Sasuly, “Why They Stick to the ILA,” Monthly Review, January 1956, 370; Simey, The Dock Worker, pp. 44–45; Malcolm Tull, “Waterfront Labour at Fremantle, 1890–1990,” in Davies et al., Dock Workers, 2:482; U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Population and Housing 1960 (Washington, DC, 1962), Report 104, Part I.

  15. The proportion of African American dockworkers is from census data reported in Lester Rubin, The Negro in the Longshore Industry (Philadelphia, 1974), pp. 34–44. For a detailed analysis of racial preferences and discrimination among dockworkers in New York, New Orleans, and California, see Bruce Nelson, Divided We Stand: American Workers and the Struggle for Black Equality (Princeton, 2001), chaps. 1-3. On the New Orleans dockers, see Daniel Rosenberg, New Orleans Dockworkers: Race, Labor, and Unionism, 1892–1923 (Albany, 1988), and Arnesen, Waterfront Workers of New Orleans; odd details, carefully omitting any mention of race, are in William Z. Ripley, “A Peculiar Eight Hour Problem,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 33, no. 3 (1919): 555–559. On racial discrimination, see Robin D. G. Kelley, “‘We Are Not What We Seem’: Rethinking Black Working-Class Opposition in the Jim Crow South,” Journal of American History 80, no. 1 (1993): 96; Seaton Wesley Manning, “Negro Trade Unionists in Boston,” Social Forces 17, no. 2 (1938): 259; Roderick N. Ryon, “An Ambiguous Legacy: Baltimore Blacks and the CIO, 1936–1941,” Journal of Negro History 65, no. 1 (1980): 27; Clyde W. Summers, “Admission Policies of Labor Unions,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 61, no. 1 (1946): 98; Wilson, Dockers, p. 29. The Portland grain workers’ case is mentioned in Charles P. Larrowe, Harry Bridges: The Rise and Fall of Radical Labor in the United States (New York, 1972), p. 368.

  16. On Portland, see Pilcher, The Portland Longshoremen, p. 17; on Antwerp, Helle, “Der Hafenarbeiter,” p. 273; for Edinburgh, see interviews with dockers Eddie Trotter and Tom Ferguson in McDougall, Voices of Leith Dockers, pp. 132 and 177; for Manchester, see Simey, The Dock Worker, p. 48. Macmillan quotation appears in Wilson, Dockers, p. 160.

  17. On the docker culture, see Pilcher, The Portland Longshoremen, pp. 12 and 25–26; Wilson, Dockers, p. 53; and Miller, “The Dockworker Subculture,” passim. Rankings are reported in John Hall and D. Caradog Jones, “Social Grading of Occupations,” British Journal of Sociology 1 (1950): 31–55.

  18. Wilson, Dockers, pp. 101–102; Clark Kerr and Abraham Siegel, “The Interindustry Propensity to Strike—an International Comparison,” in Industrial Conflict, ed. Arthur Kornhauser, Robert Dublin, and Arthur M. Ross (New York, 1954), p. 191; Miller, “The Dockworker Subculture,” p. 310. The most notable exception to labor militancy was in New York, where, as Nelson shows, a combination of corrupt union leadership and appeals to Irish Catholic solidarity against other ethnic groups undermined labor radicalism and allowed the port to operate without a strike between 1916 and 1945; see Nelson, Divided We Stand, pp. 64–71.

  19. Rupert Lockwood, Ship to Shore: A History of Melbourne’s Waterfront and Its Union Struggles (Sydney, 1990), pp. 223–225; Arnesen, Waterfront Workers of New Orleans, p. 254; David F. Selvin, A Terrible Anger (Detroit, 1996), pp. 41 and 48–52; Pacini and Pons, Docker à Marseille, pp. 46 and 174; interview with former longshoreman Tommy Morton in McDougall, Voices of Leith Dockers, p. 112.

  20. Thievery as a response to reductions in pay is discussed in Selvin, A Terrible Anger, p. 54. The docker joke is one of several in Wilson, Dockers, p. 53. Theft is discussed, among many other places, in the interview with longshoreman Tommy Morton in McDougall, Voices of Leith Dockers, p. 115; in Pilcher, The Portland Longshoremen, p. 100; and in Andrew Gibson interview in COHP.

  21. The Welt had originated as a way to give longshoremen a break when they were working in refrigerated holds, but it spread to general cargo in Liverpool and in Glasgow, where it was known as “spelling.” See Wilson, Dockers, pp. 215 and 221. For productivity, see Miller, “The Dock-worker Subculture,” p. 311; MacMillan and Westfall, “Competitive General Cargo Ships,” p. 842; Wilson, Dockers, p. 308; and William Finlay, Work on the Waterfront: Worker Power and Technological Change in a West Coast Port (Philadelphia, 1988), p. 53.

  22. See the two interesting excerpts of articles on containers from 1920 and 1921 in “Uniform Containerization of Freight: Early Steps in the Evolution of an Idea,” Business History Review 43, no. 1 (1969): 84.

  23. For early efforts to promote containers in America, see G. C. Woodruff, “The Container Car as the Solution of the Less Than Carload Lot Problem,” speech to Associated Industries of Massachusetts, October 23, 1929, and “Freight Container Service,” speech to Traffic Club of New York, March 25, 1930. A prescient summary of the possibilities of containerization, including the potential economic benefits to the public, is in Robert C. King, George M. Adams, and G. LLoyd Wilson, “The Freight Container as a Contribution to Efficiency in Transportation,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 187 (1936): 27–36.

  24. The ICC ruling requiring commodity-based rates can be found at 173 ICC 448. The North Shore Line’s rates are discussed in ICC Docket 21723, June 6, 1931. On the implications of the ICC case, see Donald Fitzgerald, “A History of Containerization in the California Maritime Industry: The Case of San Francisco” (Ph.D. diss., University of California at Santa Barbara, 1986), pp. 15–20.

  25. On Australia, see photo in Lockwood, Ship to Shore, p. 379. On early containerization in Europe, see Wilson, Dockers, p. 137, and René Borruey, Le port de Marseille: du dock au conteneur, 1844–1974 (Marseilles, 1994), pp. 296–306. Examples of North American ship lines carrying containers are in H. E. Stocker, “Cargo Handling and Stowage,” Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, November 1933. Information about the Central of Georgia comes from George W. Jordan, personal correspondence, November 15, 1997. See also “Steel Containers,” Via—Port of New York, July 1954, pp. 1–5.

  26. Containers: Bulletin of the International Container Bureau, no. 5 (June 1951): 12 and 68; Fitzgerald, “A History of Containerization,” p. 35; Padraic Burke, A History of the Port of Seattle (Seattle, 1976), p. 115; Lucille McDonald, “Alaska Steam: A Pictorial History of the Alaska Steamship Company,” Alaska Geographic 11, no. 4 (1984).

  27. Pierre-Edouard Cangardel, “The Present Development of the Maritime Container,” Containers, no. 35 (June 1966): 13 (author’s translation). Container census data appear in Containers, no. 13 (June 1955): 9, and no. 2 (December 1949): 65. Belgian example appears in Containers, no. 19 (December 1957): 18 and 39.

  28. Peter Bell interview discussed handling of early containers. The “hindrance” comment by Waldemar Isbrandtsen of Isbrandtsen Company is in International Cargo Handling Coordination Association, “Containerization Symposium Proceedings, New York City, June 15, 1955,” p. 11, and the comment about forklifts by Frank McCarthy of Bull-Insular Line is on p. 19. See also presentation by A. Vicenti, president, Union of Cargo Handlers in the Ports of France, Containers, no. 12 (December 1954): 20. Levy address appears in Containers, no. 1 (April 1949): 48 (author’s translation). Customs duties posed an obstacle as well: until an agreement in 1956, receiving countries frequently levied duties on the value of an arriving container as well as its contents. Containers, no. 33 (June 1965): 18. The military study is reported in National Research Council, Maritime Cargo Transportation Conference, Transportation of Subsistence to NEAC (Washington, DC, 1956), p. 5.

  29. National Research Council, Maritime Cargo Transportation Conference, The SS Warrior (Washington, DC, 1954), p. 21.

  30. National Research Council, Maritime Cargo Transportation Conference, Cargo Ship Loading (Washington, DC, 1957), p. 28.

  Chapter 3

  The Trucker

  1. Fitzgerald, “A History of Containerization,” pp. 30–31.

  2. North Carolina: A Guide to the Old North State (Chapel Hill, 1939), p. 537; Robesonian, February 26, 1951.

  3. Malcolm P. McLean, “Opportunity Begins at Home,” American Magazine 149 (May 1950): 21; News and Observer (Raleigh), February 16, 19
42, p. 7; Robesonian, February 26, 1951.

  4. McLean, “Opportunity,” p. 122.

  5. For detail on McLean Trucking’s early history, see “Malcolm P. McLean, Jr., Common Carrier Application,” ICC Motor Carrier Cases (hereafter MCC) at 30 MCC 565 (1941). McLean’s attempt to block his competitors’ merger was decided in McLean Trucking Co. v. U.S., 321 U.S. 67, January 14, 1944. McLean’s new service was approved in September 1944; 43 MCC 820. McLean’s first purchase, of McLeod’s Transfer Inc., occurred in 1942 and was approved over the objections of three protestants; 38 MCC 807. He acquired another trucking company, American Trucking, late in the war; 40 MCC 841 (1946). Revenue figure for 1946 appears at 48 MCC 43 (1948).

  6. Intercity truck lines handled 30.45 billion ton-miles of freight in 1946. By 1950, they were carrying 65.65 billion. See ICC, Transport Economics, December 1957, p. 9. Total railroad ton-miles were unchanged over that period. Railroads’ revenues per ton-mile between 1942 and 1956 varied between 23 percent and 26.8 percent those of truckers. Transport Economics, November 1957, p. 8.

  7. Information about managing under ICC oversight from author’s interview with Paul Richardson, Holmdel, NJ, January 14, 1992.

  8. M.P. McLean, Jr.—Control; McLean Trucking Co.—Lease—Atlantic States Motor Lines Incorporated, ICC No. MC-F-3300, 45 MCC 417; M.P. McLean, Jr.—Control; McLean Trucking Company, Inc.—Purchase (Portion)—Garford Trucking, Inc., ICC No. MC-F-3698, 50 MCC 415.

  9. The cigarette case is Cigarettes and Tobacco from North Carolina Points to Atlanta, 48 MCC 39 (1948).

  10. Author’s interviews with Paul Richardson, Holmdel, NJ, July 20, 1992, and Walter Wriston, New York, June 30, 1992. McLean’s success in using his management techniques to turn around Carolina Motor Express, a troubled company of which he had assumed temporary control in 1952, is detailed in M.P. McLean, Jr.—Control; McLean Trucking Company—Control—Carolina Motor Express Lines, Inc. (Earl R. Cox, Receiver), 70 MCC 279 (1956).

  11. M.P. McLean, Jr.—Control; McLean Trucking Co.—Lease—Atlantic States Motor Lines Incorporated, 45 MCC 417; M.P. McLean, Jr.—Control; McLean Trucking Company, Inc.—Purchase (Portion)—Garford Trucking, Inc., 50 MCC 415; ICC, Transport Statistics in the United States 1954, Part 7, Table 30; Wriston interview.

  12. Author’s telephone interview with William B. Hubbard, July 1, 1993.

  13. Author’s telephone interview with Earl Hall, May 12, 1993; author’s telephone interview with Robert N. Campbell, June 25, 1993.

  14. The first public notice of the container scheme appeared in A. H. Raskin, “Union Head Backs ‘Sea-Land’ Trucks,” NYT, February 17, 1954.

  15. PANYNJ, Foreign Trade 1976 (New York, 1977), p. 23; author’s interview with Paul Richardson, Holmdel, NJ, July 20, 1992; PNYA, Weekly Report to Commissioners, March 13, 1954, 16, in Doig Files; PNYA, Minutes of Committee on Port Planning, April 8, 1954, 2, in Meyner Papers, Box 43.

  16. Pan-Atlantic Steamship Corporation, “Summary of Post-World War II Coastwise Operations,” mimeo, n.d.; Wriston interview; Phillip L. Zweig, Wriston: Walter Wriston, Citibank, and the Rise and Fall of American Financial Supremacy (New York, 1995), p. 78.

  17. The details of this convoluted transaction are reviewed in ICC, Case No. MC-F-5976, McLean Trucking Company and Pan-Atlantic Steamship Corporation—Investigation of Control, July 8, 1957.

  18. McLean’s net worth as of September 1955 appears in “I.C.C. Aide Urges Waterman Sale,” NYT, November 28, 1956. McLean quotation is from author’s interview with Gerald Toomey, New York, May 5, 1993.

  19. Wriston interview. The McLean quotation is from Zweig, who interviewed McLean for Wriston, p. 79.

  20. Wriston interview; Zweig, Wriston, p. 81; Janet Berte Neale, “America’s Maritime Innovator,” program for AOTOS Award 1984. Many of the relevant financial details were not included in McLean Industries’ financial reports.

  21. McLean Industries, Annual Report for the year ending December 31, 1955.

  22. The program of which McLean took advantage was intended to help traditional ship lines, not upstart challengers. As Andrew Gibson and Arthur Donovan point out, “It took an innovator from another sector of the transportation industry to see how the trade-in program, designed to renew the subsidized fleet, could be used to help launch a revolution that eventually transformed the entire industry.” See their The Abandoned Ocean: A History of United States Maritime Policy (Columbia, SC, 2000), p. 176.

  23. “Railroads Assail Sea-Trailer Plan,” NYT, February 11, 1955; ICC, McLean Trucking Company and Pan-Atlantic Steamship Corporation—Investigation of Control; McLean Industries, Annual Report, 1955, pp. 5 and 11; U.S. Department of Commerce, Annual Report of the Federal Maritime Board and Maritime Administration, 1955 (Washington, DC, 1955), p. 14, and 1956 (Washington, DC, 1956), p. 7; K. W. Tantlinger, “U.S. Containerization: From the Beginning through Standardization” (paper presented to World Port Conference, Rotterdam, 1982); “T-2’s Will ‘Piggy Back’ Truck Trailers,” Marine Engineering/Log (1956), p. 83. Cost analysis from author’s interview with Guy F. Tozzoli, New York, January 13, 2004.

  24. Pan-Atlantic gave up the idea of building roll on-roll off ships by late 1956, supposedly to save money on construction costs and to gain greater flexibility. See “Pan Atlantic Changes Plans for Roll-On Ships,” Marine Engineering/Log (December 1956), p. 112.

  25. Much of this section is drawn from Tantlinger, “U.S. Containerization”; author’s telephone interview with Keith Tantlinger, December 1, 1992; and author’s interview with Keith Tantlinger, San Diego, January 3, 1993. These containers were designed for Ocean Van Lines and carried, 36 to a barge, by Alaska Freight Lines between Seattle, Anchorage, and Seward. They are distinct from the much smaller steel “Cargo Guard” boxes first used by Alaska Steamship Company in 1953 and the 12-foot wooden “crib boxes” that Alaska Steamship carried aboard the Susitna, which some identify as the first containership. See Tippetts-Abbett-McCarthy-Stratton, Shoreside Facilities for Trailership, Trainship, and Container-ship Services (Washington, DC, 1956), p. 45; McDonald, “Alaska Steam,” p. 112; and Burke, A History of the Port of Seattle, p. 115.

  26. Tantlinger, “U.S. Containerization”; author’s interview with Keith Tantlinger, January 3, 1993; author’s telephone interview with Earl Hall, May 14, 1993.

  27. The spreader bar is covered by U.S. Patent 2,946,617, issued July 26, 1960.

  28. Information about delays taken from Tantlinger interview, and the announcement of the start date is in “Tank Vessels Begin Trailer Runs in April,” JOC, February 19, 1956. Houston comment is cited in Marc Felice, “The Pioneer,” article appearing in program for the AOTOS Award 1984. For cost figures, see Pierre Bonnot, “Prospective Study of Unit Loads,” Containers, no. 36 (December 1956): 25–29.

  29. Pan-Atlantic Steamship Corporation, “Summary of Operations.”

  30. “ICC Aide Urges Waterman Sale,” NYT, November 28, 1956, p. 70; ICC, McLean Trucking Company and Pan-Atlantic Steamship Corporation—Investigation of Control.

  31. Borruey, Le port de Marseille, p. 296. Fitzgerald, “A History of Containerization,” p. 2. For photos of Seatrain’s vessels on trial in 1928, see Fairplay, June 17, 1976, p. 15.

  32. Cangardel, “The Present Development of the Maritime Container.”

  Chapter 4

  The System

  1. Author’s telephone interview with Robert N. Campbell, June 25, 1993.

  2. Tantlinger, “U.S. Containerization”; Cushing, “The Development of Cargo Ships.”

  3. The containers, chassis, refrigerated units, and twist locks all are covered by patent 3,085,707, issued after much delay on April 16, 1963.

  4. Campbell interview; Tantlinger, “U.S. Containerization.” Skagit Steel and Iron was closed in the early 1990s, and most of the company’s records were destroyed.

  5. Marine Engineering/Log (November 1955), p. 104; Tantlinger, “U.S. Containerization”; PNYA, Minutes of Committee on Operations, February 2, 1956, Meyner Papers, Box 4
4; Paul F. Van Wicklen, “New York—The Port That Gave Containerization Its Oomph” in Containerization and Intermodal Institute, “Containerization: The First 25 Years” (New York, 1981); “Tanker to Carry 2-Way Loads,” NYT, April 27, 1956. The conversion of the C-2s is discussed in “Full-Scale Container Ship Proves Itself,” Marine Engineering/Log (December 1957), p. 67, and in author’s telephone interview with Robert N. Campbell, June 25, 1993. Bonner quotation appears in McLean Industries, Annual Report, 1957, p. 8.

  6. McLean Industries, Annual Report, 1957 and 1958.

  7. McLean Industries, Annual Report, 1958; Campbell interview.

  8. Author’s telephone interview with Earl Hall, October 2, 1992; author’s telephone interview with William Hubbard, July 1, 1993; author’s interview with Charles Cushing, New York, April 7, 1993.

  9. William L. Worden, Cargoes: Matson’s First Century in the Pacific (Honolulu, 1955), p. 120.

  10. Ibid., pp. 114–120; Fitzgerald, “A History of Containerization,” pp. 39–41.

  11. Matson’s caution was described in author’s telephone interview with Leslie A. Harlander, November 2, 2004. Observation about hiding pedigrees is from Cushing interview. On Weldon’s background, see statement of Matson president Stanley Powell, Jr., U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, Cargo Container Dimensions, November 1, 1967, pp. 48–49. Weldon comment appears in his “Cargo Containerization in the West Coast-Hawaiian Trade,” Operations Research 6 (September-October 1958): 650.

  12. Weldon, “Cargo Containerization,” p. 652–655.

  13. Ibid., p. 661–663.

  14. Les Harlander, interview by Arthur Donovan and Andrew Gibson, June 19, 1997, COHP.

  15. Harlander interview, COHP; letter, Keith Tantlinger to George D. Saunders, December 3, 1992 (copy in possession of author). In the letter, Tantlinger states, “I caught Les Harlander prowling the vessel to apparently see what he could learn, and I asked him to leave the ship.” In a telephone interview with the author, November 2, 2004, Harlander recalled that he had visited the ship as a guest of Pan-Atlantic.