The North Carolina Trucker Who Brought the World to America in a Box
How Malcom McLean’s Shipping Containers Conquered the Global Economy by Land and Sea
On April 26, 1956, a crane lifted 58 aluminum truck bodies onto the deck of an aging tanker ship moored in Newark, New Jersey. Five days later, the Ideal-X sailed into Houston, Texas, where waiting trucks collected the containers for delivery to local factories and warehouses. From that modest beginning, the shipping container would become such a familiar part of the landscape that Americans would not think twice when they passed one on the highway, or saw one at the loading dock of the neighborhood grocery.
The intermodal shipping …
