ABSTRACT
Prior to the advent of widespread containerization, the shipment of goods was comparatively ineffi cient and slow. Goods to be shipped were packed into non-uniform containers or strapped together on wooden pallets. Cargo moved far more slowly and was subject to far higher labor costs, primarily on the docks. Though there were pre-
cursors dating back to the early nineteenth century, standard cargo containers as we know them today were introduced in the 1950s in the United States, with the shipping industry leading the way and the trucking and rail industries subsequently adapting to the new uniform containers (Rosenstein 2000). By the 1960s, containerization was widespread, and emerged as the dominant form of worldwide freight movement by the 1970s. Containerization meant that goods had to be packed and unpacked only once, permitting faster and cheaper loading of ships, trucks, and trains. Ships that formerly had to be berthed for up to a week to be loaded or unloaded by three teams of 26 longshoremen could be turned around by eight workers in as short as an eight hour shift, reducing port handling costs from $24 per ton to $6 per ton (Rosenstein 2000, 2, 32). As Rosenstein notes, “A labor intensive, piece-by-piece, break-bulk method of loading and unloading cargo was replaced by a capital intensive industrialization process: containerization” (2000, ii).
