Celebrating Unsung Heroes of Capitalism: Keith W. Tantlinger

From the New York Times (bold emphasis mine)

Nearly six decades ago, Keith W. Tantlinger built a box — or, more accurately, the corners of a box. It was a seemingly small invention, but a vital one: it set in motion a chain of events that changed the way people buy and sell things, transformed the means by which nations do business and ultimately gave rise to the present-day global economy.

Mr. Tantlinger’s box, large, heavy and metal, is known as the shipping container. Though he did not invent it (such containers had been in use at least since the 19th century to haul heavy cargo like coal), he is widely credited with having created, in the 1950s, the first commercially viable modern one.

The crucial refinements he made — including a corner mechanism that locks containers together — allowed them to be hefted by crane, stacked high in ships and transferred from shipboard to trucks and trains far more easily, and cheaply, than ever before.

Thus, without ever intending to, Mr. Tantlinger, an engineer who died at 92 on Aug. 27 and who had long worked out of the limelight, helped bring about the vast web of international trade that is a fact of 21st-century life. More than any other innovation, the modern shipping container — by turns venerated and castigated — is now acknowledged to have been the spark that touched off globalization.

In short, Mr. Tantlinger's propagation and commercialization of the shipping container, which he did not invent but refined on, signifies as one of the main instruments used in international trade. Or our access to a wider variety of products has partly been facilitated by his efforts.

Thanks Mr. Tanlinger.