How the New York Port Shaped the World in the Age of Containerization

In 1956, a converted tanker ship called the Ideal X set sail from Port Newark to the Caribbean, and in that single voyage changed transportation forever. The Ideal X was the first container ship. That it sailed from the Port of New York/New Jersey (as it was called) is no coincidence. After WWII, this port was the largest in the world, by volume and value of cargo. It stood at the hub of an international transportation and economic system that at the time still operated much as it had 100 years before.  Prior to 1956, and for a considerable time thereafter, ships were loaded and unloaded by hand—a time-consuming and inefficient system. Malcolm McLean, who owned the Ideal X, brought a new, intermodal transportation system into being. This paper seeks to trace the effect this local system had on both national and world transportation. In this paper I look at the reaction to the Ideal X in the industry, and in larger economic and political circles. More importantly, I trace how this system, initiated in New York City, found its way over the course of 25 years into almost all ports worldwide. I look at, in short, how the local, shaped the global.