History 1850 - Present

1850 – present day

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1850 – Friedrich Gottlob Keller of Germany devises a method of making paper from wood pulp. However the paper is of poor quality.

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1852 – Hugh Burgess, an Englishman, perfects the use of wood pulp by ‘digesting’ the wood with chemicals.

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1867 – C.B. Tilghman, an American chemist, improved the process of making paper from wood by using sulfites during the pulping process.

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1879 – C.F. Dahl, a Swede finally perfected the use of wood by adding yet another chemical. His ‘sulfate’ method spread rapidly and reached the United States in about 1907.

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1883 – Charles Stillwell invented a machine to make brown paper bags for groceries in Philadelphia. Today more than 20 million paper bags are used annually in supermarkets. Many of these are recycled into new bags and boxes.

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1889 – 1900 – Economical, mass produced paper became a reality. Paper production doubled to about 2.5 million tons per year. Newspapers, books, and magazines flourished. Paper found its way into schools, replacing the writing slate.

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Next:  How Paper is Made

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Courtesy of Paper Trading International, Inc.

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In the late 19th Century, economical, mass produced paper became a reality.