A paper cup is a disposable cup made out of paper and often lined or coated with plastic or wax to prevent liquid from leaking out or soaking through the paper. Disposable cups in shared environments have become more common for hygienic reasons after the advent of the germ theory of disease. Due mainly to environmental concerns, modern disposable cups may be made of recycled paper.
History Paper cups have been documented in imperial China, where paper was invented by the 2nd century BC. Paper cups were known as chih pei and were used for the serving of tea. They were constructed in different sizes and colors, and were adorned with decorative designs. Textual evidence of paper cups appears in a description of the possessions of the Yu family, from the city of Hangzhou. The modern paper cup was developed in the 20th century. In the early 20th century, it was common to have shared glasses or dippers at water sources such as school faucets or water barrels in trains. This shared use caused public health concerns. One notable investigation into their use was the study by Alvin Davison, biology professor at Lafayette College, published with the sensational title "Death in School Drinking Cups" in Technical World Magazine in August 1908, based on research carried out in Easton, Pennsylvania's public schools. The article was reprinted and distributed by the Massachusetts State Board of Health in November 1909. Based on these concerns, and as paper goods (especially after the 1908 invention of the Dixie Cup) became cheaply and cleanly available, local bans in the USA were passed on the shared-use cup. One of the first American railway companies to use disposable paper cups was the Lackawanna Railroad, which began using them in 1909. By 1917, the public glass had disappeared from American railway carriages, replaced by paper cups even in jurisdictions around the USA where public glasses had yet to be banned. Paper cups are also employed in hospitals for health reasons. In 1942 the Massachusetts State College found in one study that the cost of using washable glasses, re-used after being sanitized, was 1.6 times the cost of using single-service paper cups. These studies, as well as the reduction in the risk of cross-infection, encouraged the use of paper cups in American hospitals.
Dixie cups
Dixie Cup is the brand name for a line of disposable paper cups that were first developed in the United States in 1907 by Lawrence Luellen, an inventor in Boston, Massachusetts, who was concerned about germs being spread by people sharing glasses or dippers at public supplies of drinking water. Luellen developed an ice-cooled water-vending machine with disposable cups, and with another Bostonian, Hugh Moore, embarked on an advertising campaign to educate the public and to market his machine, principally to American railroad companies. Davison's study was instrumental in abolishing the public glass and opening the door for the paper cup in the USA. Soon, the devices, which would dispense cool water for one cent, became standard equipment on trains in the US. After Lawrence Luellen invented his paper cup and corresponding water fountain, he started the American Water Supply Company of New England in 1908 located in Boston. The company began producing the cup as well as the Water Vendor. In order to expand their territory, Luellen organized the American Water Supply Company of New York as well as the American Water Supply Company of New Jersey with the help of Hugh Moore. Instead of producing the cups and fountains, these subsidiary companies were charged with the sale and distribution of Luellen's products. In 1909 Luellen and Moore started the Public Cup Vendor Company in New York in order to lease their vendor machines. Their primary customers were railroads so that the devices could be implemented on passenger train cars. After many states in the US started to ban the common drinking cup in public places, steady orders for Luellen's machine began to roll in. The success of Luellen and Moore's territorial companies inspired them to incorporate into the Individual Drinking Cup Company of New York in 1910.
The Dixie Cup was first called "Health Kup", but from 1919 it was named after a line of dolls made by Alfred Schindler's Dixie Doll Company in New York. Success led the company, which had existed under a variety of names, to call itself the Dixie Cup Corporation and move to a factory in Wilson, Pennsylvania. Atop the factory was a large water tank in the shape of a cup. The water tank was removed on April 30, 2026. In 1957, Dixie merged with the American Can Company. The James River Corporation purchased American Can's paper business in 1982. The assets of James River are now part of Georgia-Pacific, a subsidiary of Koch Industries, the second largest privately owned company in the United States. In 1983, production moved to a modern factory in Forks, Pennsylvania. The original factory in Wilson has sat vacant ever since. The closing of the factory also prompted Conrail to abandon the Easton & Northern railroad branch, of which Dixie Cups was the last major customer. In 1969, the Dixie Cup logo was created by Saul Bass, a graphic designer known for his motion picture title sequences. A generalization of the coupon collector's problem, where one needs 2 (or any arbitrary larger number) of each coupon, instead of just 1, is sometimes called the Dixie cup problem; the name is inspired by children trying to collect "a complete set of pictures of baseball players, movie stars, etc., which appear on the covers of dixie cups" and trading with each other as they all try to create a complete set.
Early advertisements The tone of many of the advertisements created by the Dixie Cup Company took the form of embracing modern ideals and marketing towards people who wanted to improve their lives and jump on board a new trend for fear of being left behind. "This is the sanitary age – the age of Dixie Cups" was used for several years with success. A subsequent pivot towards soda fountains was made in both product line and advertising, but the central idea of individual use as more sanitary than reusable glasses persisted. An emphasis on the theme of cups being "touched only by you" was seen as an act to make the cups seem individualized.
Manufacture
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