Its now so common to see eggs sold in cardboard cartons that its easy to assume that they were always sold that way. Below is an article written in May 1929 that shows what I assume to be one of the earliest attempts to sell eggs to consumers in packages. Note that the cartons are not the ones we are familiar with today. Rather, they are wrappers designed to protect individual eggs that are then placed in boxes that look like wine boxes.
I don't know if these cartons ever really made it to market. Just a few months after the article was written, the stock market crashed and the U.S. was thrown into the Great Depression. That might have put a bit of a damper on things. If anyone knows about these cartons, please post a comment.
Thanks to Modern Mechanix for posting the article.
EGGS TO BE SOLD BY THE PACKAGE
INSTEAD of asking for a dozen eggs, housewives will buy them by the package just like breakfast food if the new method of packing shown above becomes popular. Eggs are individually packed in corrugated cardboard jackets and shipped in cartons which keep their contents practically unbreakable.
The things we take for granted! I don't have any insight about these particular packages, but regarding eggs, it's also interesting that Americans these days invariably think of eggs as a refrigerated product. Their eyes widen with incredulity when I mention that in a half-dozen countries on three continents where I have lived, including Germany, eggs are sold unrefrigerated, not just in farm markets, but in supermarkets too.
Posted by: JHawk23 | 04/03/2012 at 06:05 AM
I checked on this and its mandatory that eggs be refrigerated in the US. Its because of a health scare that occurred in the 1980s. While eggs can stay unrefrigerated for a few weeks, their quality does decline.
Posted by: H. Mark Delman | 04/03/2012 at 08:41 PM
I admit I hadn't considered it could be a legally imposed requirement. It figures. We are a litigious society.
Certainly eggs will deteriorate over time, though it's generally only in the U.S. that the distribution chain is so long that they might be "a few weeks" from the chicken when we buy them.
Posted by: JHawk23 | 04/04/2012 at 02:39 PM
Its amazing to see the classic thing of wrapping eggs in a package.. I thought they are using a newspaper rather than a carton in the past. :D
Posted by: Ground Covers | 11/13/2012 at 10:45 PM
They probably did that too! Thanks for your comment.
Posted by: H. Mark Delman | 11/14/2012 at 05:34 AM