1894

Year that the classic Chinese take-out box was patented by its creator, a Chicago inventor named Frederick Weeks Wilcox. According to the website Gastro Obscura, Wilcox modeled the folded waxed paperboard box with the metal handles on oyster pails. The box was all white until the 1970s when a drawing, in red, of China’s famous “Porcelain Pagoda” was added by a designer at the manufacturing company. The designer also added the words “thank you” in a script mimicking Chinese calligraphy.