Most larger communities had can-makers at this time and it was a slow and laborious process which led many to to try their hands at developing automated can making equipment. Suffice to say, many of the hand made cans of the late 1800s are rather crude in form and neatness. We don’t know what these cans looked like, but we can be sure that they were hand made by a tinware maker who rolled or folded the sheet metal into shape and hand soldered all the seams. This ad from the Manchester Journal in 1873 even advertised for “hermetically sealed cans” of maple syrup. The industry shift from maple sugar to maple syrup was fairly gradual, but was well on it is way in the 1870s and 1880s.Īdvertisement from the 1870s do tell us that merchants were selling maple syrup readily packaged in one gallon and half gallon cans. In addition maple sugar was being underpriced by the more popular refined white cane sugar, leading the maple industry to refocus its attention and production on maple syrup as different and unique from table sugar. The manufacture and use of metal cans for preserving and transporting foods and liquids dates back to the early part of the 1800s, but it wasn’t until after the American Civil War that production of metal food canisters became efficient and affordable enough for most food industries to begin to package their products into smaller sizes more convenient for purchase for home consumption. Most maple syrup today is packaged into clear glass bottles or plastic jugs, but back in the day when the maple industry was shifting from making mostly maple sugar to maple syrup and maple syrup was being promoted as a condiment to pour over foods, metal cans were the standard method of packaging for direct sale to a consumer.
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