Paper Cups History

You may not have noticed that cups have been around for thousands and thousands of years. Do you actually know where they even came from? Different varieties and versions of cups have been made since the first original cup. Now, we have cups that come in glass, paper, plastic, Styrofoam, and several others. Each cup was invented by different people in different times, but they were all based off of the idea of the very first cup. Each cup was made for a reason. In this experiment, each cup listed above will be tested to see which one will keep a liquid warm longer. When conducting this experiment, a cup that can sustain a heated liquid will be selected from the data.

When a hot liquid is placed in either a plastic, paper, styrofoam, or a glass cup, then the styrofoam cup will keep a liquid heated longer. During this experiment, a liquid will be warmed and poured into the different cups.

“The exact origins of the paper cup seem to be unknown, therefore the inventor of the handy disposable beverage holder may never be known, although there is evidence that they were used as far back as Imperial China. What IS known is that around the beginning of the 1900’s, paper cups gained popularity when people began to realise that sharing the same tin or ladle, to drink from water barrels, also meant sharing germs.” Since way long ago, cup companies have been making their version of the invention of the cup. In the year of 1907, a lawyer named Lawrence Luellen, developed the “Health Kup”. The cup later became known as the Dixie Cup in 1919. Lawrence did this to help improve public health and hygiene due to the concerns shared their opinions about shared cups. He worked for the American Water Supply Company, whose founder, Hugh Moore, developed a water-vending machine with disposable cups and together, Lawrence and Hugh embarked on an advertising campaign to educate the public and market the machine.