On a recent family vacation we visited a museum about the American migration of the 1800's. I was amazed by the methods the settlers used to transport their belongings from the eastern part of the United States out to the west. Much has changed since then but it got me thinking about the history of the moving industry.
Today when you think of a moving company, you think of a couple guys packing all of your possessions into a truck and driving off. It hasn’t always been that easy. Moving is something ingrained in the souls of human beings. It started years ago in the feet of nomadic tribes crossing the continents. We have always needed muscled men and tools to get all of our possessions from one place to another. Only until relatively recently did companies come around that performed this arduous task for customers.
For thousands of years before the wheel was invented, nomadic people built strange wooden sled-like structures that were dragged behind horses or by hand. The French called these ancient trailers travois. Then as humans entered the agricultural period they began to move less often. They started settling in areas and building permanent communities. During the same time, technology started improving. The wheel was invented and it greatly increased efficiency while performing any task. Wheels in conjunction with axles, became one of the six simple machines. The wheel allows for heavy objects to be moved easily and it is used in many complex machines.
This led to people inventing the wooden cart, the wagon, and the rail car. These other more improved methods of transportation gave people the ability to move their belongings over large distances. The great migration didn’t come until America was formed and the universal idea of Manifest Destiny grew in the minds of humanity.
The Advent of the Moving Company
People didn’t start paying others to help move them until the mid 19th century. A great migration West in America started to occur and the meaning of moving with which we are familiar came to fruition. People started moving by packing all their belongings into the conestoga wagon. They would then travel in groups of 5 or 6 families over the plains to their future homes. When railroads stretched from sea to sea, Americans began traveling by train. The wealthy families would pay men to load their possessions into wagons and then deliver them to warehouses strategically placed next to railroads. The moving company would then load them into a rail car and unload them at another warehouse when the car reached the desired location. From that last warehouse the possessions would be loaded onto a wagon and then delivered to the family’s new house. These early moving companies were the genesis of the moving industry. These companies performed this task as a source of side revenue, and it wasn’t until the mid-twentieth century that companies provided moving services exclusively.
After the end of WWII, thousands of soldiers returned home. With the end of WWII and a focus on domestic life in America, the generation of the baby boomers began and with it came a huge growth in America’s population. As suburbs overtook the American country-side, professional moving companies saw a huge spike in profits. They were needed to transport all the new families to their respective future homes. The war also brought the advent of the interstate system; it provided quick and easy access throughout the continental U.S. These major transportation infrastucture improvements made the task of moving things easier. At this time in history, many popular moving companies grew and staked their claim in the moving industry market.
Present Day - Moving industry
The moving industry has continued to grow. It is estimated that 40 million Americans move annually. The moving industry itself grosses 16 billion dollars a year. However, it is continually fragmented into small to medium moving companies. People are more comfortable hiring moving companies to perform their small local moves. This preference for local help inadvertently creates a new market called micro-moving. There’s a clear delineation between moving companies that specialize in long distance moves and those that specialize in small local moves. When hiring a mover today, always make sure they are licensed and insured.
This article was adapted from https://getbellhops.com/blog/2014/01/14/history-moving-industry/