America 250 Candidate: Shopping Cart
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AUTOMATION HISTORY · AMERICA 250 · REPLACEMENT CANDIDATE
Shopping Cart
American milestone: 1937 · Sylvan Goldman · Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Status: Replacement candidate. Final number pending chronology audit.
Why it belongs in America 250
Sylvan Goldman developed a folding wheeled carrier that held two grocery baskets, allowing self-service shoppers to move substantially more merchandise through a store. His design was developed and manufactured in Oklahoma City.
Connection to automation
The cart was not an automatic machine, but it was a critical systems improvement for the emerging self-service retail model and later supermarket material-flow systems.