The encyclopedia · Product & Design · Product decision · 1918–1939
The hydraulic pallet jack let one worker move a ton without an engine
A hand pump lifts a pallet, wheels drop, and one person moves a ton without a motor.
The Raymond Corporation
The solution
Once goods sat on double-faced wooden pallets, moving them still meant a forklift. Manual pallet jacks existed by 1918 with mechanical linkages, but the breakthrough was the hand-pumped hydraulic pallet jack: forks slide under the pallet, a pump forces wheels down, and the load rises just enough to clear the floor.
The design is minimal by construction: the pallet carries the weight, and the jack only lifts. A tiller steers the jack and works the pump piston; a small lever releases hydraulic fluid to lower the forks. The Supply Chain Xchange's Raymond profile credits the double-faced pallet and the hydraulic hand pallet jack to founder George Raymond Sr. and colleague William House.
The economics made it universal: no engine, no fuel, no license, and roughly standardized fork widths. One worker can move a one-ton pallet across a warehouse or into a trailer where a forklift cannot fit, making pallets useful beyond the loading dock.
Why it worked
- It lifts only the few inches needed to travel, so the mechanism stays small.
- The pallet does the load-bearing; the jack only does the raising.
- No motor means it works anywhere, including inside a trailer.
- A cheap tool completed the pallet system and made unit loads practical.
What can be applied
The cheapest machine is the one that does only the smallest essential task — lift a few inches, then let the operator and the load do the rest.
Aftermath
The pallet jack became the most basic form of forklift and a standard tool in warehouses, retail and distribution centers. Powered pallet trucks later added motors for stacked loads, but the manual jack remains ubiquitous — a tool whose invention made the standard pallet usable by one person.
Sources
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