Malcolm "Malcom" Purcell McLean (November 14, 1913 – May 25, 2001) was an American businessman who invented the modern intermodal shipping container, which revolutionized transport and international trade during the second half of the twentieth century. Containerization resulted in a major reduction of the cost of freight transportation by eliminating the need for repeated, labor-intensive handling of individual pieces of cargo, and also improved three-dimensional packing capability, reduced damage and cargo theft, and decreased inventory costs by shortening transit time. Containerization is a major enabler of globalization.

McLean was born in Maxton, North Carolina in 1913. His first name was originally spelled Malcolm, though he used Malcom later in life.

In 1935, when he finished high school at Winston-Salem in North Carolina, his family did not have enough money to send him to college, but there was enough for McLean to buy a used truck.

The same year, McLean, his brother, Jim, and his sister, Clara, founded McLean Trucking Co. Based in Red Springs, North Carolina, McLean Trucking started hauling empty tobacco barrels, with McLean as one of the drivers.

The idea of transporting trucks on ships was implemented prior to World War II on a relatively small scale. In 1926, regular connection of the luxury passenger train from London to Paris, Golden Arrow/Fleche d'Or, by Southern Railway and French Northern Railway began. For transporting passengers' baggage, four containers were used. These containers were loaded in London or Paris and carried to ports, Dover or Calais, on flat cars in the UK and “CIWL Pullman Golden Arrow Fourgon of CIWL” in France.

During the early 1950s, McLean decided to use the containers for general commercial goods. By 1952, he was developing plans to carry his company's trucks on ships along the U.S. Atlantic coast, from North Carolina to New York. It soon became apparent that "trailerships", as they were called, would be inefficient because of the large waste of potential cargo space aboard the vessel, known as broken stowage. The original concept was modified into loading just the containers, not the chassis, onto the ships, hence the designation container ship or "box" ship. At the time, U.S. regulations would not allow a trucking company to own a shipping line.

McLean secured a bank loan for $22 million and, in January 1956, bought two World War II T-2 tanker ships, which he converted to carry containers on and under deck. McLean oversaw the construction of wooden shelter decks, known as Mechano decking. This was a common practice in World War II for the carriage of oversized cargo, such as aircraft. It took several months to refit the ships, construct containers to carry on and below the vessels' decks, and design trailer chassis to allow removable containers.

On April 26, 1956, with 100 invited dignitaries present, one of the converted tankers, the SS Ideal-X (informally dubbed the "SS Maxton" after McLean's hometown in North Carolina), was loaded and sailed from the Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal, New Jersey, for the Port of Houston, Texas, carrying 58 35-foot (11 m) Trailer Vans, later termed containers, along with a regular load of liquid tank cargo. As the Ideal-X left the Port of Newark, Freddy Fields, a major official of the International Longshoremen's Association, was asked what he thought of the newly fitted container ship. Fields replied, "I'd like to sink that son of a bitch". McLean flew to Houston to be there when the ship docked, which it did safely.