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It turns out there were a number of pulp stories about killer blobs. The one in the essay may be different from the one in the picture book, so I may be looking for two different stories. The essay mentioned that the pulp blob grew larger than the film blob, and devoured a ship (steamboat?) at one point.
Slime is a 1953 novelette by Joseph Payne Brennan. It shares some of the attributes you describe, but not all. The eponymous slime is cast up from the depths of the ocean by seismic activity, not created in a lab, and it never devours a steam ship. However, this story is generally regarded as the progenitor of all subsequent blob horror stories.
Edited by foxley
It was definitely created in a laboratory. My best guess now is "Ooze" by Anthony M. Rud, but I suspect it's something else 'cause the thing is never referred to as "the blob." I won't be certain 'til I can look it up in The Creature Catalog.
Before the movie The Blob there was a story published in a pulp magazine that featured a somewhat similar monster. It may have even been called "The Blob." It's created in a laboratory and gets out of control. It secretes acid and devours any and all living things it encounters.
The Creature Catalog by Michael Berenstain had an illustration of the monster from this story, and I also ran across a reference to it in a book of essays about science fiction. I no longer have access to either of those books, unfortunately.