Carrying Around Some History

Welcome back to Becoming Sage, where the ordinary becomes the extraordinary. My name is Elan Baumgarten and this episode is distinctly dedicated to the history of carrying. Specifically the history of carrying things around in satchels and purses. Bags, really, if you will. People used to have bags to carry essential items around with them. Like many modern backpacks, people would store food and other handy items in their bags. The earliest bags were constructed of animal hides, but there is also a history of woven bags and baskets. Dating back to prehistoric times tens of thousands of years ago, people used bags. In Rome both men and women could often be seen sporting a bag with a cross-body strap. Medieval Europe was also a common place for many bags. Both scholars and monks would use them to transport essential texts and materials. Around a thousand years ago it also wouldn’t be an uncommon sight to see people with bags looped into their belts, a very handy way to carry small items or coins. It resembled the fanny pack. Just like a lot of the things we cover, bags really took off with the industrial revolution’s manufacturing boom. Their popularity skyrocketed with the turn of the 19th Century. Suddenly it was a whole lot cheaper to have your very own satchel to sport out in public. This is kind of similar to cars. Thanks to the assembly line the massive American middle class was suddenly able to own and use motor vehicles. This meant that they became incredibly wide spread. It’s the same concept here. Workers would use them to carry tools, schoolchildren books, and everyone else everything that they needed. People got really good at making bags too. It wasn’t too hard to make multiple pockets or even reinforce the stitching anymore. At the start of the 20th Century kids would often use simple bags with a flap over the top to carry their supplies. All that was needed to secure it was a buckle over the top. Fast forward a handful of decades and its the 50s and 60s. College students are suddenly all over these bags. Everyone wants a piece! Not only were they practical, but they were fashionable too. Some of the bags at this point used nylon, a material not previously used in their construction. Bags by this point were incredibly complex and advanced, so lets jump back and take a look at some specific kinds of bags. The backpack, for instance. Henry Merriam created the knapsack in the late 19th Century. The 1878 patent for this device had an external frame created from a metal sheet. The knapsack was an invention intended for use by the United States Armed Forces. Interesting how some of the best inventions are created for use by the military. Another great one are the headphones. A couple decades later in 1908 a Norwegian man by the name of Ole Bergan. He wanted to recreate the bag to make it more ergonomic for longer hunting trips. A bent piece of wood for hanging a cloth around was the perfect choice for him. Much better than Merriam’s knapsack which quickly fell out of use thanks to its incredibly uncomfortable design. Bergan eventually swapped out the wooden frame for a metal pipe type design. It reigned superior for a quarter century. The Trapper Sack was another great invention, and it took inspiration from indigenous Alaskan tribes. The best part about it was that it was secured together with steel pins. These of course could be easily removed, allowing the pack to be highly versatile. It was a commercial success and saw quite a few sales in the 1920s. There were a few more additions like the use of zippers in 1938, but it was really the modern backpack in 1952 after Dick and Nina Kelly created their packs from surplus military supplies. It was padded and featured many of the things that make modern backpacks so amazing. Another kind of bag is the duffel bag. A cylindrical beauty, this bag can be identified by its singular large center compartment and a single zipper to open it. Nowadays there are a few other shapes, but the cylinder will always be its origin. The material that first made duffel bags was actually from Belgium. More specifically, Duffel Belgium. Ironic, right? This was actually several hundred years ago, 17th Century to give you a better idea.The bags didn’t change much until WW2, but now they were easier to carry and were far sturdier. Duffel bags are definitely my preferred travel receptacle. What’s yours? Let us know at sagebecoming@gmail.com. Thank you for joining us for this episode on Becoming Sage, a place where the ordinary becomes extraordinary through the examination of the interesting histories and origins of our episodes’ subjects. My name is Elan Baumgarten, and this was “Carrying Around Some History”, the origins of the bag, by Becoming Sage.