Katrine Marçal has an interesting piece in the Guardian today about the history of the wheeled suitcase. Her contribution is to track its invention past the usual late-'80s starting point, past the 1972 "official" invention, all the way back to the early '50s. So why did it take so long to catch on?
Resistance to the rolling suitcase had everything to do with gender. Sadow, the “official” inventor, described how difficult it was to get any US department store chains to sell it: “At this time, there was this macho feeling. Men used to carry luggage for their wives. It was … the natural thing to do, I guess.”
Two assumptions about gender were at work here. The first was that no man would ever roll a suitcase because it was simply “unmanly” to do so. The second was about the mobility of women. There was nothing preventing a woman from rolling a suitcase — she had no masculinity to prove. But women didn’t travel alone, the industry assumed. If a woman travelled, she would travel with a man who would then carry her bag for her. This is why the industry couldn’t see any commercial potential in the rolling suitcase. It took more than 15 years for the invention to go mainstream, even after Sadow had patented it.
My first introduction to wheeled luggage came when I started traveling on business in the late '80s. One day, boarding a plane at Dulles, I noticed a flight attendant with a rollaboard and was intrigued. I asked her where I could buy one, and shortly after that I got one for myself. It wasn't a big deal, but few other people had them at the time and I did get a bit of ribbing for it from my fellow travelers. It was just jokey stuff, but there was no question that they considered it an admission of weakness or something.
In any case, this means that wheeled luggage isn't really one of those inventions that seems so obvious that you wonder why it took so long to come up with the idea. Ditto for cupholders, I suppose, which probably seemed downright counterproductive back in the era when eating in cars was discouraged.
No, the real invention that puzzles me, the one that I wonder why it took so damn long to catch on, is this one. Anyone have an explanation?
I feel that phones without cords attached are just... wrong! It is like wheels on suitcases.
I don't see them catching on.
I like this stand. And now I want a helical stretch cord to attach to my cell phone somehow. Someone must make them.
Travelled extensively from the day I was born...
I, too, switched when I saw flight crews wheeling their bags behind them. Never gave it a second thought.
Crazy old coots on this one libertaribro sight I troll still think only sissies and pasty soy-boy millenials (don't get them started on grip-strength) roll their bags. Hahahahaaaaahaha! Get real, dotards.
Wtb edit button.
*site
Those crazy old coots obviously don't travel. You will see exactly zero* people in an airport carrying a suitcase; it's either a roller or on a cart.
*Exception: The luggage of choice for people arriving in Nome AK appears to be the Rubbermaid Roughneck Tote, equipped with duct tape closures.
😊😊😊
And Deadhorse was the machinists box on a dolly.
My roughneck totes have wheels, even though only about 6' of their movement uses them.
I see a lot of backpacks too. I’m not sure those things are for holding stuff though. Most people who have them seem to use them as bludgeons that are attached to their backs.
I'm fairly regularly seen in airports carrying a suitcase. I dislike wheeled luggage because I find the wheels annoyingly noisy. I have to put up with other people's wheel noise for fairly short periods until our paths diverge, but my own luggage is always with me.
You're obviously an exceptionally crazy old coot.
At 65 I think I'm just on the edge of old. The people who know me don't tell me I'm crazy, but that may just be because they're polite.
A possible contributor may be that I'm a big crazy old coot. Carrying even a big suitcase is just not that much of an inconvenience for me, and as mentioned it's quieter.
Old school. guy I like that. I'm an old duffler myself.
Lawn -
Agreed. And I prefer a duffle to a hard shell suit case. It fits better in the overhead.
Also, at one point travel, especially by plane, was not done by people who were concerned with carrying their own bags, same thing with filling up your car with gas - used to be done by gas station attendants.
What's interesting is that most of these inventions are different from the status quo so there is not much required for there to be a roadblock.
Not quite sure gender would be number one, but it could be part of it.
Wheeled suitcases became more popular when airlines outsourced baggage handling to the passengers.
Here in Oregon, my proudly Italian self doesn't pump my gas. But I do pump my fist.
You could easily attach a string to your gas cap with household tools - why didn't you do it? Why wait for General Motors to do it?
Do small conveniences sell cars? Large size and horsepower are probably more important. But once something is added, like cup holders, everybody has to have it.
My Honda has had a string on the gas cap, and a socket on the cap door to hold it, since at least my 2004 Civic. My 2018 Civic doesn't have a gas cap at all: closing the door seals the fill tube. The door unlocks when the driver door unlocks, and it clicks open and shut like a retractable pen. Downside is when washing the car/windows and you lean against it. You learn to always check it.
My 2005 Accord has a gas cap on string.
And my son's 2017 Accord Hybrid still has a gas cap on string :/
"large size and horsepower"
I'm guessing you are of the masculine male persuasion. Some buyers look for safety features, crash resistance, room in the back seat, storage space...
The best theory is the parable of the $20.00 bill. Two economists are walking down the street and one says "Look, there's a $20 bill on the sidewalk." The other says "It can't be a $20.00 bill. If it were, someone would've picked it up." Sometimes obvious things aren't obvious.
I was an early adopter on rolling bags, and eagerly snapped up a small roller for hauling my laptop. I got to feel superior to the macho idiots who refused one, until, of course, the macho idiots started using them. A couple of years later, I got to feel superior to idiots who refused to bring canvas totes to the grocery store because otherwise people would think they're virtue-signalling. Sure they (may) help the environment, and it would be terrible to use them for that reason, but those plastic monstrosities suck monkeys and no one on earth could claim they're a better way to carry groceries than a nice tote. (Even so, I don't use an NPR tote bag - I don't want to be a total cliche.)
i'm confused. which invention are you talking about? a gas cap with a cable to keep it attached? if so, i have no idea when that caught on to be honest.
I had the memorable experience once of being yelled at from the next lane because my gas tank cap was sitting on the rear fender. A little idiot-proofing helps.
back in the day i once drove 20 miles back to a gas station where i left my gas station. found it sitting on top of a pump. i was lucky that time. i lost one or two on that car, and they weren't cheap to replace.
even today, with my gas cap attached by cord, i occasionally leave it dangling as i leave the station. cop once was kind enough to follow me several blocks to let me know that i had done it again.
My 1980 Subaru had a light on the dash that told me if a door was ajar, but my current Honda with all its bells and whistles, still doesn't have an idiot light to tell me, "Idiot, you forgot to close the gas cap." Which I do every now and then. Would it be that hard?
My Chevy Bolt displays a "charge door open" message if I try to drive off with the charge door open.
A few years back I was driving back from Oregon to my home in Montana and stopped in Butte for gas. I slipped the cap into the holder on the gas flap filled up and then forgot to put it back in place. Hopped back on the interstate and drove on down the road. About 20 miles down the road I looked in the side rear view and saw that the flap was still open, so I pulled over at the rest stop at the top of the pass. Got out, checked it and for some reason the cap had survived 20 miles at 80 miles an hour!
I got a new car last year and am very happy that it has a tether.
Me too. Now my gas cap is built into the cover. No muss no fuss. Just in time to get rid of gas altogether.
Note: electric cars don't have gas caps, though they do generally have a door over the charge port. My Bolt lets me know if I've left that door open (and of course you can't even start if the car is plugged in). Teslas have some automatic gizmo that opens the charge port door for you when you approach. I'm sure that'll never go wrong in bad weather.
Our gas vehicle has a new twist on the forgotten gas cap - the unkillable warning light that comes on if you don't turn it enough clicks when you replace the gas cap. Trip that one, and you have to go to a service place to get the light turned off.
My 1994 GEO Prism had a cable attached to the gas cap. So it goes back a long way.
Chrome in the 50's and 60's. Windshield wipers, windshield frames, lovely shiny chrome. Driving into the afternoon sun? Miserable experience. Matte finish or black seems to have begun in Europe early sixties, swept the world thereafter eventually.
Probably had a bad effect on chrome market.
Progress can be swift for obvious things on occasion if it isn't made political.
Well that, but the extreme toxicity of chromium and its effect on auto workers is probably a bigger factor.
My gas cap has a pigtail. Unfortunately, the far end of the pigtail keeps popping itself out of the corresponding hole in the filler cover. Time to get a new car, I suppose.
I like the way you think, sir. Will it be an electric model?
Kevin, Kevin, Kevin… once again a step behind. Gas caps are passé. It is either a self closing, capless fill pipe or a charging socket these days…
And as for the wheel around luggage, I’m sure SkyCaps around the nation rejoiced at the democratization of travel brought about by the juxtaposition of wheels on luggage and deregulation…
Lost the gas cap from my first car by leaving on the the trunk and driving off. Used twine and duct tape to secure it's replacement. Looked just as uncool as it sounds.
I feel like the wheels have given manufacturers and excuse to make the empty suitcases needlessly heavy. The wheels may be great whizzing around an airport, but the suitcase that weighed a ton when empty now weighs more once full, and I am lugging it up stairs and in and out of cars/busses/etc. more than rolling along a smooth airport floor.
The wheeled duffels from Eagle Creek are astonishingly light.
Wheels have also enabled overpacking…
OK, now that everyone has got what they feel compelled to say out their system, let's try to answer the question.
Look at these pages:
https://www.maclaren.us/pages/history-heritage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Finlay_Maclaren
The interesting point is that baby buggers (what Americans call strollers) are as late as they are (1965) and we see the photo with the lady using her buggy right next to a plane...
Of course there were prams much earlier, but heavy, and with big wheels. To get to the stroller/baby buggy required a world where aluminum was cheap, and high quality wheels and ball-bearings were "trivial" rather than high tech items. A world that arrives somewhat later than people might imagine.
My guess is that the way this worked (the way it *always* works once you get past the politically motivated idiot claims like "it wuz mens suppressing womens") is that
- it takes time for someone with the combination of skills and vision to create the first idea (in this case the babu buggy)
- it seems easy to say "well move those wheels to a suitcase" but then the details start to kick in. If your suitcase is leather or plastic (or even, god help you, cardboard) which is what suitcases WERE back in those days, you don't have much of a frame on which to attach the wheels. The first suitcase I bought, in about 1982, was light nylon exterior, cardboard interior, very flimsy internal plastic frame. In many senses it sucked -- but it was LIGHT AS HECK, impossibly light compared to what we have today, light as a plastic bag!
And if people have an expectation that a suitcase has a certain weight, it's hard to change that.
- so adding wheels is not just adding wheels. It's figuring out a frame that can hold the wheels, an appropriate covering material (woven nylon won't cut it, so you have to figure out thin braced aluminum or polycarbonate -- and now you have to figure out how to manufacture these shells). And at the same time you have to figure out the retractable handle (a problem that, IMHO, is STILL not solved. It always feels flimsy and too easy to torque, but of course bracing costs weight.)
- so you have a series of amateurs all claiming they have this great idea -- but what they have is way too heavy. Or falls apart under stress because the wheels twist off the frame as soon as it tumbles into a cargo hold and catches on something. Or is engineered to perfection -- and costs $12,000 to make because every part is custom made and the inventor gave no thought to mass manufacturing.
And just adding wheels is not good enough. Have you used a cheap suitcase with wheels that can't all turn independently? It sucks! Mostly a worse experience than just picking up the suitcase. You really need the independently rotatable wheels -- one more point of expense and complexity. Until you have those, your wheeled suitcase is just not that much better. It's more expensive, it's a lot heavier, but it's not actually that easy to maneuver.
It's all these practical problems that take the time between thinking of the idea and the actual mass market release.
Or, you know, you provide the example of a man being contradicting just because he can't accept the idea, and the so poo-poos something that might make someone else's life better.
Shh, you are harshing the narrative..,
Oh, as for gas caps with a connector, well, a fact of life is that most people are absurdly conservative. No matter what you introduce, the response is "why would I pay more for that, the old way was better".
You think I'm wrong -- look at the response to every innovation Apple introduces. Whether it's a higher quality screen, or AirPods, or a magnetic connector to make wireless charging a little easier, there are more people poo-poohing the idea than who immediately see its value.
My house is full of small things to make life better -- from a light in the garage that changes from green to yellow to red as the car gets too close to the wall, to smart locks that unlock based on my watch proximity, to smart blinds that open or close based on various factors (outside temperature, degree of sunlight, sun position, ...) to basic airwick or glade fresheners.
And you can bet, every one of these things has most people looking at them and rolling their eyes. "Why would I pay $20 for a device when I can just pay attention to how close I am to the wall?" "Why would I pay $1/month to make my house smell nicer; I've never had an issue with the way it smells right now" "Why pay another dollar a month to make the toilet water blue", etc etc.
And that same attitude gets you to "why do I need my gas cap on a string? I'm not so stupid I'm going to forget it" and "why do I need wheels on my luggage? just makes the luggage heavier and more expensive, and it's just one more thing to break".
Oh dear lord, not only an idiot but an Apple fan boi. Yeah, wireless earbuds are so much better than a hard connection. You go on telling yourself they sound just as good despite the fact they clearly are not; 'conservatives' are good at fooling themselves that way.
The wireless airbuds are absolute garbage. The sounds quality of some knockoff wired buds (using a knockoff adapter) are so much better.
If by 'garbage' you mean 'better sound than most with cables' and 'doesn't have a damn cable to get caught while actually doing things.'
No, no they do not. Also, the latest iMac has both connection and power problems that the older models do not. An external power brick on a 'desktop'? Really?
Not to defend the life gizmodic that Maynard seems to lead, but: I don't think that anybody listening to earbuds does so because of sound quality. I can say that personally, it's so I don't have some stupid cable bouncing against my neck when I run, or tethered to my computer during videoconferences.
Or dear spaghetti monster, not another post from violet who can't be bothered to use facts.
The fact that they are right about one thing doesn't mean they're right about anything else.
Really, fan boi? Or is that fan grrl? Why don't you cite my factual inaccuracies? And while you're at it, tell my why Apple ditched the phone jack. Don't tell me it was because 'wireless earbuds have better sound quality; you damn well know it was in pursuit of a thinner phone. Or is that yet another one of my 'factual inaccuracies'? You're an idiot.
Children, children, theres no need to fight!
Remember what you both have in common, namely a shared hatred of me, and my nasty habit of introducing unexpected data and details that contradict the narrative...
I understood ditching the phone jack was a way of making the device more waterproof.
Why would I hate you, Maynard? No, what you mistake for hatred is contempt; your 'arguments', such as they are much too weak to rate anything else. Such as, for example, throwing this out and hoping that nobody notices you didn't actually defend your statement about Apple products being too progressive for most people upon the initial offering.
I'll take your silence on that one as an admission of your usual defeat.
I avoid air fresheners as much as I can. Not worth the health issues.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360132316304334#:~:text=Air%20freshener%20exposures%2C%20even%20at,neurological%20problems%2C%20and%20ventricular%20fibrillation%20(
Heh. I still use a duffle because a) I routinely tote more and walk farther when I go on a walking trip with very little effort and b) you can fit a duffle in where a hardshell won't go. This wouldn't be a problem were it not for the fact there's always those assholes who will put two or even three bags in the overhead even when specifically told not to. Not so bad in itself, but the crew doesn't enforce policy. Just even thinking about makes my blood pressure rise.
I prefer a hardshell because it always is the same shape. It doesn't budge out and get in the way like a duffle does.
But in the car, I prefer the duffel, because I can squish it into a funky shape.
Remember folks, someone invented the shopping cart.
Now I get the bumbling man with luggage movie trope.
Cf. 'Mr. Hulot's Holiday'.
I'm old enough to remember val-packs and 2-suiters and that you checked them at the counter on the way in and picked them up at the luggage carousel on the way out. They only needed to be lugged a couple hundred yards total if you didn't have to change terminals. And if you did, you could often find luggage carts to wheel them around on.
The traveling world changed when airlines started charging for checked baggage. Then you needed carry-ons and had to keep them by your side or overhead or underseat every step of the way. For those distances you wanted wheelies. But you didn't want wheels on checked baggage because they'd get broken off. Everything got broken off of checked bags.
Wheels probably were available a little before that, and as far as I can remember aircrews always used carry-on sized wheelies. Wasn't that how Kluge started off back in the day, use what the crews and savvy travelers use? Very snobby.
But mostly, as I remember it, until maybe sometime in the 90s (maybe as late as early 2000s), people who were traveling light enough to use only carry-ons used to use backpacks. Then everybody went to carry-ons.
An old pickup I owned predated locked filler covers. We got a locking gas cap, and inadvertently solved the problem of driving off leaving the cap behind -- the gas cap key was on the ring with the ignition key. Instead, we got to hunt for cap and keys both -- check the running board, on top of the pump, on the wheel well inside the bed, jacket pockets, the back bumper ....
Kevin, what I'd like to know is why don't you have the gas cap resting in its little holder just off to the upper-right of this view?
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Just traveled a bit, and my wife and I upgraded luggage before we went. The new thing for wheels on luggage are "spinner" wheels. I'm here to tell you this makes it much easier to push untilted luggage on a flat surface. Will never buy luggage again without this feature.
Alright I'll ask
I THOUGHT the attachment of the cap to the doorway was to PREVENT leaving the cap behind after filling
On my grand daughters car if she leaves her gas cap off she gets a "check engine light" on the dash board. If it goes to the shop they code it as evaporator system leak. If the mechanic is honest he puts the cap back on and says nice things to you.
If he's a crook he says you need $798 worth of work and 2 hours later he puts the cap back on takes your money and THANKS YOU
Either way he says nice things to you and bad things behind your back
Yep, that's a feature. It's all about the subsystem that keeps raw gas fumes from escaping into the atmosphere the way it used to be done, ie tanks used to vent directly into the air. So did crankcases, for that matter. That's been verboten for something like 40 years and they (at least the cars I've had since at least 1976) all have sensors that check for evaporative system leaks, hence for loose gas caps.
Maybe it's because this goes back so far, but the only warning my cars have given about loose gas caps is that dreaded check engine light, never mind that it points you in exactly the wrong direction, or that a multitude of things will set it off and most of them are expensive.
To be fair, my owner's manual underlines this point hard and warns you to make sure to tighten the cap until it clicks and won't go any farther, and in fact the salesperson made a point of showing this to me when I picked the car up.
Don't most people ignore the check engine light anyway, as long as the car still runs? At least once it's out of warrantee.
Anyway, my guess would be that gas caps are leashed now because of regulations-- it was as close as makers could get to fool-proofing the evaporative emission controls, at least until some of them came up with the integrated filler door/gas cap that some people here have mentioned.