thumb|A perspective picture of a modern suitcase
A suitcase is a form of baggage. It is a rectangular container with a handle and is typically used to carry one's clothes and other belongings while traveling. The first suitcases appeared in the late 19th century due to the increased popularity of mass tourism at the time, and were meant to hold dress suits (hence their name). They were originally made using heavier materials such as leather or steel, but, beginning in the 1930s, were constructed with more lightweight materials like plastic and cardboard.
Before the 1970s, the idea of rolling luggage was shunned by the travel industry, who viewed it as much less masculine than traditional luggage. American entrepreneur Bernard Sadow pitched his version of the wheeled suitcase, for which he was granted a patent in 1972, to various department stores before it was picked up and sold at Macy's stores starting in 1970. It took several years to become the predominant form of suitcase, and Sadow's version was soon superseded by the Rollaboard, a type of wheeled suitcase that was upright rather than flat like Sadow's model and invented in 1987 by American pilot Robert Plath. The addition of wheels to the suitcase has since been called one of the most significant innovations in travel.
Smart suitcases with enhanced capabilities such as GPS tracking and device charging were popularized in the 2010s, though explosions of their lithium ion batteries in cargo holds caused them to be banned from being checked by many major airlines in the late 2010s.
History
12th century to late 19th century: Luggage before the suitcase
During the Crusades, the first luggage—wheeled containers used to transport weaponry—was developed in 1153. The word "luggage", derived from the verb "lug", was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 1596 to mean "denoting inconveniently heavy baggage".
Late 19th century to mid-20th century: Beginnings
thumb|A brown leather suitcase from the [[Auckland War Memorial Museum that belonged to a QAIMNS staff nurse during World War I]]
As mass tourism increased in popularity and travel became accessible to non-elites due to railways and cruise ships, the need for more practical luggage increased. In the late 19th century, the first luggage known as "suit cases" or "suit-cases", which were meant to carry dress suits without wrinkling them, came about. The earliest models of suitcases were invented by British businessmen, who used them to carry goods and clothing. They typically had a compartment for shirts and a hat box on the inside. They were initially considered a lesser alternative to trunks, as evidenced by North American travel catalogs from the turn of the 20th century advertising trunks much more prominently than suitcases. Until the 1970s, wheeled luggage was seen by the travel industry as a niche invention solely for women.
After being turned away by Jack Schwartz, a Macy's buyer, a vice president from the company, Jerry Levy, called Sadow back in for a meeting. He instructed Schwartz to buy Sadow's suitcases, and Macy's began selling them in stores in October 1970, advertising them as "The Luggage That Glides" and showcasing them with mannequins; they rose in popularity soon thereafter. It stated that, due to airplanes replacing trains as the primary mode of long-distance travel, "Baggage-handling has become perhaps the biggest single difficulty encountered by an air passenger." Sadow later died in 2011.
1980s to 2000s: Rollaboards and other innovations
The Rollaboard or roll-aboard (also referred to as a rollerboard, an eggcorn of the term) is an upright wheeled suitcase with two wheels on the bottom and a telescoping handle invented by Robert Plath, a Northwest Airlines 747 pilot, in 1987. He had the idea while at a hotel during a layover in Scandinavia as he watched passengers struggle to get their bags, which were attached by bungee cords, out of luggage trolleys. He designed the prototype for the Rollaboard in his garage, screwing a hard-shell bag to a luggage trolley, and started to get ideas from other crew members while carrying it around. It marked a shift from Sadow's model, which rolled flat on four wheels. He hired a team of sales representatives in 1992, and in the mid-1990s, Travelpro started selling Rollaboards commercially in retail stores, making it a competitor of Samsonite, then the largest American luggage manufacturer. Plath sold Travelpro in 1999. The Rollaboard was widely imitated by other luggage companies starting around 1993, Designer Don Ku from Flushing, Queens invented and patented a suitcase with an extendable handle in 1993. In 2004, Samsonite started selling the first "spinner-style" suitcase, which had four wheels and could be moved and spun in any direction. Durability testing for suitcases also became more rigorous around this time as they became lighter.]]
Smart suitcases—suitcases with built-in technological features—became popular in the 2010s. These features include internal tracking, geolocation, fingerprint scanners, device charging, scales, GPS capabilities, touch switches, remote locking, and computer vision, among others. Companies such as Away, Arlo Skye, and Ovis mostly sell smart luggage. United States–based airlines including American, Alaska, Delta, and others banned smart luggage with nonremovable batteries from being checked in late 2017 and early 2018, while the United Kingdom's Civil Aviation Authority recommended a similar ban in 2018. Smart suitcase companies such as Bluesmart shut down as a result of these bans. Samsonite made a push toward using materials such as vulcanized fibre and polypropylene in suitcases. From the 1900s to the 1960s, hotels placed luggage labels on customers' suitcases to advertise themselves, with illustrations inspired by travel posters of the time.
The supposedly feminine nature of the wheeled suitcase was mocked in the 1984 film Romancing the Stone, where Kathleen Turner's character, Joan Wilder, brings her wheeled suitcase to the jungle, which bothers Michael Douglas's character, Jack T. Colton, who is attempting to fend off evil. Of the wheeled suitcase, Ian Jack wrote for The Guardian that "outside the cheap flight, no other modern development has made travel easier".
See also
- Baggage
- Trunk
- Bag tag