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I've heard a theory that this was the problem: if even modern wheels are of dubious quality and capability, how much worse would they have been a hundred years ago? I'm not sure that makes sense, though. The invention of wheeled luggage is at roughly the same time the transition of roller skates from all-metal wheels to hard polymer wheels (which were lighter and smoother-rolling and less expensive), but all-metal wheels aren't that much worse in utility and they were probably better for durability. The most important invention for small wheels is ball bearing support, and that's more like 100-150 years old (at various levels of quality and expense).
The two other common theories are more situational:
Wheeled luggage came about during the expansion of mass air travel, with it's corresponding huge concourses and lack of porters. This was the first time people really had reason to want to carry their own luggage for long distances.
Wheeled luggage came about shortly after the Women's Rights Movement made it more common for women to travel on their own, and whereas a typical man would feel weak if he avoided carrying his own luggage, a typical woman would feel foolish if she didn't.
I'm not sure either of these really works either, though. Wheeled luggage was invented in 1970, but as another comment points out it didn't become popular until the 1990s. Perhaps that's because of the addition of the retractable handle (invented in 1987) finally making them more ergonomic to roll around? And maybe 17 years isn't too painfully long for someone to come up with that idea once it finally had a use case; "The Retractable Handle" isn't exactly the sort of thing you find at the start of the Civ tech tree next to "The Wheel".
Ball Bearings have been around for a long time, but they have been improving all of that time in size, quality, reliability, and price. Just taking your example of rollerblades is pretty illustrative. I had a very good pair in high school that were pretty top of the line at the time. I played outdoor hockey all the time, blading was a pretty common date in my small town with few other places to congregate, etc. If I go to Wal Mart and try on a pair, they roll even better than those ones used to. Same with the skateboard bearings, they are cheaper and better now. By a lot.
Considering that luggage wheels have to be small to be practical, the timeline makes sense to me.
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The typical man should still feel this way. Traveling with something like a Cotopaxi backpack is superior for the vast majority of applications to the point where I wonder how so many people got psyopped into using these unwieldy rollers that I watch them fighting to fit into overhead compartments.
This is why checked baggage will always reign supreme. I used to always fly Southwest for that very reason. No need to try to get huge bags in the overhead bin, at best I'm putting up a small tote which has a change of clothes and valuables I don't want to let out of my sight. The rest is in my big checked bag. Alas that they too have joined the legion of airlines trying to turn basic parts of the experience into an upcharge.
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Even still, all this does is shift the explanation from one product to another. Backpacks have been around for a while, but they were mostly limited to outdoor and military applications. It wasn't until the 1980s that they became popular for carrying books to school, and it probably wasn't until the 2000s that you began to see them used among normal tourists who weren't going on vacations that would require them to carry everything around with them for long distances. The typical tourist or business traveler who stays in a hotel and travels by car wouldn't use one.
That being said, I own more backpacks than Imelda Marcos owns shoes, and I still use traditional wheeled luggage for most of my normal travel. Why? Because they keep clothes folded. I don't fly much so I rarely use the wheels and could probably do without them, but it's much easier to keep everything together when it's in a rigid box. I would add that I'm also the kind of person who makes use of hotel dressers and closets, despite my tendency to avoid overpacking through the realization that unless I'm going out to dinner a lot or am engaging in messy activities I'm probably going to wear more or less the same thing the entire time I'm away.
You just blew my mind.
Though in hindsight I now understand why "he offered to carry her books" was a big childhood romance story trope, in media not much older than I am...
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I've gotten a bit obsessed recently with the idea of one bag for travel. I got a 30L backpack I stuffed it with an absurd amount of (carefully chosen, but still far from "essential") equipment that would be enough to and it all fits very comfortably, leaving room for 3-5 days of clothing (assuming I will wear on myself the heaviest, bulkiest clothing while traveling).
And when I say an absurd amount of equipment, I mean stuff that would make any minimalist shake their head. I have a laptop, a mechanical keyboard, a folding laptop stand, a travel router, and optionally I bring a portable second monitor.
I have a hard time understanding how I ever needed checked baggage, let alone feel constrained by only having an allowance of one.
*EDIT: A sketchbook (and pencil and eraser), tons of electronic security related gizmos, a game controller, chargers and cables for everything, 2 retractable ethernet cables and 1 retractable HDMI cable... An international solution for plugging in and charging everything. I'll grant the bag is probably heavy, or so I've been told by people trying to pick it up, but while I'm not exactly in good physical shape, one thing I've always had for me is being a pack mule, the bag weighs subjectively very little to me.
Keep in mind that the size of the person makes a huge impact - I have enormous feet, any time I need more than one pair of shoes (lets say I'm traveling for a wedding and need dress shoes and sneakers) then my packing is totally fucked. Same stuff applies to most of my clothing, although to a lesser extent.
In contrast my various partners I've had in my life have been mostly petite women who could fit an entire wardrobe in my suit bag.
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IMO the practically available volume is the biggest advantage of using a wheel-less bag. On a standardish 22"x14"x8" (~55x35x20 cm) international carry-on size bag, one with no wheels can easily have 25% more interior volume than an identically box constrained wheeled bag. Especially those four castor bags you are losing a full 3 inches off of the bottom of the bag. People also underestimate the volume used for the collapsing handle and structure to transmit the load to the wheels.
In practice for me, this means that I can fit a "normal" amount of stuff in a max size personal item 18"x14"x8", and never have to worry about being forced to pay for a carry-on or have my bag gate checked.
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People have become convinced they need all kinds of stuff to get through a vacation.
The old timey Jersey Shore slur for a lower-class tourist is a Shoebie, which comes from a time when working class people would catch a bus or train to the beach with everything they needed for the day in an old shoebox tied with string. You don't see people traveling light like that anymore.
I've noticed it in myself, I nearly always drive to my vacations, and I overpack because why not? Pretty quickly I'm packing for a weekend trip to my in-laws as though I'm going to shit my pants three times, work out three times, go to church twice, and have absolutely zero opportunity to do any laundry even in an emergency.
If you limit yourself to packing less stuff, and wearing your clothing multiple times without washing, you don't need so much bag space.
Seconding @pigeonburger, I'm not even packing light! I always have a laptop (Macbook Pro, not even a slim one) and iPad. I'll usually have two pairs of shoes in the bag (running shoes and dress shoes). Running clothes, dressier clothes for work, a hat for running, a warm hat for chilly days, and more.
I'm with you on overpacking for driving trips because it just doesn't matter - throwing another bag in the car is pretty much the same thing as doing one fewer. On flying trips though, it's just unreasonably convenient to have the soft-sided bag to avoid ever needing to even gate-check a bag. I wouldn't quite go so far as calling it a virtue to figure out travel economy, but it's something in that direction.
I'd put it under the broader virtue of Adaptability in the same way I think that having an adaptable diet is a virtue.
Be vegan or Paleo or keep keto or bread and water. That discipline is a virtue. But so is being the kind of person that can eat something anywhere without being sick. When your diet causes you to not to be adaptable to being out of your comfort zone it ceases to be a virtue and becomes a vice.
In the same way, being able to pack light is a virtue, even if doing so in every case isn't the best choice. Only being able to travel with multiple checked bags is bad, so is being the kind of person who comes to a formal wedding in cargo pants because you refused to pack anything else.
Idk I'm working on it.
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