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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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