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The wheeled suitcase for traveling also feels like such a no-brainer in retrospective, yet seemingly took longer than expected to catch on. One example:

> Sadow spent months attempting to sell his wheeled suitcase to various New York City department stores, but was met with resistance. Most department stores, according to him, refused to sell his invention due to a "macho feeling" that men would consider rolling their luggage "wimpy" and that women who travelled would have their husbands around to carry their suitcases for them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suitcase#Late_19th_century_to_...

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I would like to read more why people avoided using wheeled luggage.

I looked in archive.org and found nothing on that specific topic, but learned that wheeled luggage existed in the 1940s, at https://archive.org/details/sim_quote_april-13-19-1947_13_16... from 1947:

"INVENTIONS: Wheeled suitcase can be rolled instead of carried. Two small wheels, attached on one end near the bottom when case is standing in ordinary position, touch the floor when suitcase is tilted by means of extensible handle on the top near the other end [Science Service]"

But I'm also thinking about the wheels available at the time - 1950s rollerskates used metal or wooden wheels, as I recall. Rubberized polymer wasn't available for another decade. Metal wheels on luggage seems a poor combination.

I also think porters were much more common, which meant many of those "macho" men could easily pay someone to carry their bags to the room, or airplane.

I mean, I was "there" for a lot of it in the modern-ish era, basically when air travel was like bus travel, buy ticket, get on plane.

FAR less distance and time between "car" and "plane." Closer parking, curbside service, but even if not, you're just physically closer to the gate. No TSA, etc.

But if you paid someone else to carry your luggage, then you're no longer "macho", no?

One aspect of "macho" is social dominance, in a culturally defined manner.

What is more macho, getting coffee yourself, or telling the (almost certainly female) secretary to do it for you? Getting coffee is a menial job.

What is more macho, changing your baby's diaper, or expecting your wife to do it? Changing a diaper is a woman's job.

What is more macho, polishing your own shoes, or paying the shoeshiner?

What is more macho, carrying your own luggage, or paying a porter?

These are menial jobs, often done respectively by poor children ("shoeshine boy") and Black people. (White train passengers once called each Pullman porter "George", following the slaveholder tradition of referring to a slave by the master's name!)

By using a porter you show social dominance, and imply you are rich enough that their payment is a trifle.

(On a tangent, "Qué es más macho, pineapple o knife?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d9YAz3A4pc by the inestimable Laurie Anderson.)

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