I noticed a picture of a school hall with lockers on both sides, and remembered the ritual of putting books into the locker two or three times a day. It was wildly impractical. We only had three minutes between classes, and at least once in each day we had to stop at the locker, unlock the separate padlock, put in the morning books and take out the afternoon books. I sometimes carried a briefcase to hold all the books, which was heavy and clumsy but saved a bit of time.
Why did it take so long for backpacks to become common? Soldiers have been carrying knapsacks for centuries, but civilians didn’t adopt the habit until very recently.
Once in the ’70s I made a backpack and tried using it on campus for a while, but it felt weird and out of place so I stopped. The fashion seems to have changed in the ’80s. This article pins the start to LLBean in 1982. In fact my first backpack was from Bean, and I’ve been buying most clothes from Bean ever since.
Polistra's Mill 