This Week in Travel History: Suitcase Innovation and Adding Hawaiʻi to the Map | Places.Travel
Each week we’re taking a look at profound moments within amazing trips taken by interesting people. See what happened this week in travel history and come back every Friday for more historic moments.
I’m thankful the Sumerians invented the wheel and that two-plus millennia later Bernard Sadow had the wherewithal to add the wheel to suitcases, but the person I thank every time I go on a trip is Robert Plath. It was
during This Week in Travel History in 1991 that the former Northwest Airlines 747 pilot received patent no. 4995487 for his Wheeled Suitcase and Luggage Support, the invention that allows our bags to virtually glide beside us.
It seems pretty crazy that man landed on the moon before man or woman had wheels on suitcases, as it took until 1972 until Sadow got his patent. But porters and bell hops often took care of traveler’s luggage and for men, there was a macho resistance of it all, so it made some sense that it took so long. Plath wanted something better than the four-wheeled models on the market so he tinkered, and he toyed, and ultimately he created the two-wheeled version with the telescoping handle almost all of us know and use today.
Plath called his creation the Rollaboard and began selling them to fellow pilots and flight crews. The public caught on and soon enough, he didn’t need to fly planes anymore. Plath founded Travelpro, retired as a pilot and became the guy everyone thanks but no one knows. The Wright Brothers got us in the air, Boeing and Airbus keep us up there, but it was a guy in a garage in Boca Raton Florida that truly made our flying experience better.
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