[jharger]

Do you have an article or book you can link to on the subject? I'm very curious why there wasn't much demand for wheeled luggage until the 80's.

Is it because people flew less? Because more people checked luggage more often and carry-on was less common? Because airports were smaller?

[PeterisP]

It doesn't apply until the 1980s, but for luggage as for many, many other things it's worth remembering that many technological (and thus expensive) effort-saving and conveniences make no sense if the work and incovenience can 'simply' be handled by servants, poor/cheap laborers or slaves. Much of technology only makes sense if manpower is expensive.

In Victorian era, if you can afford to travel where you need luggage, then you definitely can afford people to carry that luggage for you, and those people would have been cheaper than high quality bearings that wheeled luggage needs.

It's attributed to Agatha Christie (1890-1976) autobiography that in her younger years she never thought she would ever be wealthy enough to own a car – nor that she'd ever be so poor that she wouldn't have servants; and yet eventually she was in both these conditions at the same time.