I remember this was a common thing when I started working in the 1990s; male, white-collar workers carrying a briefcase from home to work in the mornings, and then from work to home in the evenings.
It dawned on me today that you don’t see this as much. I work with many professionals, and I have never seen any of them carrying a briefcase. Why is that?
More importantly, why did male, white-collar workers carry a briefcase home with them back in the day? Did they continue with their work in the evenings at the kitchen table?
My dad used to carry one, he didn’t do a lot of work at home but he’d transport things that might be useful if something came up, or if he couldn’t get into work the next day, plus personal items. Things like his address book/phone numbers, his calculator, glasses, relevant reference materials. Sometimes he’d throw his lunch in there.
The internet killed some of this – most of the stuff on paper in there can be found on a email server or similar now – and the remaining needs were filled by different briefcase sized things, like messenger bags, laptop bags, and backpacks.
Today, the backpack has replaced the briefcase. Why do so many millennials take their backpack home and back to work each day? They are mostly the same reasons.
I find it funny that 20 some-odd years ago is “back in the day”. It’s not that long ago.
One other factor, is the internet. Even as recently as 20 years ago, if you needed to review a letter, contract, promotion, or anything work related at home, you had to take it with you when you left and bring it back when you returned. Today, you can send it to yourself in an e-mail, or just access your work e-mail from home. If you promised your boss you’d be finished with the Johnson contract by Friday, and Wednesday afternoon, you realized that you still needed a few hours to finish, you had to take it with you Wednesday night so the secretary could type up your notes on Thursday. Today, you just spend all night Thursday typing it yourself.
A lot of the physical things that were carried are no longer needed due to smartphones &/or internet. Rolodex/address book, calculator, slide rule, pen/pencil, paper documents, etc.
Not only have backpacks ( and laptop bags) replaced the briefcase, I see many more men carrying backpacks etc than I ever saw carrying a briefcase. Back in the day, it was only a certain group of men that carried briefcases- not all men and not even most male white collar workers. Nowadays, I see even blue collar workers carrying a backpack or something similar - and they often carry them even when they are not working (which never happened with briefcases).
Man-bag.
Men have gradually started carrying more stuff plus things like laptops/tablets/e-readers.
A cross-body bag or backpack leaves both hands free.
I started working my professional life in 1990, and I’ve never owned a briefcase. I did carry a soft-sided shoulder bag for a few years, and usually that only contained some paperwork I wanted to have handy, plus my wallet, beeper (remember those?), and my sunglasses. I confess it was probably more about appearances than necessity because I did not want to show-up to work empty handed.
As stated, the advent of laptops for work diminished the need to carry anything but the laptop, and many times a shoulder bag was issued with the laptop. These days even those have been replaced by backpacks. I think of those hard-sided briefcases with the two snaps as something my dad had when he was working.
An separate thread on obsolete office/work-related items, materials, and habits would be interesting.
I don’t know if I ever carried a briefcase, other then when I went on job interviews where I needed to show my portfolios. Work stayed at work and on the rare occasions I had to take something home, I’d just grab a folder.
Nowadays, of course, everything is in the cloud, so I don’t have to take it back and forth.
When I transferred in 1997, my coworkers gave me a briefcase as a going away gift. I never used it. Eventually, it went to Goodwill. I carry a purse, so that takes care of wallet, glasses, etc. I’ve never been allowed to take work home, not that I could anyway - the sorts of engineering I did wasn’t portable, plus there were the years when my work was classified.
Thinking back, I don’t recall my dad ever carrying a briefcase, either. Again, his work couldn’t come home with him, altho that didn’t stop the occasional late-night call. I need to ask my bro if he carries one. He’s a big-shot company Prez/CEO, but I expect the most he’d carry is a thumbdrive.
That’s exactly what my father did. Most of my memories of him are working on evenings and weekends at the kitchen table. (and reading the New York Times on Sundays)
I have a briefcase that I used to carry briefs (and related documents) to and from court. I also will carry my laptop between work and home many days.
A few years ago friends’ parents were retiring to Florida and getting rid of a bunch of old stuff. Among the things they no longer needed was a vintage Ghurka Satchel/Briefcase from 1977 in black. I was carrying my laptop in a modern leather laptop bag before, but it fits in the vintage bag perfectly, it has room for other stuff, like gloves, a hat, an umbrella, etc., plus it’s just a way nicer bag.
One more thing that distinguishes a hard-sided briefcase is that it makes it easier to keep the documents in good shape. There used to be much more importance placed on documents being “original versions”, and you wouldn’t want to just stuff them in a soft-sided bag where they might get crumpled or torn. And even if the original version wasn’t needed for legal purposes, making a new copy was much more of a pain, so it was worth some effort to keep your copy clean.
A former coworker carried a briefcase to and from work every day. I always wondered what was in it. One day he left it open on his desk, and I saw that it contained only two items: a large bottle of Maalox and a hard copy of the error code manual for our product.
In a related vein, what was (is?) the Briefcase folder for, on early laptop computers? How would you use it? If you needed to take that Windows Write document home, why couldn’t you just take a 3.5" floppy disc home with you? Or if you could transfer files from the company computer to your personal notebook, why bother with the Briefcase? You could create a folder called Work or similar.
When I started my professional life, in 1989, I had a hardsided, leather-covered briefcase. It was nice, and durable, and pretty much the standard for male white-collar workers of that era. Other than some lawyers, it seems to be a rarity to see that style of briefcase anymore. (Then again, that was also the era in which we all wore suits and ties every day, and that’s gone, as well.)
By the mid '90s, I’d switched to a canvas Land’s End briefcase (with a shoulder strap)…even if it wasn’t as attractive or durable as the leather briefcase, it was a lot more convenient to carry.
Once I started toting a laptop back and forth (maybe 10 years ago), I switched to a laptop case (again, with a shoulder strap), and I now use a Swiss Army backpack with a purpose-built laptop sleeve in it.
