We’ve Been Strapping Cargo to Our Backs for Millions of Years, but Backpack Innovation Really Took Off Around the Civil War

Discover the origin story for an accessory being comfortably lugged by nearly every hiker and student, with about 450 million sold each year

Katya Cengel

September/October 2026

Share

Copy linkEmailSMSFacebookXRedditLinkedInBlueskyPrint

Add as preferred source

Humans have been carting things on our backs in wraps of some kind at least since we began using tools, around two million years ago—and we have always sought ways to make the load more comfortable. The oldest known backpack ever discovered, in the Alps on the border between Austria and Italy, employed two narrow wooden boards and a hazel rod for a frame. The contraption dates to around 3300 B.C. and is credited to Ötzi the Iceman, a glacier mummy unearthed alongside it in 1991. 

But what we recognize as a backpack is much newer. In 1865, Henry Clay Merriam led a regiment of Black Union troops in an attack against Fort Blakely, a Confederate stronghold in Alabama. His deeds in this final battle of the Civil War earned him a Medal of Honor “for conspicuous gallantry.” Afterward, the lieutenant colonel had an epiphany: It was burdensome to carry both a knapsack (a pack with shoulder straps but no frame for internal support) and a haversack (a shoulder bag containing his rations). Based on his time carrying gear for the Army, Merriam devised a solution: a boxy canvas pack with room for socks, a quart of water, a shaving kit and a deck of cards, plus a compartment for rations in a case at the bottom. Sheet-metal braces formed the bag’s frame—and could double as tent poles at night. In his 1878 patent, Merriam explained that the design helped soldiers by “lessening the weight to be carried, and at the same time disposing it more uniformly, and leaving the body of the soldier freer and less hampered by straps and other fastenings.”

The tent poles were especially inventive, but improvements were still to be made. In 1882, Camille Poirier, owner of a shoe shop in Duluth, Minnesota, used a canvas design with a head strap to carry a canoe and pack simultaneously—a priority in the land of 10,000 lakes. He also devised a further strap that held an umbrella to shade hikers. An early advertisement breathlessly urged readers to “hit the trail” with a sack that “has made history in the Northern wilds.” Marketed to the fast-growing number of recreational outdoorsmen, the style proved both popular and enduring—the Poirier, or Duluth, pack is still produced today. 

Further refinements followed. After Norwegian outdoorsman Ole F. Bergan added a curved metal frame to a backpack in 1909, his country’s armed forces adopted his packs, and the legendary Norwegian explorer and mountaineer Roald Amundsen took one on a South Pole expedition. Lloyd F. Nelson drew inspiration from the packs carried by Inuit he encountered while hiking across Alaska to stake a land claim. In 1922, he crafted the original Trapper Nelson, a canvas bag with a detachable wood frame and steel pins.

The modern backpack began to take its true shape in the 1930s, after Gerry Cunningham—a mountaineer who went on to serve with the Tenth Mountain Division—added zippered compartments for easy access while rock climbing. Cunningham switched to manufacturing nylon models in 1967. That same year, Murray McCory established JanSport with his girlfriend, Jan Lewis, offering nylon packs with lightweight aluminum frames. The skiing and mountaineering packs proved popular with college students looking for a way to keep their books dry in rainy Seattle, where JanSport had set up shop. The lighter frames produced by Cunningham and by JanSport transformed these packs from a mountaineering accessory to an essential back-to-school item.

Styles may change—recycled materials and USB charging ports are trending; fans of flair can buy models with a sparkle-and-glitter finish—but the backpack remains invaluable to any and all wanderers. Around 450 million are sold globally each year, roughly the total number of iPods sold anywhere, ever, a stunning testament to the backpack’s ability to adapt. 

Katya Cengel is a freelance writer and author based in California. Her work has appeared in New York Times Magazine, Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post among other publications.