Brown paper bags have become a fixture in our daily lives: we use them to carry groceries home, and tote our department store purchases. Retailers also use them as a blank canvas for their branded product packaging. 

According to Paper Mate, a branding company that produces writing instruments, before the paper bag, baskets, bowls, and other containers were the main storage solution in every home and store. Business owners could stock stacks of these bags at their stores, and their low cost and ease of use made them widely accessible for shoppers of even modest means.

Paper, on the other hand, could be produced at a much lower cost, and soon became the preeminent material for portable bags along trade routes.

Since its introduction in the 1800s, the paper bag has undergone numerous upgrades thanks to a few clever innovators. According to Bio Smart Packaging, Francis Wolle, in 1852, invented the first machine to mass-produce paper bags. While Wolle’s paper bag looked more like a large mailing envelope than the grocery store mainstay we know today (and thus could only be used to tote small objects and documents), his machine was the catalyst for the mainstream use of paper packaging.

The next important step forward in the design of the paper bag came from Margaret Knight, a prolific inventor then working for the Columbia Paper Bag Company. There, she realised that square-bottomed bags, rather than Wolle’s envelope design, would be more practical and efficient to use. In 1868 she created her paper-bag making machine in an industrial shop, paving the way for the widespread commercial use of paper bags. Her machine proved so profitable that she would go on to found her own company, the Eastern Paper Bag Company.  

These square-bottomed bags were still missing a classic component of the paper bag that we know and love today: pleated sides. Charles Stillwell made this addition by making the bags foldable and thus easier to store. A mechanical engineer by trade, Stillwell’s design is commonly known as the S.O.S. bag, or "self-opening sacks”.

Later, in 1918, two St. Paul grocers by the names of Lydia and Walter Deubener came up with an idea for yet another improvement to the original design. By punching holes into the sides of paper bags and attaching a string that doubled as a handle and bottom reinforcement, the Deubeners found that customers could carry almost 20 pounds of food in each bag. At a time when cash-and-carry groceries were replacing home delivery, this proved a crucial innovation. This is according to Paper Mat.