Originally Posted by
SlowRoller
From Joel Metz's site:
"The messenger bag as we know it today, however, originated in the 1950s or thereabouts, being produced as a bag for telephone linemen, by Globe Canvas/De Martini in New York. The linemen needed a bag they could easily access while climbing telephone poles, and this design worked perfectly. New York bicycle messenger companies picked them up sometime in the 1970s, and initially were purchased one color per company, as identifiers of a sort."
thats all fine and dandy, but cyclists have been using musette bags to carry supplies before nyc messengers 'picked up' a linesmans bag.
http://www.velo-retro.com/musette.html
interesting, that linesman/messenger connection does explain the late 20th century proliferation of these types of bag for urban hipsters.