Paper bags with handles later became the standard for department stores, and were often printed with the store's logo or brand colors. These 'Deubener Shopping Bags' could carry up to 75 pounds at a time, and became quite popular, selling over a million bags a year by 1915. In 1912, Walter Deubener, a grocer in Saint Paul, Minnesota, used cord to reinforce paper bags and add carrying handles. This style of bag came to be known as the S.O.S., or 'Self-Opening Sack'.

In 1883, Charles Stilwell patented a machine that made square-bottom paper bags with pleated sides, making them easier to fold and store. Knight designed a machine that could create flat-bottomed paper bags, which could carry more than the previous envelope-style design. Thereafter he used an image of a flat-bottomed bag as his business logo. In 1853, James Baldwin, papermaker of Birmingham and Kings Norton in England, was granted a patent for apparatus to make square-bottomed paper bags. Wolle and his brother patented the machine and founded the Union Paper Bag Company. The first machine to mass-produce paper bags was invented in 1852 by Francis Wolle, a Pennsylvania schoolteacher. They carry a wide range of products from groceries, glass bottles, clothing, books, toiletries, electronics and various other goods and can also function as means of transport in day-to-day activities. Paper bags are commonly used as shopping carrier bags and for packaging of some consumer goods.

Paper bags can be made either with virgin or recycled fibres to meet customers' demands.

Kraft paper bags Bag of sugar Traditional paper bags made from reused newspaper in India.Ī paper bag is a bag made of paper, usually kraft paper. Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article. This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points.

Paper bag wall covering