文/哈德利·霍尔·米尔斯译/黄青

纸袋的发明，女权的胜利

文/哈德利·霍尔·米尔斯译/黄青

我们经常用纸袋装东西，无论是杂物、衣服、礼物、垃圾还是酒水。小学四年级之前，我都会将午饭放进纸袋带到学校，因为妈妈会用贴纸和绘画来装饰我的纸袋。圣诞节来临时，人们将沙子和蜡烛装进纸袋做成灯照亮街区。体育迷们心生怨气时还会将纸袋套在头上。不过，有多少人了解平底纸袋的由来呢？又有多少人知道纸袋的发明意味着女权战胜男权，智慧打败霸道呢？

We carry stuff in them—groceries, clothes, gifts, trash and booze1booze〈非正式〉酒精饮料。. I carried my lunch to school in one until the fourth grade because my mother would decorate them with stickers2sticker贴纸。and drawings. People add sand and candles to them to illuminate3illuminate照亮。their neighbourhoods at Christmas. Disgruntled4disgruntled不满的；不高兴的。sports fans cover their heads with them. But how many people know where the fl atbottomed paper bag came from? Or that its invention was a triumph of feminism over patriarchy5patriarchy父权制；男权政治。and of brains over bullying6bullying恃强欺弱的行为。?

[2]根据多数历史记载，人们过去使用皮革、木材、棉花和芦苇来制作容器。以前，纸张都是依靠手工一张一张制作的，堪称奢侈品，只供少数文化人用于书籍、记录和信件。1799年，法国发明家路易-尼古拉·罗伯特获得卷纸制造机的专利。这一发明使得纸张进入大量生产的阶段。商人不久即使用卷纸，或曰“锥形纸袋”，来包装少量商品。意料之中的是，效果不尽人意。他们还曾制作简陋的手工纸袋，但是这一过程比较费时，往往也不成功。

[2] For most of recorded history, containers were made of leather, wood, cotton and reeds7reed芦苇属植物。. Paper, made by hand one sheet at a time, was a luxury, used only for books, records and letters by the literate8literate能读会写的；受过教育的。few. In 1799, a French inventor named Louis-Nicolas Robert was granted a patent for a machine that produced rolls of paper. This invention brought paper to the masses. Soon, merchants were using rolled paper, or “cornucopias9cornucopias锥形纸袋。”, to package small quantities of goods, with predictably messy10messy复杂的，麻烦的。results. They also constructed rudimentary11rudimentary简陋的；原始的。paper bags by hand, which was a timeconsuming and not always successful process.

[3]各厂商竞相打造既结实耐用又易于生产的纸袋。1852年，美国人弗兰西斯·沃勒获得纸袋制造机的首个专利。这种机器利用蒸汽和浆糊来生产信封形状的纸袋。沃勒发明的机器得到推广，但是它生产出的纸袋不仅笨重，而且用途有限——不难想象，将大量杂物放进硕大信封模样的纸袋中会是什么样子。……