BOOK Handbag history is touted

Men used the first purses to hold coins.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
Handbags date back to the Greek and Roman civilizations when men needed a holder for their coins. Men wore alms bags in the Crusades. And women wore hooks under their skirts. Later pockets were attached to long ribbons. Women had to reach through slashes in skirts to find scissors or keys.
We learn such facts in yet another pretty picture book on purses, "Handbags: A Peek Inside a Woman's Most Trusted Accessory" by Barbara G.S. Hagerty (Running Press, $24.95).
The fact that it is the second bag book this season is testimony to the recent preoccupation with handbags, whether they are $1,200 Diors or $12 designer copies at a discount store.
It was not until around 1880 that luggage makers began to make sturdy bags with handles for women. As women began working outside the home at the turn of the century, bags became more serious.
A symbol
Certainly they have long been a stylish symbol ranging from the humorous to the no-nonsense. Novelist Anne Rivers Siddons writes in the foreword that "purses are about power." A woman shows who she is when she takes her purse out the door.
The book is embellished with dozens of striking examples. But the writer presents the subject as if it were a personal journey every woman can understand. It's not just about the outside. It's also the life sustaining objects inside that empower her "to face life."