Baby carriages, bottles, pacifiers, intercoms, many are the gadgets that a baby brings to our lives. We have become accustomed to being there, to see them almost daily, not only in our case, but anywhere we go, but since when have they been there? Some of them already existed at the time of our grandparents, but when did they begin to be used?
Today we will get on the time machine and travel back, towards the moments when all that dare that surrounds the baby today was invented, a review by those wonderful years: the baby carriage.
The beginnings
The first stroller, or prototype of this one, dates from 1733 and was invented by the famous engineer of the time William Kent, who built one to entertain the children of the Duke of Devonshire. The contraption consisted of a wicker basket fixed to a wooden frame ornamented with four wheels and a harness so that it could be pulled by a horse, goat, dog or human, that is, any mammal between two and four legs that lent itself thereto.
It seems that the "invention" seemed most interesting to the English elite, tired of having to take their churumbeles on a hill from one palace to another (imagine tiredness). And so they were commissioning different versions of this "mini-car" to local artisans, I suppose that with cheaper fees, which in turn, they were adding home-grown features.
Modifications to the initial design
One of the first modifications was that of replace the pull arms and harness with handles, so that a human, let's call him a father, mother or nursery hired for this purpose could pull the car in a much more decent posture without finally whinnying or that some well-intentioned passerby would offer him a bite of oatmeal when he saw him hooked to such a contraption.
Another modification that was made to the original design was the result of complaints received by many parents who came home with the empty car, because the fact of not including restraints for children, together with streets with pavement not conducive to carry things delicate on wheels made the baby will end up on the floor halfway And, of course, by not looking at him ... you can imagine the rest.
The modification would consist in the removal of the harness and handles or rather a relocation of these from the front to the back, so that the father could now push the car without losing sight of the future heir.
And also had to include another small variation by legal reasons, since at that time it was illegal to drive four-wheelers along the trails and after some other fine the manufacturers decided to take a wheel off the car before running out of customers. And here the three wheel car was born.
* Attention to the text of the photo. ("The docile husband", with that I say everything.)
We take off
With all of the above, the cart was not popularized until baby boom that arose after the First World War, also dragged by the rise of the plastics industry which replaced the wooden face of these, as well as the replacement of the unstable wicker bassinet with a deeper and reinforced structure, adorned with brass accessories with chromed metal. Oh, and I forgot now, foot brakes were added. All this at a price within the reach of the majority of the population thanks to that invention called "series production".
Strollers
We had to wait until the 40s for the strollers to see the light and its main feature is that the baby was no longer facing the parents, but looking in the same direction of the march.
At first they were nothing more than a metal frame with a hoop of the same material that surrounded the child, until one good day, to mid 60's, the English aeronautical engineer Owen Maclaren (Does the name sound like something to you?) He heard his daughter complain about how complicated it was to get in with the baby chair on the plane. And you know how grandparents are, he lacked time to design a lightweight chair made of aluminum and easy to fold and store when not in use. Had been born The umbrella chair.
Another important change in design emerged in 1984, when Phil Baechler He tried to run pushing his son's car and realized it was tremendously complicated, in the end he began to design a chair with bicycle parts emerging from it all. Baby jogger, a stroller with three large all-terrain wheels, light and easy to push while doing sports.
And already from 2000 the thing has been completely unraveled and models of cars and chairs have appeared for almost any event or use we want to give them. What designs will there be for our grandchildren?
And this has been all in our visit to those wonderful years, the baby's cart.
