Chasing old Prams or Baby Carriers

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#WeekendCoffeeShare 29 May

If we were having coffee I would tell you that I have been very occupied finding old catalogues on former days’ prams or baby carriers. My whole life I have been fascinated by the designs of these useful things from especially the forties and the fifties. In my research I was lucky to find a few catalogues also on models from the beginning of the twenties’ century and the thirties. The interest can be traced down to a very early age where I so intensely wanted a little brother or sister or at least a baby doll and a doll’s pram or carrier from the fifties.

I found an archive at a museum with a “gold mine” of brochures from different firms. The Odder factory had 75 years’ jubilee last year and had donated all their archived material to the Odder museum near by. I was lucky to find some of their rivals’ material from the period that interests me. I had to scan every picture at a time and had to return with my husband and with his help I am almost done. Some of my pictures are blurred and I have to return a last time. I seem to be the only one interested as the material was dumbed into three huge cardboard boxes and had never been put in order.

Nowadays only this one firm in Denmark has survived as the birth rate is low and many parts used for a pram or baby carrier are produced abroad. Between the two world wars we had at least ten different factories. The firms competed to such an extend that it is very difficult to discern where they belong. After the WWII designs were imitating the British style with names like New Look and “Eton” and “Winsor”. Those models very elegant and big but from the 1960s the prams or baby carriers had to be smaller again to fit into the family car.

Here comes a variety of pictures from the beginning of the twenties’ century until about 1960

  • The design inspired from the horse-drawn carriage 1900-1920
  • The design inspired by functionalism 1920-1940
  • The design inspired by cars 1940-1965

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My good friend Dorthe Lohmanns picture of her mother. We share the same interest

Dorthe Lohmanns mor i lækker barnevogn fra 1929

Dorthe Lohmann’s mother 1929 Copenhagen

A British model Pedigree from the 1950s
The British model
a picture from Copenhagen during WWII
From the factory Odder
My twin brother and I in 1952
My friend D.L.’s doll vintage baby carrier
My own drawing from my childhood
A mother with one of my favorite models PhotoFB friend
A model from the 1940 in Copenhagen photo FB friend
Children in a back yard in Copenhagen in the 1950s photo FB friend
From a warm day in Copenhagen 1950s photo FB group
From a back yard in Copenhagen POL photo
A winter day in Copenhagen in the 1950s Photo FB group
A guard watching over babies somewhere in Copenhagen in the 1950s
a dark afternoon at the lakes in Copehagen in the 1950s
A the town Hall sq, in Copenhagen in the beginning of the 1950s
a model from 1961 Itkin, in Copenhagen photo FB friend

If we were having coffee I would ask if you are just a little interested in this or if you know of anybody who has anything to share on this interesting subject.

 

Odder model 1940s-1950s
Odder 1950s
Odder 1950s
Odder model 1950s
Odder models
Alice’ photo Copenhagen
Vintage model from Copenhagen in 1950s
press photo from Copenhagen harbor 1941 from a FB group
This blogging event is kindly hosted by Diana in the PartTimeMonster blog

Categories: Blogging Event, Favorites, Historical issues, History, Photos, Weekendcoffeeshare

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22 Comments »

    • Thank you for your kind words. It’s been fun to get this far as to press “publish”. To get hold of the old brochures is a result of many emails and asking people who don’t know like museum people and librarians. Nobody seemed to know about the content of the old boxes I found at the Odder museum. Very little is written about the subject so I continue my search. It’s like men and veteran cars

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  5. Such a fascinating post, Maria. It brought up memories of the pram my mother-in-law gave me when my daughter was a tiny infant 46 years ago. At that time, we lived in a cottage on the shore of a river. The cottage was situated halfway down a steep hill that bordered the shore. A stairway built of railroad ties led from the cottage to road above. I remember struggling to pull the heavy metal pram up the hill so we could walk along the winding streets to the tine park a mile away. Going down was always easier.

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    • Thank you Carol for telling me your story. I am reminded of a situation where I thought I could take my first-born in his pram up via the escalator at the main station in Copenhagen. When I reached the last rolling “step” at the top there happened to be a border that was higher than the rest. I was stuck up there but then I used all power and pressed the whole pram against me skinbone and got it up in safety. For a week I had huge blue marks on both legs. The escalator is still there

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      • Yes Carol though mine was not so heavy but my son was maybe one year old and the pram was positioned upwards and I was below so that made it heavy altogether.
        By the way do you use the word pram in the States? In earlier posts I just called them prams and that confused some people. That’s why I use both names

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      • Actually, most people in the US referred to them as “baby carriages” when my daughter was young. But the one I had was primarily made out of metal unlike most US carriages. So I called it a pram. 🙂

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  6. I had a Tansad coach-built pram for my two that resembled the one pushed by the young lady in the brown coat. It had a capacious bag under the handlebars, and you could get quite a lot of shopping underneath. When my eldest son was a toddler he could sit on a specially fitted pram seat while his new-born brother lay inside.

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