Clothing the “Perfect” Mother?

A search across our dataset for the word ‘caregiver’ produced 244 results1 which related to the care of infants2. Comparatively, a search for the word ‘mother’ produced 1,227 results, precisely 1,196 more than those for the word ‘father’. However, of these 31 ‘father’-patents none spoke about fathers as carers on their own, while mothers were always there.

1958 GARMENT FOR THE USE IN THE CARE OF INFANTS, Pat. US2831193A 

Until 1958, men seem to be absent from tasks and general concerns related to raising and caring for children. In 1958 as well, all that I have been able to find was a brief mention of a child’s ‘attendant inserting his or her arm through the opening between the strap’. Yes, all that I could find testifying the presence of men in the business of caring for children was a mere pronoun!

In this patent illustration, like many examined until the end of the 1950s with the exception of those patents portraying children, reveals a young white woman who, in this case is ready for the ‘burping’ procedure.  

Up to the 1960s, mothers in the POP dataset are virtually always depicted as white middleclass flawless women who are ready to care – on their own or with the help of an attendant or nurse – for their children. 

The concern over the ‘ideal mother’ can be traced back to the end of the 19th century. Between the 1890s and the 1930s inventors – mainly women inventors – were preoccupied with a variety of issues concerning ‘nursing’ or pregnant mothers. Problems range from the need of protecting lactating mothers’ modesty, to society’s requirements dictating how a woman’s body should look like.  

1908 NURSING WAIST (Pat. US890614A) 

This ‘Nursing waist’ was devised for ‘nursing mothers and so contrived that the infant may be given the breast without subjecting the mother to the slightest unpleasant exposure’.

Garments were thus created to supposedly render nursing easier – women did not need  to fully undress – but also to avoid ‘the inconvenience, embarrassment and exposure usually incident to the wearing of the ordinary form of waist or like upper garment’ as another ‘Nursing garment points out (Pat. US1098155A). 

If the issue of modesty and privacy while breastfeeding may not come as a surprise, concerns over the bodily aesthetics of pregnant mothers-to-be and women who have already gone through childbirth could be slightly more unexpected. Figure-reducing and maternity corsets get patented during this period with little concern over women’s health.  

1935 FLATTENER WITH BELT THAT CAN BE ATTACHED TO A CORSET (Pat. FR781035A) 

Gillibert Rose Blanche patented this French ‘Flattener with belt’ which abides to ‘the current fashion of women’s clothing, putting more and more value on the woman’s body, obliges her to keep as long as possible her elegant line, despite the multiple causes that seek to alter them, such as overweight, consequences of motherhood and also age’. The inventor attempts to reduce the issues corsets have – often constituting ‘real devices of torture’ – by inventing a less compressing corset which can nonetheless ‘maintain the line’.  

Already around this time, mothers need to be attentive not solely to the needs of their children but also to societal indignation towards the less attractive sides of maternity, from breastfeeding to changes in their physical appearance – including at times pregnancy itself.

1994 SKIRT FOR EXPENTANT MOTHERS (Pat. CH260066A) (left) and 1949 FIGURE-FREE MATERNITY SUSPENDER (Pat. US2469793A) (right). 

Towards the end of the 1930s women’s bodies and especially those of ‘prospective’ mothers are portrayed as needing concealment. A skirt enveloping the belly so that, when wearing a coat, it will seem as if you are not pregnant at all (Pat. CH260066A).

This this invention, the suspenders worn by a fabulously looking ‘modern-mother-to-be’ highlight the climate of quasi-repulsion towards imperfect maternal bodies (Pat. US2469793A). Women are supposed to miraculously pop out babies from a body which has never born signs of pregnancy. Since this is obviously impossible, women are encouraged to conceal such changes. 

 In these patents, women are pressured to be great mothers, attentive to the point of straining their nerves. To be a great mother in the 1930s, meant not only being able to juggle between child care and other domestic responsibilities, but further being capable to do so in the most modern of ways – i.e. effortlessly and glamorously.

What I was surprised by was the enormous number of women inventors who patented inventions which reinforced this stereotypical vision of women/mothers/domestic angels. However, considering the kind of pressures, typical of those years, women were subjected to, it might be easier to understand why so many women inventors left unquestioned the patriarchal dogmas which were transforming women into either flowless maternal creatures or monsters with frail nerves uncapable of raising their children.

Many inventors were just trying to help these super-mothers in their daily tasks. Additionally, it must be added that not all women inventors were as complicit to societal impositions demanding them the maternal perfection I discussed so far.  

MATERNITY CORSET (Pat. US1620264A) 

There were (and still are) women who, while being aware of the demands placed by society on their appearance, use their lived experiences to create garments which respond to the needs a pregnant woman may have beyond those imposed by the community in which she lives in.

Alethea H. Lockwood in the late 1920s patented a ‘Maternity corset’ thanks to her ‘long continued experimentation and practical experience’. Her invention differs from other contemporary maternity corsets which, as she remarks ‘are intended not so much; to give proper support, but more especially to suit the requirements of over sensitive persons, who, because of false modesty, desire at all times, and particularly during, the latter stages, just prior, to confinement, to maintain the substantially, normal appearance of the figure’. Her corset aims to ‘support the abdomen of the prospective mother, in such manner as to relieve the stomach tissues and muscles from undue weight and consequent fatigue’. 

Patented inventions in the 1950s become increasingly practical. Mothers’ bodies begin to be equipped to avoid the ‘tremendous volume of laundry’ as well as for ‘burping procedures’, and other ‘chore[s]’ well-known to ‘the busy mother’. 

1952 ARTICLE FOR PROTECTING CLOTHING (Pat. US2617105A) 

This ‘Article for protecting clothing’ was patented in the US to simultaneously protect mothers from infants’ refluxes whilst enabling them to find a safe ‘a place to put the bottle while the degassing is accomplished’. 

Between the 1950s and 1970s other paradoxes emerge in relation to motherhood. As Jaqueline Rose (2018:38) remarks: 

“Mothers in the home are expected to manage more or less on their own – one of feminism’s loudest, most persistent and fairest complaints – but the one thing a mother cannot possibly manage by herself is mothering.” 

So, while men get equipped to fly in space with cosmonauts’ suits, women get ‘armed’ to care and to keep ‘spic and span’ (Pat. US2650362A): their children, their bodies, and their homes.