One Last Thing

I’ve always been really interested

in the ways in which women experience the workplace. In the U.S., the workplace is a hostile place to be a parent, especially a mother. As a design historian, I look at how objects shape us, and breast pumps are part of that. They assist lactating people while allowing them to do other things—both a positive and a negative in terms of literally squeezing every last drop of productivity out of them.

I find this 1956 breast pump designed by Swedish engineer Einar Egnell intriguing for several reasons. It’s one of the first—if not the first—to cater to the ergonomics and experiences of lactating people. A lot of the lactation data up until that point had been derived from cows, which just feels wrong. But Egnell not only collaborated closely with a female nurse, Sister Maya Kindberg, in designing this pump, he also interviewed patients in the maternity hospital in Stockholm and asked, “How can I design this better for you?” The pump is rather heavy—22 pounds—but, at the patients’ suggestion, it was made to be portable, which was a huge upgrade.

Design for reproduction has historically been done by men primarily for use by women—and unfortunately that’s still typical. Egnell brought actual users into the design process.

Curator and historian Michelle Millar Fisher is including this 1956 breast pump that she bought on eBay in Designing Motherhood, an exhibition at Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum and Center for Architecture and Design. The show, a collaboration with historian and fellow curator Amber Winick, is meant to spur conversations about how we design for the experience of reproduction.

Design historian Michelle Millar Fisher

views a 1956 innovation as a turning point for modern parenthood.

AS TOLD TO Kathryn McLamb

PHOTO BY | @JAMIECHUNGSTUDIO Jamie Chung