March 6, 2001: Headlines: COS - Togo: Snugli: Babies: Inventions: CBS News: Togo RPCV Ann Moore invented the Snugli
Peace Corps Online:
Directory:
Togo:
Peace Corps Togo :
The Peace Corps in Togo:
March 6, 2001: Headlines: COS - Togo: Snugli: Babies: Inventions: CBS News: Togo RPCV Ann Moore invented the Snugli
Togo RPCV Ann Moore invented the Snugli
Togo RPCV Ann Moore invented the Snugli
The Mom Who Invented The Snugli
EVERGREEN, Co., March 6, 2001
CBS News Correspondent Jon Frankel talks with Ann Moore
The Wall Street Journal said Ann Moore is one of the most influential inventors of the Millennium.
(CBS) You wouldn't know it by her unassuming nature, but Ann Moore of Evergreen, Colorado, has been recognized as one of the most influential inventors by The Wall Street Journal. Some say her invention, the Snugli baby carrier, changed the way parents relate to kids.
"I didn't invent the idea. I took an age-old idea that's been going all on over the world for thousands of years and just adapted it to our western culture," she said.
In the early 1960s, Ann, a nurse, and husband Mike were Peace Corps volunteers in Togo, West Africa. She saw more than just another part of the world.
"It was so beautiful to see the mothers with the babies in the hospital, with this calmness and contentment."
Everywhere they looked, women had their babies wrapped in shawls and around their bodies, hands-free.
"I was more intrigued at the result of the emotional well-being of those babies," recalls Ann.
Back in Denver, it was only when Mandy, their first child, was born in 1964 that the Moores thought about how they were going to carry her around.
"Ann walked out of the hospital with Mandy strapped on her back just as an African would, just with a long shawl -- she brought a shawl back from Africa," recalls Mike. "She had doctors and nurses in that hospital -- their heads were spinning."
"My mother and I then worked in Denver on the original design" for the Snugli," said Ann.
Ann's mother, with help from neighbors, sewed the originals, made of corduroy and seersucker, one by one.
"People would come up and say, 'Wow, I wish I had one of those,'" Ann remembers.
When the Moores marched from Selma to Montgomery with Martin Luther King Jr., there was Mandy on Ann's back.
"People said to us, you really ought to get this patented," said Ann.
Snuglis may have started in the '60s as a hippy alternative, but they became popular even before boomers knew about bonding.
It was a cultural change for Americans.
It took seven years to reach $100,000 in sales. Mike, who worked other jobs to pay the mortgage, no longer viewed it as just a hobby and signed on full time. By 1985, the kitchen-table idea turned multimillion-dollar business was sold.
"Intellectually, we knew that this was the right thing, but when we signed the papers, it was so sad," said Ann.
They didn't get rich and Ann's creative appetite wasn't satisfied. She invented a backpack for carrying oxygen tanks called Airlift.
Four years ago, when her girls began having their own children, they said, "Let's start this again."
Ann was back at it -- stitching, snapping, folding as good as always. Ann continues to bond with her three daughters, who work in the business, and you might say her motto is, "Where I go, we go." And that just happens to be the name of the new baby carriers -"Weego."
"A lot of it begins with heart, with caring, with wanting to make life beter for the person for whom she's designing the product," said Mike.
"Anything we can do to get parents and babies closer together, to realize that love-- I'm sure that means a more loving world, and I think that's what really excites me," she said.
Today, a dozen companies make a similar product and the Moores, with "Weego," are the new kids on the block.
©MMI Viacom Internet Services Inc., All Rights Reserved.
When this story was posted in December 2004, this was on the front page of PCOL:
| The World's Broken Promise to our Children Former Director Carol Bellamy, now head of Unicef, says that the appalling conditions endured today by half the world's children speak to a broken promise. Too many governments are doing worse than neglecting children -- they are making deliberate, informed choices that hurt children. Read her op-ed and Unicef's report on the State of the World's Children 2005. |
| Our debt to Bill Moyers Former Peace Corps Deputy Director Bill Moyers leaves PBS next week to begin writing his memoir of Lyndon Baines Johnson. Read what Moyers says about journalism under fire, the value of a free press, and the yearning for democracy. "We have got to nurture the spirit of independent journalism in this country," he warns, "or we'll not save capitalism from its own excesses, and we'll not save democracy from its own inertia." |
| Is Gaddi Leaving? Rumors are swirling that Peace Corps Director Vasquez may be leaving the administration. We think Director Vasquez has been doing a good job and if he decides to stay to the end of the administration, he could possibly have the same sort of impact as a Loret Ruppe Miller. If Vasquez has decided to leave, then Bob Taft, Peter McPherson, Chris Shays, or Jody Olsen would be good candidates to run the agency. Latest: For the record, Peace Corps has no comment on the rumors. |
| The Birth of the Peace Corps UMBC's Shriver Center and the Maryland Returned Volunteers hosted Scott Stossel, biographer of Sargent Shriver, who spoke on the Birth of the Peace Corps. This is the second annual Peace Corps History series - last year's speaker was Peace Corps Director Jack Vaughn. |
| Charges possible in 1976 PCV slaying Congressman Norm Dicks has asked the U.S. attorney in Seattle to consider pursuing charges against Dennis Priven, the man accused of killing Peace Corps Volunteer Deborah Gardner on the South Pacific island of Tonga 28 years ago. Background on this story here and here. |
Read the stories and leave your comments.
Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.
Story Source: CBS News
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Togo; Snugli; Babies; Inventions
PCOL15646
76
.