Woman of the Week – Ann Moore

For the next few months, we’ve decided to dig into the CR4 archives and expand upon some blog posts from 2007. Back then, we published a series of lists of women inventors and now we will write full blog posts about those who have yet to be featured. Do you know of a great person to be a subject? Let us know!

Ann Moore changed the way parents can carry their children with her invention of the Snugli.

In college at Columbia University, Moore took interest in the Peace Corps, which was just getting started. She and her husband, Mike, went to Togo in the 1960s to serve and observed the way the mothers held their children and the way the communities in Togo were so drastically different.

She noticed that the women in Togo carried their babies on their backs using a long shawl, and observed that the babies were calmer and the mother-child bond seemed closer.

When Moore had her daughter, Mandela, after arriving home from her Peace Corps work, she wanted to try carrying her the way she saw those women do it. She tried using a sling, but the baby would slip.

She modified a backpack, which eventually became a catalyst to her invention. She and her mother helped create a “remedied backpack” that was worn facing front so the baby was in front of the mother’s chest. Together they began to make them for word-of-mouth clients. In an interview, Moore said women would often stop her while she was buying fabric for the first Snuglis and ask where they could get one.

As the invention became more and more popular, Moore’s mother recruited some friends to help. They worked in Ohio and mailed the products out from there. Over time, refinements like leg holes and extra padding were added for the baby’s comfort. Moore also added tucks and darts that could be taken out as the baby grew.

In 1966, the product was advertised in the Whole Earth Catalog and popularity soared. The Snugli was patented in 1969. In 1976, a consumer report called it "the soft baby carrier to have." A bit later, The Wall Street Journal ran a front-page story on the product. It quickly became part of American motherhood culture.

In 1985, Ann and Mike Moore sold the rights to Gerry Baby Products (the present-day Evenflo). But the company cheapened the design for mass production and took out many of the important features.

Their disappointment was fuel for future innovations, though, and in October 1999 the Moores released the Weego. This Weego was a modernized Snugli and fit right into the marketplace. It had even more features like buckles, a bib and adjustable straps. The Weego is still sold today – there’s even a model for twins!

In the late 80s, at the request of a respiratory therapist, she began making backpacks for carrying liquid oxygen containers, making it easier for supplemental oxygen users to easily move around with the tank.

Moore also invented carrying cases for other medical devices and even a spectrometer case for Hewlett-Packard's microwave division.

Even though she holds several patents, Moore thinks of herself as a problem solver, not an inventor.

"I think of myself as more of a problem solver," she said in a Smithsonian interview. "When I get engineering drawings, I just panic because it's difficult to read them. But if someone hands me an instrument, then I'm very comfortable. I ask, 'How is it going to be used? Who's going to be using it? What is the purpose of this instrument?' I don't work from drawings. I do much better with the actual instrument, to design around it. It's a trial and error process. It's all hands-on."

The Snugli was part of a 2017-18 exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City that featured garmets that changed the way we live.

Moore and her husband live in Colorado.