Designing Motherhood
The wonderful Lauren Downing Peters and Laura Snelgrove of the Fashion Studies Journal invited our curatorial team to speak about the humble beginnings of Designing Motherhood, how we got it off the ground, pandemic parenting, and more.
Watch below or on the FSL website.
Designing Motherhood will be publish this fall (September 7th to be exact), but it’s already available for pre-order wherever books are sold! Pre-order your copy now from your local bookstore or from Bookshop.org.
I’m proud to have contributed a handful of essays to the volume and to have helped compile a stunning selection of images and illustrations. Here’s some early praise for the book from our peer reviewers:
“I believe it is a work of major significance to design studies but also to feminism, gender studies, and cultural history. It certainly doesn't take an expected view of what constitutes 'design.'” — Ellen Lupton Senior Curator of Contemporary Design, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; Betty Cooke and William O. Steinmetz Design Chair, Maryland Institute College of Art
“This area of public inquiry is rarely addressed in the fields of social work, public health and public policy, so to have this accessible yet rigorous body of knowledge published will be important for elevating these issues. We believe the text to be extremely well researched and nuanced in its handling of sensitive issues; for example, those related to the impact of racism and white supremacy on the history of women's health.” — Karen Pollack, Executive Vice President of Programs and Operations, and Bette Begleiter, former Deputy Executive Director, Maternity Care Coalition
“In addition to being the first book of its kind to collect this particular design history, it also serves as an important lesson on ways to extend disciplinary boundaries, furthering an expanding design discourse. The text is an education, not just at the nexus of design and motherhood but also on the very practice of approaching design's history—one that involves care, delicacy and the voice of the multiple.” — Maria McLintick, Curator, London Design Museum
“I cannot praise this volume too highly: it is a breakthrough book and an impressive cultural marker of understanding and enlightenment. It has no peer on its subjects, to my knowledge: future academic and popular writers will have to cite this work.” — Robert Hicks. Senior Consulting Scholar, William Maul Measey Chair for the History of Medicine; Director Emeritus, Mütter Museum/Historical Medical Library
If you’re eager for a sneak peak at what’s inside, subscribe to the Designing Motherhood newsletter. There, we offer a behind the scenes look at the project in process and glimpses of the book. More at designingmotherhood.org.
Designing Motherhood has a website! This is where we will post updates, where you can subscribe to our newsletter (next edition goes out March 1!), and where you can, should you feel so moved, donate to the project.
Thanks so much to Shaz Madani for the amazing graphic identity.
Check it out at designingmotherhood.org .
We introduced Designing Motherhood to the public this fall through a program at Design Philadelphia. I had the chance to talk about my research on the development of infant formula from the late nineteenth century into the twentieth - a topic I wrote about for the book. A recording of the program will be available on the Designing Motherhood when it launches in the New Year.
While you wait for the website to go live, check out our public research channel on Instagram.
In January, I began working on an exciting project called Designing Motherhood alongside the masterminds Michelle Millar Fisher and Amber Winick. The project, which includes a book, an exhibition, and a series of public programs, will unfold over the course of 2021. In the meantime, here’s a teaser!
Video by Austin Fisher