12/02/2022
The Jolly Jumper - an indigenous invention inspired by Ojibwe tradition.
Update: Olivia Poole, raised on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, was inspired by the traditional practice of using a bouncing cradleboard to soothe babies. In 1957, she patented her invention of the baby jumper, under the name Jolly Jumper, making her one of the first Indigenous women to patent and profit from an invention, (true), but the picture was not Olivia.
Correction: pictured is Mary Butler with her infant Lyda in a traditional cradle, probably on Makah Indian Reservation - 1900.
(courtesy Makah Cultural and Research Center), which was incorrectly credited as being Olivia Poole.
In fact, In 1910, after Poole had her first baby, she remembered how mothers on White Earth Reservation used this cradleboard technique to calm their babies. By this time, she was living in Ontario and did not have a cradleboard of her own. Instead, she fashioned one with items from around her house. She sewed a cloth diaper into a harness and created a brace with an axe handle. This eventually became the Jolly Jumper.
