Dad tool—Wheelbarrow!

Korean Litter

Before the dynasty of dictators... article with many photos, DailyMail.com, March 2013.

The photos are late 19th, early 20th century. I've shown the difference between a Chinese wheelbarrow and a European—with different origins, one replacing a beast of burden, and one with a wheel replacing the other person carring the other end of a barrow.

Below is something more like the Chinese barrow, and also like a litter with two bearers.

Two, different, same place

Janine Davies sent images and this note:

Wheelbarrows from from Horsley near Nailsworth, Stroud, England

One greeting visitors on the approach path to 'Sunflower Cottage' (home to some very good friends of ours.) and one a working wheelbarrow that was originally purchased as a fun wheel chair for their middle son who broke his thigh bone!

He is all fit and well now, and skateboards and cycles and runs like the wind.

I've added the tag "human transport" now, because there are others. The Chinese wheelbarrow photo, Dutch postcard, drunk removal from a painting in Pasadena, and maybe others. I'll go back and label those, too.

Achille Mauzan wheelbarrow

On a postcard mailed in 1924:

This arrived in the mail this week (mailed again 90 years after its first posting, but this time in an envelope), a gift from Lionel and Tessa in Rotterdam (sweet unschooling parents I met in 2012, and I got to visit in their home last summer).

The other side of the card caused some hunting for info about the postmark. That's not about wheelbarrows though, and is documented here: Surprise gift

Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena

Pam Sorooshian and I had just been in the "European Art : 17th – 18th Centuries" rooms for a few moments when I said I was going to look for a wheelbarrow. The very next painting I saw had one. Cool!!!



The painting is by Jan Steen, a Dutch artist, in around 1668. Part of the description was "In front of an inn, a hopelessly inebriated young woman is being helped into a wheelbarrow." The title is "De wijn is een spotter," translated to English as "Wine is a Mocker."

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More from the museum's site (added here July 24, 2014):
Wine is a Mocker, 1663-64

The inscription above the door is from Proverbs 20:1, which reads: “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.” In front of an inn, a hopelessly inebriated young woman is being helped into a wheelbarrow. Although the woman’s low-cut dress and red stockings mark her as a prostitute, her rich and exquisitely delineated clothing indicate a more privileged status. Jan Steen subtly conveys the message that not only are those of superior position as susceptible as the lowly to the sins of drink, but that their disgrace is perhaps more pitiable because of the distance they have fallen.

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Note added June 6, 2026:

Near the end of Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday celebration in The Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 1, "A Long-expected Party," Tolkien describes the departure of the guests:

"About midnight carriages came for the important folk. One by one they rolled away, filled with very full but very unsatisfied hobbits. Gardeners came by arrangement, and removed in wheel-barrows those that had inadvertently remained behind."

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When I went to get the quote (because I'm separated from my library these days, Google's AI told me some other things about wheelbarrow-removal of drunks in art, literature, and history. I might track them down and make individual posts later, but here's this in case I don't: https://share.google/aimode/kJsmlUtuqcZWcSBPD

Chinese wheelbarrows

According to nameless people on the internet, the Chinese invented the wheelbarrow.  It doesn't seem at first glance that they made a great job of it.  Their wheel is big, and right in the middle, so needs to be covered up.   So it's kind of a big fender with two running boards.  There's a platform on either side, and maybe the "fender" is made of poles or slats so there are places to tie things.

I found an explanation on a page on sustainable transportation, that defends the design. The Chinese Wheelbarrow For being such a seemingly ordinary vehicle, the wheelbarrow has a surprisingly exciting history. This is especially true in the East, where it became a universal means of transportation for both passengers and goods, even over long distances. The Chinese wheelbarrow - which was driven by human labour, beasts of burden and wind power - was of a different design than its European counterpart. By placing a large wheel in the middle of the vehicle instead of a smaller wheel in front, one could easily carry three to six times as much weight than if using a European wheelbarrow.

Their source was "The Chinese Wheelbarrow" by Kris De Decker, and has this interesting bit (and a great deal more):

Compared to a two-wheeled cart or a four-wheeled wagon, a wheelbarrow was much cheaper to build because wheel construction was a labour-intensive job. Although the wheelbarrow required a road, a very narrow path (about as wide as the wheel) sufficed, and it could be bumpy. The two handles gave an intimacy of control that made the wheelbarrow very manoeuvrable.

There are two versions of the longer article, and each has a few photos the other doesn't have:

It was first in LowTech Magazine:
 http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/12/the-chinese-wheelbarrow.html#more
Resilience.org reprinted it:
 http://www.resilience.org/stories/2012-01-03/how-downsize-transport-network-chinese-wheelbarrow-0

Kris De Decker's article is as much about the history of roads as of wheelbarrows, which is also fascinating.  Please read it if you're at all interested in the history of China or Europe, or at least look at the pictures on both of them.  There is a list of 21 sources on which the author drew there, too.  I learned a lot!

The European wheelbarrow is a whole different design and for a different purpose.  In the Chinese version, the wheel takes the place of a pack animal, and the shape of the frame reflects that.  All the weight is on the axle.   The European wheelbarrow is a version of a litter or a stretcher, or for workmen, a barrow designed to be carried by two people.  So the wheel goes between the two handles on one end, and the remaining person has the other two handles, and half the weight.

The article shows a Chinese wheelbarrow carrying two people, and says they could carry six.  Women were transported that way, and one of the photos above shows one who seems to have had bound feet. If there was only one passenger and the load had no counterweight, the article says the operator of the barrow would tilt the wheel so that it balanced that way.

European litters generally carried just one person.  There are images from a French history of the wheelbarrow that show (in line drawings) people being transported.  It's not as elegant or as dignified as  the Chinese setup, and doesn't look nearly as comfortable.  With a small wheel out front, in the European version, the "seating" isn't level.

So when articles say "the Chinese invented the wheelbarrow," they invented their wheelbarrow, not the  European version, which has a lowlier purpose and smaller capacity.

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I looked up the author, Kris de Decker, after writing the above.  He owns "Low-tech Magazine."  It's full of other interesting technological history and ideas.