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Babies in Incubators were Once a Sideshow Attraction · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye,
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Speaker 1: welcome to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you
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Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. This is you know, I've
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Speaker 1: said this before, but but this this is a really
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Speaker 1: really weird one. It's a story that maybe I'm familiar
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Speaker 1: to a lot of people. Uh, unless, of course, you're
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Speaker 1: a fan of side shows. I don't do people still
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Speaker 1: go to side shows. I mean, it's certainly not particularly
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Speaker 1: politically correct anymore. You're Ben still though, right, not a
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Speaker 1: proprietor of a side show. Yeah, and you're knowl I am.
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Speaker 1: I mean, I think the closest thing we've got today
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Speaker 1: would be like a Ripley's Believe it or Not situation
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Speaker 1: where maybe I don't know, maybe there's some some things
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Speaker 1: in there that could be classified as that, but they're
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Speaker 1: not human beings, their dioramas or recreations or you know,
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Speaker 1: just a historical kind of exhibit. But yeah, man, uh
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Speaker 1: sideshows uh problematic and fascinating things. Yes, yes, to say
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Speaker 1: the least, I was also captivated by Ripley's Believe It
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Speaker 1: or Not. I think for people in our generation that
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Speaker 1: that was probably to your point, the closest that a
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Speaker 1: lot of us came to side shows. Uh. We have to,
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Speaker 1: as always ask our super producer Casey Pegram before we
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Speaker 1: begin today's show. Casey, I know you're coming in blind
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Speaker 1: with this one. Uh, what's your take on sideshows? I'm
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Speaker 1: just thinking about sideshow Bob from the Simpsons. That was
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Speaker 1: one association that popped up immediately. But yeah, I'm pretty
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Speaker 1: much where you guys are, like Ripley's believe it or not,
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Speaker 1: at the wax Museum, things you do at Destin Beach
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Speaker 1: on vacation, those are kind of the vibes I'm getting.
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Speaker 1: So never's like a genuine side show, probably for the
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Speaker 1: best m m. Yeah, usually somewhere near the airbrush t
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Speaker 1: shirt stand where you can get like a dolphin jumping
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Speaker 1: over a sunset that's right, a shell uh that is
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Speaker 1: painted in some bizarre color. I I like the beach life,
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Speaker 1: like the boardwalk snacks. Today we are talking about something
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Speaker 1: that happened on boardwalks, early boardwalk side shows today. In
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Speaker 1: as we know, side shows often have this terrible historical
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Speaker 1: reputation because there would be people who had some sort
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Speaker 1: of disability, right or some sort of visually striking difference
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Speaker 1: about themselves. That's right, And I mean, you know, it's
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Speaker 1: complicated because oftentimes, while those folks were reviled and ridicule
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Speaker 1: as part of those it was a society that would
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Speaker 1: have shunned them to such a degree they probably wouldn't
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Speaker 1: have been able to find gainful employment in any other way.
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Speaker 1: So it's a bit of a mixed bag. Will While
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Speaker 1: it was definitely you know, uh, it makes me think
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Speaker 1: of why people had a real problem with that movie
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Speaker 1: The Greatest Showman, because it really romanticized that whole world.
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Speaker 1: But then there's a very empowered musical number where all
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Speaker 1: the sideshow oddity individuals kind of banded together and talk
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Speaker 1: about how they're beautiful on the inside and stuff. But
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Speaker 1: that movie kind of divided people. I quite enjoy the music, though,
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Speaker 1: but you know what I'm saying though, like this is
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Speaker 1: definitely you know, they were getting paid probably a pittance,
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Speaker 1: you know, but they were fed, and they were allowed
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Speaker 1: to kind of live within a society or a mini
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Speaker 1: society that would at least kind of accept them as peers.
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Speaker 1: And often there were you know, kind of famous ones
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Speaker 1: in terms of individuals, like you know, you think about
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Speaker 1: the lobster Boy and all of that stuff. But you
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Speaker 1: have sort of categories of sideshow oddity, things like pin heads,
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Speaker 1: which would have been, you know, a pretty crass way
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Speaker 1: of referring to somebody with a developmental condition that caused
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Speaker 1: problems with the shape of their skull, et cetera. And
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Speaker 1: they kind of had like a point to skull that's
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Speaker 1: exactly right. It's exactly right then, And bearded ladies and
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Speaker 1: things like that, the tattooed man. You know, people that's
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Speaker 1: had any kind of any number of outward um conditions
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Speaker 1: that could have been looked at as you know, they're
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Speaker 1: some kind of mutation or some sort of superpower in
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Speaker 1: a weird way, but not in a positive way. I
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Speaker 1: don't know what I'm I'm kind of I feel like
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Speaker 1: I'm having a hard time talking about it and trying
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Speaker 1: to stay relatively PC because it is such a difficult
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Speaker 1: thing to discuss. Yeah, for a lot of people. Uh,
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Speaker 1: the idea of the sideshow instantly conjures images. I know
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Speaker 1: you were probably thinking of this two casey of the
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Speaker 1: ninety two film Freaks, Uh, and Freaks did feature people
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Speaker 1: who had worked side show performers in real life. Uh,
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Speaker 1: like the microcephalic Schlitzy who was billed as the last
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Speaker 1: of the Aztecs. And to your point, well, there would
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Speaker 1: be things like conjoined twins. Uh, there would be things like,
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Speaker 1: as you said, someone with differently shaped hands, someone who
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Speaker 1: had three legs. But then there would also be people
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Speaker 1: who are capable of extraordinary feats like how many how
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Speaker 1: many people were roaming through the Midwest claiming to be
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Speaker 1: the world's strongest man, were the largest largest person. When
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Speaker 1: we think of this, and I think it did a
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Speaker 1: tremendous job explaining some of the problematic aspects of this.
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Speaker 1: But when we think of side shows today, we're you know,
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Speaker 1: we we have the benefit of retrospect, and we also
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Speaker 1: think in terms of those categories like the tattooed lady,
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Speaker 1: the illustrated man, and so on. But today we'd like
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Speaker 1: to introduce you to a new type of sideshow exhibit
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Speaker 1: that might surprise you. It turned out, for a time
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Speaker 1: in the beginning of the twentieth century, babies became stars
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Speaker 1: of side shows for a very weird reason. But not
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Speaker 1: just any baby. These were specifically babies that were born
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Speaker 1: um early before the full term of the pregnancy had
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Speaker 1: come to a conclusion, and they're referred to collectively as
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Speaker 1: premature babies. And you know, folks out there in podcast
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Speaker 1: land may have siblings that are premature that we're born prematurely. Um,
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Speaker 1: there are many reasons this can happen. UM. Some absolutely
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Speaker 1: just completely a fluke. You never you can't really predict
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Speaker 1: what it's going to happen. UM. There are obviously more
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Speaker 1: kind of negative and nasty reasons this can happen, things
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Speaker 1: like drug addiction and the mother. Um. But a lot
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Speaker 1: of times, oftentimes when babies are born prematurely has nothing
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Speaker 1: to do with any uh negative actions of the mother.
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Speaker 1: And it's also more than possible for that baby, they're
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Speaker 1: moren small to have a completely normal life and become
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Speaker 1: completely healthy. And that is because of some medical technology,
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Speaker 1: specifically something called an incubator. Yes, one of the main
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Speaker 1: characters of our story today is a doctor, Martin A Cooney.
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Speaker 1: He knew about incubators. He knew that incubators could play
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Speaker 1: a powerful role in ensuring the health of premature babies.
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Speaker 1: But he also knew that the quote unquote system, you know,
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Speaker 1: the medical establishment and stuff, didn't have much interest in
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Speaker 1: pushing this new technology forward because the incubator was a
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Speaker 1: very new idea at the time. There wasn't a lot
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Speaker 1: of money being put into research for this literally life
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Speaker 1: saving technology. So he decided that he would hit the
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Speaker 1: streets himself, and he built a traveling exhibit that showed
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Speaker 1: audience members premature babies living in incubators. For a lot
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Speaker 1: of us, this sounds like a maternity ward, right, Hey,
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Speaker 1: pre covid, I could go to a hospital and if
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Speaker 1: I'm not too creepy, they'll let me walk by that area.
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Speaker 1: They sure will. Um not not so much these days.
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Speaker 1: But Cooney's fascination with incubators, you know, came, didn't just
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Speaker 1: come like us an overnight thing. Wasn't like the hot
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Speaker 1: new medical device on the street. Um. He studied in
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Speaker 1: Paris under a very well respected researcher and um and
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Speaker 1: physician named Pierre Boudin, who was confused as to why,
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Speaker 1: you know, these devices hadn't been adopted more widely. So
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Speaker 1: he actually displayed some incubators in the Berlin World's Fair
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Speaker 1: in eighteen nineties six. And this was really kind of
8:57
Speaker 1: at the the onset of of the idea of a fair.
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Speaker 1: It wasn't really what we think of today is you know,
9:03
Speaker 1: it's sort of devolved into just more of a you know,
9:06
Speaker 1: a place where you can write a cheap roller coaster.
9:08
Speaker 1: It sort of travels from town to town. Um, there
9:11
Speaker 1: might be some games that you're gonna lose your money
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Speaker 1: off of, but at the time they were really considered
9:17
Speaker 1: these kind of like almost like what we have today
9:20
Speaker 1: with stuff like ce S, which is, you know, the
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Speaker 1: massive electronics convention where new technology is unveiled in all
9:28
Speaker 1: of the different organizations and companies that make technology show
9:32
Speaker 1: up and show their wares all at the same time
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Speaker 1: in in Vegas. You've been to one of those, haven't you, Casey.
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Speaker 1: We've been to several, ben and I yeah to you,
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Speaker 1: to cover um, automotive stuff, um, some just kind of
9:44
Speaker 1: general technology. It's uh, multiple convention centers, massive footprint, tens
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Speaker 1: of thousands of booths. I think, um, yeah, it's quite something.
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Speaker 1: We Uh my favorite memory of CS probably is is
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Speaker 1: the weird night A group of us and the crew
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Speaker 1: got together and one of us, friend of the show
10:06
Speaker 1: Stillan Fagan, had never gambled before, and I think Ramsey
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Speaker 1: was the same, and so so we set off to
10:14
Speaker 1: try to try to have a Vegas experience it was
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Speaker 1: a ridiculous story for another day. But you're right, these
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Speaker 1: things world fairs CS, stuff like the the expos, like
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Speaker 1: the Pan American Exposition. These were prominent, high level of fairs,
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Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like people would go to
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Speaker 1: these things to see the latest innovations. I think your
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Speaker 1: comparison about CS is spot on Nolan's. It was much
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Speaker 1: These were much more like a big up and coming
10:42
Speaker 1: technology kind of conventioned and they were what you would
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Speaker 1: consider a side show today. And that's where these child
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Speaker 1: hatcheries came in. That's what they were called. You would
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Speaker 1: as an audience member, you would pay a dime and
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Speaker 1: you can see pictures of this, especially there's some great
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Speaker 1: ones on an article from Atlas Obscura. You would pay
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Speaker 1: a time and you would walk around and observe these
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Speaker 1: babies living, happy and hopefully healthy in these incubators. They're
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Speaker 1: much larger, by the way, than the incubators were familiar
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Speaker 1: with today. And we have to establish at the beginning
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Speaker 1: of this story the children were not harmed by being
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Speaker 1: in the incubators. They were they were on display, so
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Speaker 1: there's you know, a wound to their dignity perhaps, but
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Speaker 1: they were able to receive medical care that they otherwise
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Speaker 1: probably would not have received. And this this is an
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Speaker 1: idea that went through several iterations before our friend Cooney
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Speaker 1: had brought the Act to the United States. So let's
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Speaker 1: maybe just let's stay with the incubators just a little bit,
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Speaker 1: and let's describe them. So his baby had child hatchery,
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Speaker 1: or infantorium as it was called. UH. Each incubator in
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Speaker 1: there was about one and a half meters high. They
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Speaker 1: had steel walls, they had a framework a glass front
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Speaker 1: so you could observe the children. And they used water
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Speaker 1: boilers to feed warm water into pipes running underneath the
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Speaker 1: babies UH, and thermostats to maintain and regulate temperatures. What
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Speaker 1: we're saying is that the baby's overall, we're safe in
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Speaker 1: these things. That's that's key to this story. Well, I
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Speaker 1: mean they were more than safe, right. They really desperately
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Speaker 1: needed this, and that's because premature babies have a they're
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Speaker 1: they're incapable of regulating their own body temperatures. And before
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Speaker 1: incubators were a thing, I've I've read, you know, in
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Speaker 1: researching this and watching I watched a really interesting PBS
12:46
Speaker 1: I can't remember what it was called but it was Justtally,
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Speaker 1: a woman who antique road show style, was presented with
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Speaker 1: this like silver cup from an event at the at
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Speaker 1: the Chicago World's Fair. Um, and it was connected to
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Speaker 1: one of these baby display kind of situations, and one
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Speaker 1: of the doctors they interviewed just talking about how um
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Speaker 1: and before there were incubators, doctors didn't know what to
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Speaker 1: do and they didn't have much control, so they would
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Speaker 1: do things like put the babies in shoe boxes and
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Speaker 1: stick them next to a radiator, which sounds really unsafe.
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Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, these things were revolutionary. Yeah yeah. And sadly,
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Speaker 1: before the rise of incubators, there would be people who
13:27
Speaker 1: would say things like, well, the child has to do
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Speaker 1: its best to survive, you know, and that's a terrible
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Speaker 1: thing for you to hear as a parrot. And that's
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Speaker 1: where our story leads us to Coney Island. Around the
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Speaker 1: turn of the century. If you headed to Coney Island,
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Speaker 1: you would see, you know, all the usual Coney Island diversions,
13:46
Speaker 1: although I do believe this was before Nathan's famous hot
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Speaker 1: dog eating contest, which is one of my favorite things.
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Speaker 1: You could go to a newly opened amusement park called
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Speaker 1: Luna Park, but you might also run into a permanent
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Speaker 1: inventorI um, a permanent exhibit of premature babies in these incubators,
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Speaker 1: and Cooney was doing this because he needed the funds
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Speaker 1: from these audience members. The technology of incubators for humans
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Speaker 1: was laughed at, a roundly dismissed by physicians, even though,
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Speaker 1: as you said, no it it had a past before,
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Speaker 1: like people knew the thing would work. It's just it's
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Speaker 1: sad when you think that for the first five decades
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Speaker 1: of the existence of this incubator, it was functioning mostly
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Speaker 1: as a novelty item. That's right. I mean, you know,
14:40
Speaker 1: we think of incubators in terms of like hatching eggs,
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Speaker 1: you know, from chicken embryos, let's say, and that's really cool,
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Speaker 1: but not always necessary. It's sort of a little more
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Speaker 1: of like a parlor trick, a scientific parlor trick. It's
14:54
Speaker 1: not something you know, when you think of like farmed
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Speaker 1: eggs or even mass produced chicken eggs, it's not something
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Speaker 1: that would be employed in that respect. So that's that's
15:03
Speaker 1: an interesting way of putting it bad. Although I can't
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Speaker 1: help but think of the scene from Jurassic Park with
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Speaker 1: the incubator and the baby velociraptor that he pulls out,
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Speaker 1: it's all covered in like bloody slime. Uh, and then
15:15
Speaker 1: kind of makes that let all kind of And that's
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Speaker 1: how you know those buggers are evil because the baby
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Speaker 1: is evil. Grown ups are definitely gonna be evil. Uh. Yeah,
15:27
Speaker 1: you're right, But what what isn't cute when it's in
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Speaker 1: that juvenile stage? I am clearly biased. I'm a Jurassic
15:32
Speaker 1: Park fan. Uh. There's even a holiday called July six
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Speaker 1: Park by one of my favorite sketch groups, Chris and Jack.
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Speaker 1: So do celebrate it when you get a chance. Your
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Speaker 1: Your point about incubators is absolutely true. It wasn't until
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Speaker 1: the eighteen eighties when Stefantagnier, French obstetrician, saw these things
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Speaker 1: being used at a zoo and said, hey, if it
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Speaker 1: works on baby chickens, maybe it works on baby humans.
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Speaker 1: And part of the reason the medical establishment did not
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Speaker 1: immediately jump on the baby train here is that they
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Speaker 1: had a long history of prejudice toward premature babies. It
16:13
Speaker 1: was expensive to care for them, and honestly, as horrible
16:17
Speaker 1: as this sounds, a lot of people thought it was
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Speaker 1: pointless because babies born below a certain threshold of birth
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Speaker 1: weight had high mortality. And then physicians also thought this
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Speaker 1: invention that came from watching chickens in a zoo was
16:32
Speaker 1: unscientific and they didn't believe that it could actually save
16:36
Speaker 1: people's lives. And that's where the guy you mentioned earlier, Pierre,
16:39
Speaker 1: comes in, and he says, why aren't more hospitals investing
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Speaker 1: in this? We can save people. So he started researching
16:47
Speaker 1: the technology. He kept running into roadblocks for funding, and
16:53
Speaker 1: that's why in like you said, he wanted to display
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Speaker 1: these incubators at the World's Fair. That's absolutely correct. The
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Speaker 1: World's Fair. Um, you know, you'll recall when you're making
17:04
Speaker 1: that CS comparison and sort of the whole like modern
17:08
Speaker 1: day con and like you know, whether it's unveiling the
17:11
Speaker 1: newest uh uh you know, smart home technology or what
17:15
Speaker 1: have you. Back in these days, the technology that was
17:17
Speaker 1: being unveiled was like life changing. Really well, I mean
17:20
Speaker 1: not to say that technology today isn't important if there
17:23
Speaker 1: are there aren't occasionally things that are unveiled these kind
17:26
Speaker 1: of uh conferences that do change people's lives, but not
17:30
Speaker 1: the same as like the dishwasher or like the color television.
17:35
Speaker 1: You know, things that like haven't really been replaced, They've
17:38
Speaker 1: maybe been improved upon, They've maybe been given internet connectivity.
17:42
Speaker 1: Or you have like a camera inside your fridge that
17:44
Speaker 1: you can look up on your smartphone in cause you
17:46
Speaker 1: can see how much cott is cheese you have left
17:47
Speaker 1: when you're at the grocery store. But uh, it's the
17:50
Speaker 1: game changing technology in the way that we would see
17:52
Speaker 1: in these industrial just post industrial revolution fairs. Isn't quite
17:57
Speaker 1: the same today. And you guys completely only I'm full
18:00
Speaker 1: of crap if if you think I'm missing the mark
18:02
Speaker 1: on that. But um, the ones that we that really
18:04
Speaker 1: lead the charge were European. So Cooney realizes these exhibits
18:13
Speaker 1: can save babies lives and they and he realizes the
18:16
Speaker 1: public will pay to see this futuristic technology. Eventually, he
18:22
Speaker 1: and Boudin realized that these exhibits are successful enough to
18:27
Speaker 1: make a potential life saver for these children. Coney was
18:32
Speaker 1: interested personally in this because he himself was the father
18:36
Speaker 1: of a child born prematurely as daughter, and he reasoned,
18:39
Speaker 1: if hospitals don't care for these prematurely born children, then
18:44
Speaker 1: we can crowdsources. He didn't use the word crowdsource, but
18:49
Speaker 1: that's essentially what he did in Buffalo, New York in
18:53
Speaker 1: nine one. He built this huge building just for the
18:56
Speaker 1: baby Incubator exhibit. He got tons of press, which turned
19:01
Speaker 1: out to be even more important than getting a lot
19:03
Speaker 1: of people in the crowd. And that's how starting in
19:06
Speaker 1: nineteen o three you could see the permanent Coney Island
19:10
Speaker 1: Baby Incubator exhibition. One was at Luna Park and another
19:15
Speaker 1: one was also in Coney Island at dream Land, so
19:19
Speaker 1: nurses would tend to the babies the public would look
19:22
Speaker 1: on in amazement. And the weird thing is this is
19:26
Speaker 1: still kind of like a sideshow, so there is still
19:29
Speaker 1: a carnival barker here. And I wonder what they're saying,
19:32
Speaker 1: like America left technology, the baby is born premature, through
19:36
Speaker 1: the wonders of our age, will be able to live.
19:42
Speaker 1: It's so, yeah, they had a pitch. I'm sure they
19:45
Speaker 1: were about but it's also like, I don't know. The
19:48
Speaker 1: thing about it is like premature babies are cute because
19:52
Speaker 1: they're so bloody small and their eyes are closed. They
19:55
Speaker 1: look like little rabbits or little puppies you know, that
19:58
Speaker 1: are born when their eyes aren't even open yet, and
20:00
Speaker 1: and they're real skinny, and so like they're on the
20:03
Speaker 1: one hand, they're they're adorable, babies are cute and everything,
20:05
Speaker 1: but they're also you know, they're not the most healthy looking.
20:08
Speaker 1: They're a little like you're you're worried about them. There's
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Speaker 1: a sense of of of oh, no, is this baby
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Speaker 1: gonna be okay? And uh, I wonder it seems like
20:16
Speaker 1: there was a capitalization on all of those things because
20:20
Speaker 1: I don't know, like the pitch likely did not center
20:24
Speaker 1: specifically on the amazing life saving technology that is that
20:29
Speaker 1: is just my uh my, the sense that I get
20:32
Speaker 1: what do you what do you think? Then yeah, he
20:34
Speaker 1: definitely so there were definitely theatrical elements to this, right
20:38
Speaker 1: that people are going to see. We know that. According
20:42
Speaker 1: to a book by Dawn Raffle, The Strange Case of
20:45
Speaker 1: Dr Cooney, How a mysterious European showman Saved thousands of
20:49
Speaker 1: American babies, Cooney knew the score, you know what I mean,
20:54
Speaker 1: Like he dressed infants on purpose and two large clothing.
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Speaker 1: Uh he would he would have nurses slip of finger
21:01
Speaker 1: ringing around the entire risk of a premiature child because
21:06
Speaker 1: this was visually appealing, right, and it's It's like people
21:10
Speaker 1: were watching it for the fascination and a little bit,
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Speaker 1: a little bit of danger, a little bit of anxiety.
21:15
Speaker 1: Will these children make it? Uh? You know one thing
21:18
Speaker 1: I forgot to mention at the beginning of this, he
21:21
Speaker 1: used the phrase Premis. In nineteen thirty nine, when he
21:24
Speaker 1: was looking back and talking about this experience, he said,
21:27
Speaker 1: all my life, I've been making propaganda for the proper
21:29
Speaker 1: care of Premise, who in other times were allowed to die.
21:32
Speaker 1: And that's why I said, everything that he did was
21:35
Speaker 1: strictly ethical. Kind of a ends justify the means reasoning
21:39
Speaker 1: if you think about it. And here's the thing. This
21:42
Speaker 1: Coney Island inventorium stuff huge success, huge success. Uh. He
21:48
Speaker 1: would charge a couple of cents to get in, and
21:51
Speaker 1: then again from that PBS a little short that I saw,
21:54
Speaker 1: he was apparently raking in about fift hundred dollars a day. Um.
21:58
Speaker 1: But here's the thing, you know, I think a big
22:02
Speaker 1: part of the success of it, in terms of like
22:04
Speaker 1: the viewers, wasn't necessarily it was a pleasant thing. It
22:07
Speaker 1: wasn't like a freak show. It wasn't like, look at
22:09
Speaker 1: that weird looking baby. It was because in their incubators.
22:13
Speaker 1: They looked safe, and they looked cuddly and kind of like,
22:16
Speaker 1: you know, nothing could harm them, and that's sort of comforting,
22:20
Speaker 1: especially when you see something vulnerable that's being cared for. Uh.
22:23
Speaker 1: That that's just a theory, but I think that that
22:25
Speaker 1: likely has something to do with the success because he
22:28
Speaker 1: was making that kind of money every day and this
22:30
Speaker 1: was a permanent installation at Coney Islands Luna Park um
22:36
Speaker 1: and he while he charged people to see it, he
22:39
Speaker 1: didn't charge the parents of the babies to put them
22:43
Speaker 1: in there. So what does that mean? This is a
22:47
Speaker 1: very complicated individual. Like on the one hand, he's doing
22:50
Speaker 1: this thing that on the surface could seem kind of
22:53
Speaker 1: exploitive of of of these uh you know, unfortunate uh
22:58
Speaker 1: infants that that are having difficulty, But he's also literally
23:02
Speaker 1: the reason that they're like gonna be okay. And he's
23:06
Speaker 1: not charging the parents anything because medical to the medical
23:08
Speaker 1: community hasn't fully embraced this technology yet. So without him
23:12
Speaker 1: and this side show, he likely that these a lot
23:15
Speaker 1: of these babies likely wouldness survived. Yeah, it's true. They
23:18
Speaker 1: have made a lot of money and it went to
23:21
Speaker 1: the children. We know that in nineteen O three. It
23:24
Speaker 1: costs fifteen dollars a day to care for each individual baby.
23:30
Speaker 1: That's around four hundred and five dollars a day in
23:34
Speaker 1: these are modern times, and he Cooney was able to
23:37
Speaker 1: cover all the cost through the entrance fees alone. But
23:42
Speaker 1: because he was operating in a side show setting rather
23:45
Speaker 1: than the maternity ward of a hospital, people viewed him
23:50
Speaker 1: with suspicion and some folks outright hated this guy. Folks
23:54
Speaker 1: like the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
23:57
Speaker 1: to Children. They accused him multiple times of exploiting the babies,
24:02
Speaker 1: endangering their lives, putting them on display. But none of
24:07
Speaker 1: these complaints really hurt the endeavor, and by the nineteen
24:11
Speaker 1: thirties people were coming around and they were saying, you know,
24:15
Speaker 1: this guy is a medical pioneer. That's right, he's onto something.
24:19
Speaker 1: Um it is. I don't have the direct quote in
24:22
Speaker 1: front of me, but one of those uh prevention, you know,
24:25
Speaker 1: Cruelty to children organizations said something like, how dare you, sir,
24:29
Speaker 1: take a vulnerable small child and put them in the
24:33
Speaker 1: tawdry chaos of the midway, you know, like something along
24:38
Speaker 1: those lines. Like it was like he was he was
24:40
Speaker 1: being a bad influence, like these babies, we're gonna accidentally
24:43
Speaker 1: get drunk or something or catch a whiff of cigarettes smoke,
24:46
Speaker 1: right exactly. And so if you happen to see the
24:50
Speaker 1: World's Fair in Chicago in nineteen thirty three and thirty
24:54
Speaker 1: four lasted more than years, like eighteen months, it would
24:58
Speaker 1: be tough to miss Cooney's. You would see this huge
25:01
Speaker 1: sign that says like living babies and incubators Ethically, Apparently,
25:07
Speaker 1: it was quite a massive sign, and I've seen them
25:10
Speaker 1: categorized as being the Simithsonian article that we looked at
25:13
Speaker 1: as the letters being so large they could be read
25:16
Speaker 1: from across the entire uh fair ground, which was massive.
25:20
Speaker 1: This was the Chicago World's Fair. This was like the
25:23
Speaker 1: America's big Like this is us. We are at the
25:26
Speaker 1: pinnacle of technological discovery of you know, pushing the narrative forward.
25:32
Speaker 1: And this was no exception. So you'd think something like
25:36
Speaker 1: the Incubator, with all the amazing things we said about it,
25:39
Speaker 1: all the amazing research, um would be like in the
25:42
Speaker 1: main hall next to the automobile you know or whatever.
25:48
Speaker 1: But that wasn't the case because it really continued the
25:52
Speaker 1: same tradition as his previous iteration of this as kind
25:56
Speaker 1: of like on the midway right, which they definitely had
25:59
Speaker 1: a the World's Fair. In fact, this booth was right
26:03
Speaker 1: next to one featuring the famous scandalous Sally Rand, who
26:09
Speaker 1: was known it was a burlesque dancer known for her
26:12
Speaker 1: ostrich feather fan dance and also balloon bubble dance. And
26:17
Speaker 1: um really like got arrested multiple times, charged with like
26:21
Speaker 1: all kinds of levels of indecency, and they had her
26:24
Speaker 1: right next to the premature baby exhibit at the Chicago
26:28
Speaker 1: World's Fair, exactly. Yeah. And these incubators, of course, if
26:34
Speaker 1: we're talking turkey here, Uh, they were not inexpensive as
26:38
Speaker 1: you might imagine. Uh. The exhibit itself was I think
26:43
Speaker 1: the entire cost of it was seventy dollars back then,
26:46
Speaker 1: which is around one point four million dollars today. Uh.
26:52
Speaker 1: And and the price went up to over time as
26:54
Speaker 1: as it became more respected in the public and the zeitgeist.
26:58
Speaker 1: I believe by the time it was in cargo, the
27:01
Speaker 1: audience members paid cents to see the exhibit, and they
27:06
Speaker 1: flocked there by the hundreds of thousands. Eventually, this leads
27:11
Speaker 1: to Cooney having a homecoming celebration on July four, And
27:17
Speaker 1: this is kind of I rarely say this word, but
27:20
Speaker 1: this is kind of cute. It was for the babies
27:22
Speaker 1: who had graduated from the incubators at the Chicago World's
27:26
Speaker 1: Fair that past summer. And this was broadcast live on
27:32
Speaker 1: local radio and across the fair grounds, so people were
27:36
Speaker 1: able to see the results of this incubation technology at work.
27:42
Speaker 1: And you gotta think how amazing it is. It's got
27:44
Speaker 1: to be a warm, fuzzy feeling if you saw these
27:47
Speaker 1: exhibits earlier and then you hear this story and you think,
27:51
Speaker 1: you know, I, in some way, whether through a dime
27:54
Speaker 1: or a quarter, helped these kids live. It's certainly the
27:59
Speaker 1: surprise eyes twist payoff. You know. I don't like again,
28:02
Speaker 1: it really seems that the at the very least, I mean,
28:06
Speaker 1: what is it real live incubated babies. You know, it
28:11
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily uh scream charity um. But he almost was
28:16
Speaker 1: like secretly getting these folks to contribute to the well
28:20
Speaker 1: being of these children, even if that wasn't front and
28:22
Speaker 1: center in the in the whole you know, concept of
28:25
Speaker 1: the of the exhibit. Um. He also like had it
28:28
Speaker 1: all schmalt stuff and like red, white, and blue, and
28:31
Speaker 1: you know, he had nurses running around wearing like starched
28:34
Speaker 1: white kind of uniforms, and the whole thing was very Uh,
28:38
Speaker 1: there was a lot of pageantry to it. It's very interesting,
28:41
Speaker 1: but I think he knew exactly what he was doing.
28:49
Speaker 1: You might be asking yourself, Casey nol Ben, why can't
28:54
Speaker 1: I go see a infictorium today? You know, I don't
28:57
Speaker 1: want to see it in a hospital. I went the
28:59
Speaker 1: side show experience. I want to eat some fun, Okay,
29:01
Speaker 1: I want a little razzle dazzle, you know, yeah, exactly. Uh.
29:06
Speaker 1: This was an era and it did come to an end.
29:10
Speaker 1: After decades of caring for these children. Cooney was credited
29:14
Speaker 1: in the development of neonatal care and hospitals, but the
29:18
Speaker 1: public got familiarized with it, right. It lost that razzle
29:22
Speaker 1: dazzle we described, It lost that sense of novelty, and
29:24
Speaker 1: by the early nineteen forties, people just weren't as interested
29:29
Speaker 1: in the novelty of baby incubators and hospitals were also
29:34
Speaker 1: starting to open their own units dedicated to the care
29:39
Speaker 1: of premature children, and so in Ninette Cooney closes the
29:45
Speaker 1: show in Coney Island. He lives seven more years. He
29:48
Speaker 1: passes away at the age of eighty. The sad story
29:52
Speaker 1: is that he achieved fame, but maybe not financial success.
29:56
Speaker 1: This is how this is what makes me think he
29:58
Speaker 1: wasn't crooked or embezzling. He was apparently broke when he
30:01
Speaker 1: passed away. Did you see that? No? I didn't see that.
30:04
Speaker 1: But it does make sense. I mean, you know, we're
30:06
Speaker 1: talking a lot of money to buy all these machines
30:09
Speaker 1: and to have the upkeep and to hire the staff,
30:11
Speaker 1: and you know, it really does feel like perhaps the
30:14
Speaker 1: price of admission was just going back into the maintenance
30:17
Speaker 1: of all this stuff, you know. Uh, And he really
30:20
Speaker 1: did just figure out a clever, kind of sneaky way
30:24
Speaker 1: of building like the world's first top of the line
30:27
Speaker 1: neonatal care center, because it wasn't until you know, folks
30:31
Speaker 1: took notice of the of the good that he was
30:33
Speaker 1: doing that this technology did really catch on in a
30:37
Speaker 1: much more meaningful way. I wanted to backtrack, ever, so
30:40
Speaker 1: s latest to point out something interesting. That is, when
30:42
Speaker 1: something that was mentioned in the PBS thing that I watched,
30:46
Speaker 1: um which I'm gonna give you the name of because
30:48
Speaker 1: it's it was quite good and short and very interesting Uh.
30:51
Speaker 1: We talked about this in the past, that the World's
30:54
Speaker 1: Fair had kind of a history of doing odd human displays.
31:00
Speaker 1: If you get my drift, Ben, remember the indigenous people
31:04
Speaker 1: display very messed up, very messed up like this human
31:08
Speaker 1: zoo almost of folks from you know, African countries, dressed
31:12
Speaker 1: in their you know, uh indigenous garb and holding spears,
31:16
Speaker 1: and one particular individual was um eventually put in like
31:22
Speaker 1: a zoo and then he was forced to like wrestle
31:26
Speaker 1: with a chimpanzee every day until uh organization that worked
31:31
Speaker 1: towards black rights uh shut that down. And then he
31:35
Speaker 1: ended up in a in in a home kind of
31:38
Speaker 1: like a halfway house situation and took his own life. Uh.
31:41
Speaker 1: Not to say that this is anything like that, but
31:43
Speaker 1: if if my brain moved towards like the exploitative nous
31:47
Speaker 1: of this, that's something that definitely popped in, especially since
31:50
Speaker 1: we had discussed that story before. Yeah, there's another twist here.
31:55
Speaker 1: Cooney had his heart in the right place. But we
31:58
Speaker 1: were very careful folks in the way we described him
32:02
Speaker 1: throughout this episode. Let's see, we called him a an entrepreneur,
32:06
Speaker 1: maybe we implied that businessman. We called him a medical pioneer.
32:12
Speaker 1: But there's one thing he wasn't. He was not a doctor,
32:16
Speaker 1: most likely almost almost certainly. Yeah, yeah, that I did
32:21
Speaker 1: feel like I almost like did I miss that part? Like,
32:23
Speaker 1: you know, because he um, Yeah, it's true. He had
32:27
Speaker 1: said that he studied medicine in Berlin and Leipsig, but
32:33
Speaker 1: there was no evidence that he actually and he went
32:36
Speaker 1: by a couple of different names. We know him as Cooney,
32:38
Speaker 1: he go went by Cohen k o h N also Cohen.
32:43
Speaker 1: There's no evidence that he actually studied medicine at the
32:45
Speaker 1: university in either of those cities. Um. And you know,
32:49
Speaker 1: in Germany, to be a physician you have to write
32:52
Speaker 1: a thesis. And uh, you know, the U s National
32:55
Speaker 1: Library of Medicine has copies of all of the German
32:58
Speaker 1: records and of thus far been able unable to locate
33:02
Speaker 1: a thesis written by Cooney. Yeah. He was also super
33:06
Speaker 1: super sketchy about the specifics of his personal life, which
33:11
Speaker 1: you know, I respect. Uh. He was evasive about his
33:13
Speaker 1: date of birth and where he was born. Later research
33:18
Speaker 1: showed that he immigrated to the US and at the
33:22
Speaker 1: age of nineteen. But the problem with that is someone
33:26
Speaker 1: of that age would not have been old enough to
33:29
Speaker 1: be at university in Berlin and leapsake before going on
33:34
Speaker 1: to do grad work in Paris. UH. He claimed to
33:38
Speaker 1: be the inventor of an incubator, but there's no evidence
33:42
Speaker 1: that he registered a patent. UH In he listed his
33:47
Speaker 1: career as get the surgical instruments, and then by my
33:51
Speaker 1: ninety thirty he described himself in the census as a physician.
33:58
Speaker 1: So if he had been caught doing any of that falsely,
34:02
Speaker 1: you know, pretending to be a doctor, that's that's breaking
34:06
Speaker 1: the law. He could have gone to prison. And the
34:09
Speaker 1: weird complex part about that is this means almost certainly
34:13
Speaker 1: many of those children would have died. Yeah, that's right.
34:16
Speaker 1: We've been kind of saying that how along, and not
34:18
Speaker 1: to be labor the point, but because the whole thing
34:21
Speaker 1: is just kind of a head scratcher, right, Like, on
34:23
Speaker 1: the one hand, he did something that was real, real cool,
34:26
Speaker 1: you know, at a real positive impact. By the way,
34:29
Speaker 1: off Mike well well, Ben was making an amazing point. Um.
34:33
Speaker 1: I looked up what this PBS clip was, and it's
34:35
Speaker 1: from a show or a series called History Detectives from
34:39
Speaker 1: season seven, episode four. Uh. It's sixteen minute, fifty second
34:42
Speaker 1: clip about side show babies, and basically this all starts
34:46
Speaker 1: with a woman who wants to know if the silver
34:48
Speaker 1: baby cup that she got from the nineteen thirty three
34:51
Speaker 1: Chicago's World's Fair with her name engraved on in Patricia Uh,
34:54
Speaker 1: if there was Her mother claimed that she was whisked
34:57
Speaker 1: away from her home as a premature baby be um
35:00
Speaker 1: who was literally being kept in a shoe box by
35:03
Speaker 1: the radiator like we talked about, UH, and taken UH
35:06
Speaker 1: to an incubator at the nineteen thirty three Chicago World's Fair.
35:10
Speaker 1: And this episode starts off with is this even true?
35:14
Speaker 1: She has no evidence of this being true. The woman
35:16
Speaker 1: does recognize that this silver cup is in fact a
35:19
Speaker 1: genuine artifact from the Chicago World's Fair. It had the
35:22
Speaker 1: right logo and everything. It turns out that these cups
35:26
Speaker 1: were given to those quote unquote graduates that we talked about,
35:31
Speaker 1: and she was in fact one of the babies that
35:34
Speaker 1: were that you know. And again there's a lot of
35:35
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a lot of babies because this was,
35:38
Speaker 1: like what you say, it lasted a year the Chicago
35:41
Speaker 1: World's Fair eighteen months, so UH, And I don't want
35:45
Speaker 1: to spoil the whole thing for even though I kind
35:47
Speaker 1: of spoiled a part of it. But there's a lot
35:49
Speaker 1: more information that's I highly recommend you check it out.
35:51
Speaker 1: Uh just about like a lot of good imagery from
35:53
Speaker 1: the time, archival stuff, and you get to see, uh,
35:57
Speaker 1: you get to go a little deeper into it visual
36:00
Speaker 1: then obviously you can do on a podcast. But she
36:03
Speaker 1: ends up very pleased that she was then that this happened.
36:08
Speaker 1: It starts off a little questionable, and then she ends
36:11
Speaker 1: up being very thankful that that. You know, she didn't
36:14
Speaker 1: think she would have survived if not for for this gentleman.
36:17
Speaker 1: And that's been a journey like that for I think
36:19
Speaker 1: both of us. Too bad. It's from ups and downs
36:21
Speaker 1: in terms of whoa WDF to Oh it's heartwarming, back
36:26
Speaker 1: to you know, somewhere in the middle when we find
36:28
Speaker 1: out that he wasn't really a doctor, but at some
36:30
Speaker 1: point he retired and just said my work here is
36:33
Speaker 1: done and I've saved enough babies. Yeah, he claimed an
36:36
Speaker 1: eighty five percent success rate. There's no way to verify that,
36:40
Speaker 1: but it's still far far better than zero percent, right,
36:45
Speaker 1: or then these poor children having to be left to
36:49
Speaker 1: the whims of fate, and with that in mind, we say,
36:54
Speaker 1: hats off to you Cooney. You're you're a bit sketchy,
36:58
Speaker 1: that's true. It is a bit of a roller coaster
37:01
Speaker 1: worthy of Codey Island. But you made the world a
37:05
Speaker 1: better place, So I would I would say thanks to him,
37:09
Speaker 1: you know, thanks for making side shows a little more wholesome. Yeah,
37:13
Speaker 1: And I would also argue that in those days, sometimes
37:16
Speaker 1: a little healthy sketch goes a long way, that's right. Yeah,
37:19
Speaker 1: Sometimes sometimes you had to get it in where you could.
37:22
Speaker 1: And he definitely had a plan and uh, you know,
37:26
Speaker 1: as evidence by the fact that he retired with very
37:29
Speaker 1: little money. Certainly wasn't a money making scheme. It was
37:32
Speaker 1: much more of like his life's work. And I don't know,
37:35
Speaker 1: like I don't know there's quite enough for like a big,
37:37
Speaker 1: full biopic, but I definitely think that he deserves a
37:41
Speaker 1: place in the history of of of medicine, even if
37:44
Speaker 1: he wasn't an actual doctor. And so that's our show today.
37:48
Speaker 1: Thank you as always for tuning in, big, big thanks
37:52
Speaker 1: to super producer Casey Pegram And I forgot to ask you, guys,
37:56
Speaker 1: where did either of you happen to be born prematurely
38:00
Speaker 1: not I, Um though, my daughter's sister was, but only
38:04
Speaker 1: just a little bit. But she did have a little
38:06
Speaker 1: bit of She had to be put on an incubator
38:08
Speaker 1: for a bit and then she was fine, but she
38:10
Speaker 1: had she had a little bit of problems breathing. That's
38:13
Speaker 1: the thing that happens to if they're underdeveloped, they have
38:15
Speaker 1: to you know, get a little extra help. Um. So yeah,
38:18
Speaker 1: it was definitely scary, but less so knowing that this
38:21
Speaker 1: tech was out there. You know, what about you, Casey.
38:23
Speaker 1: I had a friend growing up. I was born on
38:25
Speaker 1: his due date and he was born on mine. But
38:27
Speaker 1: it was only a difference of like four days, so
38:29
Speaker 1: that's not really premature, so I can't I can't really
38:32
Speaker 1: lay claim to that. No, that's pretty cool. I was
38:34
Speaker 1: the opposite. I was born two weeks late. I'm still
38:37
Speaker 1: catching up. I was enormous. Uh, but we want to
38:43
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can find us all over the internet,
38:47
Speaker 1: the Instagram's, the Twitter bowls, the Facebook areas. Just go
38:54
Speaker 1: check out ridiculous historians on Facebook. We'd love to recommend
38:57
Speaker 1: that one. You can see some sick memes. You can
38:59
Speaker 1: see your fellow listeners. Uh, both mocking both my crippling
39:05
Speaker 1: phobia of metal and uh my my pal Knolls fear
39:09
Speaker 1: of birds. Uh, in a very good hearted, wholesome way,
39:13
Speaker 1: usually usually usually No, We love every single one of
39:18
Speaker 1: the folks over their ridiculous historians, and you can be
39:21
Speaker 1: one of them too and be the recipient of our love.
39:24
Speaker 1: All you gotta do is go to Facebook, uh in
39:26
Speaker 1: our articulous storians and inner one of our names. All
39:29
Speaker 1: three a joke, a dad joke, some references that we
39:33
Speaker 1: know that you're alive and breathing and not some sort
39:36
Speaker 1: of creepy bot trying to infiltrate our precious community. Um,
39:39
Speaker 1: you can do that. You can also find us on
39:41
Speaker 1: social media or ridiculous history. Uh, if you want. You
39:44
Speaker 1: can also find Ben and I as human people on
39:46
Speaker 1: our own social meats. I am at how now, Noel
39:49
Speaker 1: Brown on Instagram. You can find me on Twitter app
39:52
Speaker 1: Ben Bull in hs W. You can also find me
39:55
Speaker 1: on Instagram. Uh, as I always say, in a burst
39:58
Speaker 1: of creativity, I'm Ben Bowland. Thanks of course to the
40:02
Speaker 1: quister Jonathan Strickland, who we need to get back on
40:07
Speaker 1: the show at some point soon. He's busy, he's he's
40:10
Speaker 1: learning guitar. Actually, I think he's okay if we tell
40:12
Speaker 1: people that. Uh. And thanks, of course to Alex Williams,
40:17
Speaker 1: our official uh slapping Bob Bob and slap maker. Thanks
40:22
Speaker 1: Chris for us it is here in spirit U gave
40:24
Speaker 1: Blugier researcher extraordinaire. I thank Jonathan Quiz. Did you think
40:28
Speaker 1: Jonathan Quister? That's what I want to start calling him now,
40:30
Speaker 1: to Jonathan like Jonathan Swift, I'm since to start calling
40:33
Speaker 1: him Jonathan Quister. I think that works. Uh. If you
40:35
Speaker 1: did thank him, I'm thinking him again. If you didn't
40:38
Speaker 1: consider this the first time, with double the love, It's Friday, y'all.
40:42
Speaker 1: We're not entirely here. We've been checked out for about
40:45
Speaker 1: the last fifteen minutes. We're giving it our level best
40:47
Speaker 1: speak for yourself intentions. Hey, when I say we, I
40:53
Speaker 1: mean the royal we as in this guy right here
40:56
Speaker 1: with the two of the two thumbs and the and
40:59
Speaker 1: the dad jokes. I'm gonna tell you a secret, give
41:02
Speaker 1: it before before we go off there. I've been, I've been,
41:06
Speaker 1: I made, I made a cocktail, and I've just been
41:09
Speaker 1: staring at it off screen for when we wrap Ben,
41:13
Speaker 1: what is it? What is it? It's an old fashioned
41:16
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go get an old fashioned tub man. Well,
41:19
Speaker 1: I'll enjoy one with you in spirit up there in
41:22
Speaker 1: the clouds, floating with Christopher Haciotis uh and and our
41:26
Speaker 1: spirit old fashions. We'll see you next time Fox. For
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