Speaker 1: In our recent episode on Exum Clement Stafford, we mentioned
Speaker 1: her daughter describing herself as Asheville, North Carolina's first incubator baby. Well,
Speaker 1: we have a whole episode related to the development of
Speaker 1: incubators and their use in caring for premature babies. It's
Speaker 1: about when babies and incubators were used as sideshow attractions
Speaker 1: at theme parks and expositions. This came out on November sixth,
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. We had just come back from a tour
Speaker 1: and I was a little bit under the weather. I
Speaker 1: thought about not rerunning it for that reason, but really
Speaker 1: it's the most obvious, just for the first couple of
Speaker 1: minutes of the episode, So enjoy. Welcome to Stuff you
Speaker 1: missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm
Speaker 1: Holly Frye. We are just back from our Denver and
Speaker 1: Chicago leg of our tour, and I have a little
Speaker 1: post tour vocal uncertainty. Yeah, I think we're both in
Speaker 1: torch song territory. Mine alternately sounds fine and then like garbage,
Speaker 1: So brace yes. So, if you've never heard our show before,
Speaker 1: this is maybe not what we typically sound like all
Speaker 1: of the time. Anyway, we have gotten so so many
Speaker 1: requests for today's topic, including one that came in from
Speaker 1: our listener Alyssa while I was writing the episode. That
Speaker 1: never happens normally. Normally, when people say have you ever
Speaker 1: thought about doing an episode on whatever? Fill in the blank?
Speaker 1: Like ninety nine percent of the time the answer is
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe like there's so much stuff to
Speaker 1: think about. But this was a case where she said
Speaker 1: have you ever thought of doing this? And I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm working on it right now. So way back when
Speaker 1: we heard from Angela, Dan, Kristen, and Harrison all requesting
Speaker 1: this topic, and then it briefly came up in our
Speaker 1: past episode on the Fort Shaw Indian School girls basketball
Speaker 1: team by total coincidence, after we recorded that episode, but
Speaker 1: before it came out, the other podcast, Saw Bones put
Speaker 1: out an episode on the topic. So then we were
Speaker 1: just flooded with message about folks saying, hey, saw Bones
Speaker 1: just did this. I lost track of everyone requesting it.
Speaker 1: And anyway, the point is today we are talking about
Speaker 1: Martin Cooney and his incubator side shows, which came complete
Speaker 1: with premature babies in them. I've heard people pronounce his names.
Speaker 1: His name a couple of different ways. I've heard some
Speaker 1: people say County and I've heard some people say Cooney,
Speaker 1: but Cooney seems to be the more common. From a
Speaker 1: medical ethics standpoint, this is complicated. Cooney was turning premature
Speaker 1: babies and their care into a side show attraction, and
Speaker 1: for a while he was also making a lot of
Speaker 1: money off of that, and there are a lot of
Speaker 1: question marks around his background and the experience that he
Speaker 1: had and whether he was qualified to be doing this
Speaker 1: at all. But at the same time, premature baby really
Speaker 1: were not getting a lot of care otherwise, and the
Speaker 1: general sense among the mainstream medical community was that there
Speaker 1: was really nothing to be done for them, so he
Speaker 1: was definitely saving babies' lives. Also some question marks around
Speaker 1: what he was doing. Today, when people use the phrase
Speaker 1: premature baby, they typically mean a baby who was born
Speaker 1: before thirty seven weeks gestation, But during the time that
Speaker 1: we're talking about today, that term was a lot more nebulous.
Speaker 1: It did include babies who had been born before thirty
Speaker 1: seven weeks, but it also included babies who had a
Speaker 1: low birth weight for some other reason, along with babies
Speaker 1: who maybe had some sort of illness, disability, or developmental issue.
Speaker 1: Regardless of the cause, these babies were often lumped together
Speaker 1: and described as weaklings, and for the most part, doctors
Speaker 1: and hospitals in the nineteenth century and Europe and North
Speaker 1: America just didn't provide them any kind of specialized care.
Speaker 1: Parents were instructed to keep them warm and to hope
Speaker 1: or pray for the best, but that was just about it.
Speaker 1: And then underlying this was an attitude that these babies
Speaker 1: who were not very strong at their birth would just
Speaker 1: grow up to be adults who also weren't very strong
Speaker 1: if they survived. So there was this idea that maybe
Speaker 1: it was better to just let nature take its course.
Speaker 1: Of course, this is an ablest mindset and it sounds
Speaker 1: really callous today, but at the time, infant mortality in
Speaker 1: general was quite high, even among babies who were born
Speaker 1: at full term and seemed initially to be healthy. And
Speaker 1: as we talked about in our previous episode on Virginia Apgar,
Speaker 1: well into the twentieth century, there was a lot more
Speaker 1: medical focus on the person giving birth than on the
Speaker 1: newborn baby. In the nineteenth century, the death of a
Speaker 1: baby was a tragedy, but it was almost an expected tragedy,
Speaker 1: especially among premature babies. The development that started to turn
Speaker 1: this perception around was the incubator. Historically, people have known
Speaker 1: that babies need to be yept warm, but not too hot.
Speaker 1: This is especially true for pre term infants who have
Speaker 1: less body fat and just aren't able to regulate their
Speaker 1: own body temperature. As well, people have used things like
Speaker 1: heated rocks or bricks or water bottles, blankets, candles, and
Speaker 1: their own body heat to try to keep babies warm,
Speaker 1: and there have also been cultures that recognize that premature
Speaker 1: babies in particular needed to be kept consistently warm. As
Speaker 1: Tracy was working on this, she found an article from
Speaker 1: back in the nineteen forties, so the language there was
Speaker 1: really outdated, but it described native people in Siberia wrapping
Speaker 1: babies in the skin of a seabird with the feathers
Speaker 1: turned inward, and then keeping this sort of pouch that
Speaker 1: they had created suspended over a very small flame. And
Speaker 1: that article also discussed indigenous people in Mozambique keeping preterm
Speaker 1: babies wrapped up and placed in a large pot that
Speaker 1: was warmed up in the sun. Both of these techniques
Speaker 1: were essentially working as incubators, but the incubator as we
Speaker 1: think of it today was first developed in France in
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century by obstetrician Stephan Tarnier. At the time,
Speaker 1: France as a nation was very concerned about its birth rate,
Speaker 1: which was a lot lower than some of its neighbors.
Speaker 1: This was leading to very practical worries about whether France
Speaker 1: would have enough soldiers and laborers in the future, so
Speaker 1: people were looking for ways not just to increase the
Speaker 1: birth rate, but also to protect the lives of the
Speaker 1: babies that were already being born. Tarnier got the idea
Speaker 1: after seeing incubators being used to hatch eggs at a zoo.
Speaker 1: His first incubator was not very sophisticated. It was basically
Speaker 1: a hot water bottle under a wooden chamber with a
Speaker 1: glass top, but it got the job done. In eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty one, he tested it out in a Paris maternity ward,
Speaker 1: focusing on babies who weighed less than two thousand grams
Speaker 1: that's a little under four and a half pounds at birth.
Speaker 1: He reported that being kept in the incubator cut their
Speaker 1: mortality rate in half. Although this test went really well,
Speaker 1: Tarnier's invention wasn't really able to be put into widespread use.
Speaker 1: Most babies in France were being born at home, not
Speaker 1: in the hospital, so hospitals set up premature baby wards
Speaker 1: to receive these babies after their parents brought them in.
Speaker 1: But most of the time, at least a day or
Speaker 1: two passed between the birth and the arrival at the hospital,
Speaker 1: so by the time they were admitted, these babies had
Speaker 1: been just too cold for too long. Sometimes they had
Speaker 1: also contracted some kind of illness, and so their mortality
Speaker 1: rate continued to be quite high. In eighteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: physician Alexandra Leon patented an improved version of the incubator.
Speaker 1: Like Tarnier's incubator, it heated a chamber from below, but
Speaker 1: it also had a ventilation system that drew fresh air
Speaker 1: into the incubator and a thermostat to regulate the temperature.
Speaker 1: These devices were expensive, and it was also expensive for
Speaker 1: a hospital to employ a twenty four hour medical staff
Speaker 1: to care for the babies that needed them. This was
Speaker 1: especially true since most people weren't giving birth in hospitals,
Speaker 1: so for the most part, hospitals weren't adding premature infant
Speaker 1: care to egsausing labor and delivery wards that were already
Speaker 1: fully staffed, they were having to start from scratch. It
Speaker 1: could be weeks or months before these babies were ready
Speaker 1: to go home, so Words for premature infants also needed
Speaker 1: to employ wet nurses to keep them fed. So to
Speaker 1: make this level of care affordable, Leon established a number
Speaker 1: of premature infant charities in France's major cities, and while
Speaker 1: those were in operation, they treated as many as eight
Speaker 1: thousand infants, with roughly seventy five hundred of them surviving.
Speaker 1: These facilities were funded by charitable contributions by the cities
Speaker 1: where they were operating, and by the admission fees that
Speaker 1: people paid to come and look at these babies. These
Speaker 1: incubators soon spread outside of France, as did the idea
Speaker 1: of putting the incubators and the babies inside them on display.
Speaker 1: On May first, eighteen ninety six, the kinder Rudenstaalt or
Speaker 1: Child Hatchery opened at the Berlin Industrial Exposition. This included
Speaker 1: six incubators that were open for public view, along with
Speaker 1: housing for the medical staff and the wet nurses who
Speaker 1: were working there. Later on, Martin Cooney said that the
Speaker 1: child Hatchery in Berlin was where he got his start
Speaker 1: in working with incubators and premature babies. He said that
Speaker 1: he was from Alsace Laurin, France and had studied medicine
Speaker 1: at University of Leipzig before continuing his education under the
Speaker 1: tutelage of French pediatrician Pierre Boudin. Budin was one of
Speaker 1: the leading authorities on the care of premature infants. He
Speaker 1: even went on to write the first major textbook on
Speaker 1: the subject, which was titled Nursing, the Feeding and Hygiene
Speaker 1: of Premature and Full Term Infants. So, according to Cooney,
Speaker 1: he went to Berlin on Budin's instruction to run the
Speaker 1: child hatchery at the Berlin Industrial Exposition. Cooney said that
Speaker 1: it had been his idea to put these babies in
Speaker 1: the incubators rather than just showcasing empty incubators as an
Speaker 1: example of a new technology. He also said he worked
Speaker 1: with Empress Augusta Victoria to get approval for premature babies
Speaker 1: from Berlin's hospitals to be cared for in this exhibit.
Speaker 1: But none of that seems to actually be true, and
Speaker 1: we are going to get too more about Cooney and
Speaker 1: all of that after we first pause for a little
Speaker 1: sponsor break. According to Martin Cooney's immigration documents, he was
Speaker 1: born in Crotulsian on December thirtieth, eighteen sixty nine. Today
Speaker 1: that's Cretotian, Poland, but at the time it was in Prussia.
Speaker 1: Cooney's name at birth was Michael Cohen. He and his
Speaker 1: family were Jewish, as was about a third of the
Speaker 1: population of the town where they were living. From there,
Speaker 1: his upbringing and background get really unclear. The backstory that
Speaker 1: he told people about when and where he was born
Speaker 1: was all over the place. He is listed on the
Speaker 1: manifest of a ship that came to the US in
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty eight when he was nineteen, but by eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety seven he was in London, having partnered with entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: Samuel Shankine to create an incubator exhibition for the Victorian
Speaker 1: Era Exhibition. Although Cooney claimed that he had studied medicine
Speaker 1: in Leipzig, which logically would have happened between eighteen eighty
Speaker 1: eight and eighteen ninety seven, there's no evidence that he
Speaker 1: studied at the University of Leipzig or at any other
Speaker 1: university in Europe, or that he continued his studies with
Speaker 1: Pierre Budem. There's also no evidence that Cooney had anything
Speaker 1: to do with the child hatchery in Berlin, although it
Speaker 1: seems as though he and Shankin licensed that endeavor from
Speaker 1: Alexandra Leon when they started working on a similar attraction
Speaker 1: at the Victorian Era Exhibition. When Cooney and Shankin launched
Speaker 1: the Victorian Era Exhibition incubator display. Incubators had been used
Speaker 1: in France and other parts of the Western European continent
Speaker 1: for years, but they were still pretty new in England.
Speaker 1: Attitudes about parenting were a little different. Parents were just
Speaker 1: not as receptive to the idea. When Cooney and Shankin
Speaker 1: had troublec vincing parents to place their babies in the exhibition,
Speaker 1: they brought newborns across the Channel from France under the
Speaker 1: care of nurse Louise Wrecht, who spent a lot of
Speaker 1: her career working with Cooney's exhibits. At least two hundred
Speaker 1: thousand people visited the incubators at the Victorian Era Exhibition.
Speaker 1: It got a favorable write up in The Lancet, although
Speaker 1: the Lancet's coverage of these types of exhibitions wasn't always positive.
Speaker 1: Cooney and Shankin also wrote a letter to the Lancet
Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety seven warning of the dangers of competing
Speaker 1: shows that were not affiliated with them and had no
Speaker 1: medical staff. Cooney's name on this particular letter is printed
Speaker 1: as Martin Coney Coney. Martin Coney seems to have evolved
Speaker 1: into Martin Cooney by the time Cooney started an incubator
Speaker 1: exhibition at the trans Mississippi and International Exhibition, also known
Speaker 1: as the Omaha World's Fair, that was in eighteen ninety eight,
Speaker 1: although at that point he hadn't changed his name legally yet.
Speaker 1: While in Omaha, Cooney was a roached by the Krug
Speaker 1: Cabinet Beer Company about supplying beer for the exhibits wet nurses.
Speaker 1: Folks have long believed that beer can help improve milk supply,
Speaker 1: something that seems to be connected to one of the
Speaker 1: polysaccharides in the barley rather than to the alcohol content.
Speaker 1: The Omaha Daily Bee published a quote by doctor Martin
Speaker 1: Cooney that quote, we take pleasure in stating we have
Speaker 1: used Krug Cabinet bottled beer consistently for milk producing qualities.
Speaker 1: We can cheerfully recommend it to all nursing mothers on
Speaker 1: November two, eighteen ninety eight, while still in Omaha, Cooney
Speaker 1: was naturalized as a US citizen. At that time, he
Speaker 1: testified that he'd been living in Nebraska continually for the
Speaker 1: previous ten years, and that was clearly not true, since
Speaker 1: at minimum he had been in London for the Victorian Exhibition.
Speaker 1: Cooney's next major exhibition was the Pan American Exposition in
Speaker 1: Buffalo in nineteen oh one, which had eighteen incubators. By
Speaker 1: that point, at least one hospital was also trying to
Speaker 1: use incubators for premature infant care. That was Chicago Lying
Speaker 1: In Hospital, where an incubator station was opened in nineteen
Speaker 1: hundred by Joseph B. De Lee. This station had some
Speaker 1: of the same struggles as the first French hospitals using
Speaker 1: incubators did back in the eighteen eighties. They were expensive
Speaker 1: to buy, run and staff, and most of the babies
Speaker 1: who needed them were being born at home. By contrast,
Speaker 1: the attraction at the expo went very well, although the
Speaker 1: exposition itself was marred by the assassination of President McKinley.
Speaker 1: In nineteen oh three, Cooney started the baby exhibit that
Speaker 1: he's most famous for. It was his first permanent exhibition
Speaker 1: at Luna Park on Coney Island. This was permanent in
Speaker 1: that he continued to run it for decades, but the
Speaker 1: park itself was seasonal, so during the winter months, any
Speaker 1: babies who were still there were either sent home or
Speaker 1: to hospitals along with their incubators, and any incubators not
Speaker 1: in use were put into storage. The Luna Park exhibition
Speaker 1: was similar to all of Cooney's previous exhibitions. It had
Speaker 1: space for the incubators themselves, which people could view through
Speaker 1: a window after buying a ticket. The space had housing
Speaker 1: for the medical staff and the wet nurses. The staff
Speaker 1: included doctor Solomon Fischel and nurses Louis Wrecht and Annabelle Segner.
Speaker 1: But unlike earlier exhibits, this one also had an exam
Speaker 1: room that was also viewable through a window, so in
Speaker 1: addition to seeing the babies and their incubators, the audience
Speaker 1: would also see there's some of their medical examinations and
Speaker 1: other care. Their parents weren't charged anything for the baby's care,
Speaker 1: and no premature baby was turned away. The incubator displays
Speaker 1: had always had kind of an educational component, explaining what
Speaker 1: the incubators were and how they worked and why the
Speaker 1: babies needed them, and this continued at Luna Park as well.
Speaker 1: For the most part, the care that the babies were
Speaker 1: getting was pretty basic. Even when Pierre Boudin's textbook on
Speaker 1: Premature Infant care was published in nineteen oh one, most
Speaker 1: of its guidelines boiled down to keeping the baby warm
Speaker 1: and fed and preventing infections. Breast milk was the ideal food,
Speaker 1: which is there were wet nurses on staff. If breast
Speaker 1: milk was not available for some reason, sterilized cow's milk
Speaker 1: could be used as a substitute. For babies who were
Speaker 1: too weak to suckle. The nurses used droppers or tubes
Speaker 1: into the stomach or through the nose. At the same time,
Speaker 1: this was definitely a carnival attraction. It was located on
Speaker 1: a boardwalk in an amusement park. Although Cooney had strict
Speaker 1: rules for cleanliness and hygiene and the diets of the
Speaker 1: wet nurses, the surrounding area was noisy and dirty. Sometimes
Speaker 1: the exhibits around the babies were a little racy. The
Speaker 1: staff also included barkers who tried to draw in an
Speaker 1: audience from outside, and people who sold tickets for twenty
Speaker 1: five cents apiece, and there was definitely some theatricality involved
Speaker 1: in the display itself. The babies were often dressed in
Speaker 1: clothes that were too big for them, with an oversized
Speaker 1: bow around their middle, and that made them look even
Speaker 1: smaller than they already were. Nurse Wrect was fond of
Speaker 1: putting a diamond ring from her index finger around a
Speaker 1: baby's wrist where it would like a bracelet. Even though
Speaker 1: Cooney was providing life saving care to these premature infants,
Speaker 1: and even though everyone seems to have taken as fact
Speaker 1: that he really was a medical doctor, the Luna Park
Speaker 1: exhibit drew a lot of criticism. On August seventeenth, nineteen
Speaker 1: oh three, an article in The New York Times accused
Speaker 1: Cooney of running a baby farm. John D. Lindsay, who
Speaker 1: was president of the New York Society for the Prevention
Speaker 1: of Cruelty to Children, became an outspoken critic of Cooney
Speaker 1: and of baby side shows. Eventually, the matter went to court,
Speaker 1: and Cooney testified that he had saved fifty of the
Speaker 1: fifty two babies he was brought in Buffalo, and so
Speaker 1: far eighteen of the nineteen babies brought to him in
Speaker 1: New York. The Luna Park side show was allowed to continue.
Speaker 1: On August thirty first, nineteen oh three, Michael Cohen legally
Speaker 1: changed his name to Martin Arthur Cooney. A little less
Speaker 1: than a month later, on September twenty six, he married
Speaker 1: nurse Annabelle Segner, who continued to work with him at
Speaker 1: the baby exhibit. In nineteen te four, the Luna Park
Speaker 1: Nursery opened for the season, and another location virtually identical
Speaker 1: opened at Dreamland Amusement Park, which was also on Coney Island.
Speaker 1: A third amusement park location later opened in Atlantic City,
Speaker 1: New Jersey. Throughout all of this, other people were continuing
Speaker 1: to use incubators with living babies as exhibits and side
Speaker 1: shows and fairs and expositions people who didn't have anything
Speaker 1: to do with Martin Cooney. Cooney wrote about these as
Speaker 1: inferior imitations of his own idea, even though it really
Speaker 1: seems like he lifted this idea from Alexandra Leon. Some
Speaker 1: of these other exhibits ran without incident, but in nineteen
Speaker 1: oh four, disaster struck at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, also
Speaker 1: called the Saint Louis World's Fair. This was the one
Speaker 1: that we talked about in our previous episode on the
Speaker 1: Fort Shaw Indian schoolgirls basketball team. There was an outbreak
Speaker 1: of diarrhea in the exhibit and the mortality rate at
Speaker 1: the exhibit approached fifty percent. A doctor was brought into
Speaker 1: take charge, and Cooney was careful distress that he had
Speaker 1: not had anything to do with that exhibit. Although Cooney
Speaker 1: continued to arrange and run baby incubator attractions and expositions,
Speaker 1: the amusement park locations were really a big part of
Speaker 1: the rest of his career, and we'll get into more
Speaker 1: of that after another quick sponsor break. In the years
Speaker 1: after Martin Cooney arranged his first incubator attraction, he started
Speaker 1: holding periodic reunions which would bring together babies and young
Speaker 1: children who had spent their early months in one of
Speaker 1: his incubators, now, of course, thriving and healthy. The large
Speaker 1: majority of premature infants that he cared for went on
Speaker 1: to grow and thrive. At the same time, his whole
Speaker 1: career was full of ups and downs. For example, in
Speaker 1: nineteen oh five, the Infant Incubator Company was established with
Speaker 1: Cooney's colleagues doctor Solomon Fischel and Samuel Schenkin as co directors.
Speaker 1: That same year, the New York Society for the Prevention
Speaker 1: of Cruelty to Children tried to lobby for legislation that
Speaker 1: would make the exhibition of babies in incubators a misdemeanor.
Speaker 1: On January twenty ninth, nineteen oh seven, Cooney's wife, Annabelle,
Speaker 1: gave birth to a daughter, about six weeks early. Since
Speaker 1: it was January, the amusement parks were closed for the season,
Speaker 1: so Cooney got somebody to retrieve one of the exhibit
Speaker 1: incubators from storage. This daughter, Hildegarde Francis, survived her infancy
Speaker 1: and went on to become a nurse working in her
Speaker 1: father's exhibits. She was also dogged by rumors that she
Speaker 1: wasn't actually Martin and Annabel's child, but was a premature
Speaker 1: baby that somebody else had abandoned. On May twenty seventh,
Speaker 1: nineteen eleven, a fire broke out at Dreamland Amusement Park.
Speaker 1: As always, there were staff members on duty at the
Speaker 1: incubator exhibition, which was successfully evacuated, but The New York
Speaker 1: Times published an incorrect report saying that all of the
Speaker 1: babies had been killed. John D. Lindsay used this as
Speaker 1: fodder TOI He renew his criticisms of the side shows,
Speaker 1: although they did continue to operate. In nineteen fourteen, Cooney
Speaker 1: established an incubator display at White City Amusement Park in Chicago,
Speaker 1: and there he met doctor Julius Hess. Hess would go
Speaker 1: on to establish the first dedicated intensive care unit for
Speaker 1: premature infants in the United States. Hess didn't really approve
Speaker 1: of the theatricality that was involved with Cooney's exhibits, but
Speaker 1: he really regarded Cooney as a friend and a colleague.
Speaker 1: When Hess published his textbook, Premature and Congenitally Diseased Infants,
Speaker 1: he had Cooney review it beforehand and acknowledged his contributions
Speaker 1: when it was published. Hess also dedicated another book to
Speaker 1: Cooney in nineteen twenty eight. Together, Hesse and Cooney planned
Speaker 1: a state of the art incubator facility for the Chicago
Speaker 1: Century of Progress in nineteen thirty three. While Cooney's earlier
Speaker 1: incubator exhibits had included some education, this was more like
Speaker 1: a functioning research institute, with the staff specifically studying the
Speaker 1: care the babies were receiving and its effects and outcomes.
Speaker 1: Hesse and Cooney's medical teams were both involved, so each
Speaker 1: team learned from the other. At about the same time,
Speaker 1: more hospitals were starting to establish dedicated facilities for pre
Speaker 1: term infant care, so this work being done at the
Speaker 1: century of progress was contributing to a growing medical field.
Speaker 1: The next year, in nineteen thirty four, William Randolph Hurst
Speaker 1: approached Cooney with a request to travel to Canada, where
Speaker 1: quintuplets had been born in Ontario. These five babies came
Speaker 1: to be known as the dion Quints, and Cooney declined
Speaker 1: to get involved with their care. The reason that he
Speaker 1: gave publicly was that his existing patients needed him, he
Speaker 1: just didn't have time with his other work, but it
Speaker 1: was also because he didn't think these babies were likely
Speaker 1: to survive, and his experience in cases of multiple births
Speaker 1: at most only one baby survived. All five of the
Speaker 1: dion quintuplets did survive their infancy, and we have gotten
Speaker 1: a lot of requests to talk about them on the podcast.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the never ending request line. But
Speaker 1: two of them are still living and we don't generally
Speaker 1: do biographies of living persons, and they have also said
Speaker 1: pretty clearly that they just want their privacy, and a
Speaker 1: big part of their story is their privacy being taken
Speaker 1: away from them from their infancy and childhoods. That is
Speaker 1: why we are not doing an episode on the Dion quintuplets. So, yes,
Speaker 1: it is fascinating and we understand the curiosity, but we're
Speaker 1: respecting their privacy. Yeah, they've pretty clearly said they would
Speaker 1: just like to be left alone. In the late nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: things were pretty difficult for Cooney. His wife, Annabel died.
Speaker 1: He was also aware of events in Germany as Hitler
Speaker 1: came to power, and he knew that his Jewish friends
Speaker 1: and family in Europe were at great risk. During the
Speaker 1: late nineteen thirties, he arranged for about fifteen people to
Speaker 1: leave Europe, paying their way and handling their paperwork. Then
Speaker 1: Cooney tried to arrange another Incubator side show at the
Speaker 1: New York World's Fair in nineteen thirty nine, but by
Speaker 1: this point the novelty of Incubator had started to wear off.
Speaker 1: The exhibit just didn't draw the kinds of crowds that
Speaker 1: previous efforts had, and for the first time, Cooney lost money.
Speaker 1: The show was renewed for a second season, with Cooney
Speaker 1: hoping that he could make up for the earlier loss,
Speaker 1: but the opposite happened. The whole thing was financially disastrous.
Speaker 1: It was not going well at this point for the
Speaker 1: more permanent locations either, and the two remaining amusement park attractions,
Speaker 1: which were at Luna Park and Atlantic City, both closed
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty three. At that point Cooney retired. Also,
Speaker 1: more and more premature care wards were opening around the
Speaker 1: United States by this point. It was something that paused
Speaker 1: a little during World War Two, but then resumed afterward.
Speaker 1: Cooney died on March first, nineteen fifty. He had become
Speaker 1: known at that point as the Incubator Doctor, and it's
Speaker 1: estimated that during his career his exhibitions cared for at
Speaker 1: least eight thousand babies and saved the lives of at
Speaker 1: least six thy five hundred of them. But when talking
Speaker 1: about it to the media, he always stressed that he
Speaker 1: shouldn't get all the credit, that the doctors, nurses, and
Speaker 1: wet nurses on staff were critical to the work. Cooney's
Speaker 1: legacy is really complicated. There are just so many holes
Speaker 1: and some outright falsehoods in the backstory that he told
Speaker 1: people about himself, and we really have no idea what
Speaker 1: his credentials were when he started his first exhibit. There's
Speaker 1: just no documentation that he had the medical degree that
Speaker 1: he said he had. Although we could logically conclude that
Speaker 1: he changed his name to try to avoid anti Semitism,
Speaker 1: we don't actually know what motivated him to do it
Speaker 1: or why he was just so cagey and inconsistent about
Speaker 1: what his background was. But he definitely dedicated most of
Speaker 1: his adult life to taking care of babies that doctors
Speaker 1: didn't think could or should be helped, and thanks to
Speaker 1: his work, the public perception of premature babies also started
Speaker 1: to shift away from this idea of hopeless weaklings who
Speaker 1: might be better off if they were allowed to die,
Speaker 1: to fighters who could thrive if they just had the
Speaker 1: right kind of care. Some writers have framed Cooney's work
Speaker 1: as an opposition to the eugenics movement, and while it's
Speaker 1: true that the eugenics movement approved of the idea of
Speaker 1: allowing the so called week to quote die out, Cooney
Speaker 1: also reinforced some of that same mindset with how he
Speaker 1: talked about these babies. He stressed that they were going
Speaker 1: to grow up quote healthy and normal and not to
Speaker 1: be weaklings. He implied that if they were going to
Speaker 1: grow up to be ill or disabled, he wouldn't be
Speaker 1: doing what he was doing. There are also arguments about
Speaker 1: whether Cooney's use of incubators as a side show attraction
Speaker 1: delayed their mainstream medical acceptance. That one's a little harder
Speaker 1: to pin down. On the one hand, as Cooney and
Speaker 1: his staff were working with these children, they were learning
Speaker 1: and developing new skills and getting better at it over
Speaker 1: time and influencing the work of some of the United
Speaker 1: States earliest neonatologists. But it is also entirely possible that
Speaker 1: doctors just didn't want to be associated with something that
Speaker 1: was so closely connected to side shows and amusement parks,
Speaker 1: and that it made the whole technology seem a little
Speaker 1: bit suspicious. And of course, there have been huge advances
Speaker 1: in premature baby care since Cooney's death. They are largely
Speaker 1: outside the scope of this podcast, but especially for babies
Speaker 1: born very early, it's no longer a matter of just
Speaker 1: trying to keep them warm and fed and preventing illnesses.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of other medical interventions that can
Speaker 1: take place, and that has led to a whole other
Speaker 1: ethical debate about when to resuscitate premature babies and what
Speaker 1: level of care and intervention that they should receive. Sus
Speaker 1: Martin Cooney and his Babyside shows, which are fascinating and
Speaker 1: also kind of complicated topic. Yeah, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send
Speaker 1: us a note, our email addresses History Podcast at iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: dot com, and you can subscribe to the show on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shoes