Episode 31: Incubator Babies part 2

Let's swaddle this story us and hear about what the incubator babies went on to do! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey everybody, I'm Shannon, and welcome to the They Hid What Podcast. On this podcast, I explore parts of history that have been kept hidden or swept under the rug. In this week's episode, I will be discussing Incubator Babies Part 2. Let's get into it. When the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago came around, Martin Cooney had developed a reputation. Under the name Infant Incubators with Living Babies, Cooney received the backing of Dr. Julius Hess, Director of Sarah Morris Children's Hospital at Michael Reese and head of Chicago's Medical Society, as well as Dr. Herman Bunzin, the health commissioner. The exhibit ran for two consecutive summers over 18 months from 1933 to 1934. Cooney's facility cost$75,000 to construct, which is$1.7 million in today's money. And it had a huge sign stating living babies in incubators. At the end of the second summer, Dr. Bundenson had become involved in Cooney's work. Not long after the end of the fair, Chicago became the first American city to officially implement policies for the explicit purpose of premature infant care. Before the fair ended, Cooney hosted a reunion for the babies that were on display in 1933. On July 25th, 1934, 41 of the 58 babies accompanied by their mothers returned to Coney Island for a homecoming ceremony. It was even broadcast on the radio. This reunion was to prove the importance of the incubator use. The radio broadcast may have been the first time that Martin Cooney received a positive review from the press. The announcer said, quote, The incubator station for premature babies is not primarily a place of exhibiting tiny infants. Instead, it is actually a life-saving station, where prematurely born babies are brought from leading hospitals all over the city for the care and attention that are afforded. The place is spic and span with doctors and graduate nurses in constant attendance. I lightly touched on it in part one, but overall Martin Cooney was considered controversial. It was thought that he was putting these babies on display strictly for profit and that the babies were regarded as a commodity. Also, sometimes Cooney's exhibit would be set up in a less desirable area. If he was near animal enclosures, he would get flack about how it can't be hygienic for infants to be near filthy animals and their smelly cages. If he was set up near a more risque display, like Sally Rand's nude ranch, he was criticized for drawing people into such a lewd area. Didn't he worry about what the women and children might see on their way to the babies? Cooney didn't get to choose where he was placed at these fairs. In the beginning, yes, he did use a carnival-type barker to bring people to his display. However, the safety and health of the babies were always top priority. Something I haven't said yet is that Martin Cooney played with his name a lot over the years. As I mentioned in part one, there is no record of Michael Cohen, which is Cooney's birth name, ever attending medical school in Berlin like he claims he did. People like to make the argument that after both world wars, the records probably didn't even survive. Well, there was only one hospital at the time Michael Cohen claims to have studied, and their records did survive and do not show his name anywhere. When he came to New York, he changed his name from Michael to Martin because he said he never liked the name Michael. He took the last name Cooney, C-O-N-E-Y, because that's what his brother did when he had arrived. Over time, though, it bothered him that people kept pronouncing his name as Coney, like Coney Island and not Cooney. So he added a U, making it C-O-U-N-E-Y. He tried that out for a bit and it seemed to help. Then, as he became more prominent on the fair circuit, he thought he needed a name that seemed more esteemed. So he added an accent mark over the E. This didn't stick though, and he dropped that after about a year. When it came time for Cooney to attend the Century of Progress, he started going by doctor. And again, there is no proof that he went to medical school or even had any medical training. In a 1911 census, he listed his career as surgical instruments. But then in the 1930s census, he said he was a physician. He wasn't, and he's not. At most, he was a salesman and a presenter. This didn't seem to stop physicians from coming to his exhibits and asking about his work. Yale professor, pediatrician, and child developmental psychologist Arnold Gessel visited Cooney multiple times at the 1939 New York World's Fair and was even granted permission to film the babies. In 1945, when Gessel published a book on his research, he didn't mention Cooney or the incubator babies anywhere. In contrast, when Julius Hess published his book in 1922, he wrote in it, quote, I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr. Martin Cooney. Now I'd like to say that these decisions were all a victim of their time. Hess worked alongside Cooney in the exhibit and saw how effective these incubators and procedures were. Perhaps over time, Gessel didn't want to admit that he studied under the incubator doctor, since it couldn't be proven that Cooney was a doctor. In February 1936, May Cooney, Martin's wife, was sick, and her condition soon became urgent. Martin used his connections, and on February 22nd, May had a craniotomy at the Neurological Institute in Manhattan. And unfortunately, May died while on the operating table at 61 years old. After the New York World's Fair in 1939, Martin Cooney decided to retire. He kind of didn't have a choice. This exhibit left him broke and he didn't have the funds to keep going. Operating expenses for the fair were around$100,000, and he was in debt to the fair organization for another$10,000. For the Century of Progress exhibit alone, Martin Cooney had a building erected which had not only a nursery and viewing area for the public, but also nine rooms for living quarters for his nurses, visiting doctors, and wet nurses, a courtyard with a garden, a small solarium type room, and a room for visiting doctors to perform their exams. He also had been at it for 50 years, building, running, and breaking down a full maternity ward around the states. However, all that time spent wasn't wasted. In 1943, Cornell Hospital in New York opened the first dedicated premature infant station, and Cooney estimated that he took in around 8,000 babies, and 6,500 of those survived. Martin Cooney, the man that wasn't a doctor, but saved possibly thousands of infant lives, passed away on March 1st, 1950. A small group of five surviving incubator babies, all women, were able to meet up in person thanks to author Dawn Raffle. She wrote an incredible book on Martin Cooney and his work, and in the process met numerous surviving incubator babies or members of their family. Some of these individuals had more information than others, as not everyone approved of the Cooney Incubator exhibit. Let's begin with Beth Allen. Beth's mother was at her sister's house when she went into labor. She called her doctor, who told her it wasn't labor, but more likely something she ate. The sister got on the phone with the doctor and argued with him until he came over and drove her to the hospital. Beth was born underweight. The hospital, as was common at the time, wasn't equipped to care for babies this small. The doctor suggested that she be taken to Martin Cooney. Beth's mom rejected this suggestion, saying, My baby is not a freak. I don't want her in a sideshow. Cooney himself was brought in to persuade her, and eventually, Beth was set up in one of Cooney's incubators. Beth's mother didn't visit her daughter, though she was grateful for Martin Cooney. Beth's cousin Terry would visit Beth at the exhibit often and remembers a special day when Martin Cooney let Terry hold baby Beth. Terry also recalls hearing Beth's mom argue with someone about the fact that Beth was a part of the exhibit. Beth's mom stated, quote, No, my child is being saved by a genius of a man with incubators. When Beth hit five pounds, she was able to move out of the incubator and into a bassinet. It was also safe enough for her to go home. Beth's mom was incredibly nervous and thought that maybe she should hire a nurse to help out. It wasn't until Beth was 11 years old that she learned she was a twin. She overheard a conversation and asked her father about it. She was told that yes, she was a twin and that the other baby only lived two days. He advised, quote, don't talk to your mother about it. It's too painful for her. To show their immense gratitude, Beth was taken to Martin Cooney's grave every Father's day. Lucille Horne was born in 1920. Her twin sister had died in delivery, and her parents were told Lucille wouldn't survive the day. Her father didn't accept this statement. He wrapped Lucille in a towel, got a cab, and took her to Coney Island Boardwalk Infentorium. Lucille survived and went on to marry and have five children. Twins Jean and Jane were born August 17, 1934, weighing a combined seven pounds. Their aunt was a nurse and got the two girls into one of Cooney's exhibits. Every day the girl's father stopped by on his way to work and delivered his wife's breast milk. The two knew they were in the incubators, but they were in their 40s when they learned that they were displayed on the midway, quote, like a freak show. We were shocked to find out. Anna was a baby brought to the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition in a shoebox. She had four children and lived to 80 years old. Jean Dubinsky was born June 19, 1919, at just 2.75 pounds. She was born in a hospital and was supposed to go to Coney Island. Her mother's aunt caught wind of this and strongly objected and even attempted to take the baby from the hospital. Jean did go to the Coney Island exhibit where they were warned about Aunt Rose. Later in her life, Jean attended the New York Fashion Institute of Technology and founded the American Society of Jewelry Historians. Barbara and Joni were born at the Chicago Lying Inn via Emergency C section. They were full term but underweight. Joni weighed four pounds and Barbara only three. Joni could stay at Lying Inn in one of the incubators until she gained a pound, while Barbara was transferred from Lying Inn to Sarah Morris. Barbara needed a blood transfusion, but her family couldn't afford it. A nurse snuck in Barbara's father so that he could donate his own blood and save the expense. Barbara was then sent to the Century of Progress and was kept in the back with the sickest babies that visitors never saw. After three months, Barbara's parents were called. Barbara says, quote, My parents got a call to take me home to die. I guess I didn't improve very much. My mother's story was that they carried me out and I took a deep breath and took off running. Barbara's sister Joni ended up having a lot of health setbacks during her life, including a collapsed lung, and ended up passing away at 48. Twins Norma and George Johnson were born in July 1937. Norma was two and a half pounds while George was three pounds. Norma recalls a story her mother told her. The patient next to her mother at the hospital had premature twins. The doctor told the woman that the babies won't make it unless they went into an incubator. The woman said, I am not putting them in Coney Island. No way. When the doctor spoke to Norma and George's mother with the same offer, their mother readily agreed. Norma and George went on to have a combined nine children and 12 grandchildren, while the premature twins from the hospital didn't survive. Catherine Ash was born two months early on July 19, 1939. Her mother was so thin that the hospital didn't believe her when she told them she was pregnant and in labor. Catherine was born at 3 pounds, 4 ounces. The family couldn't afford incubator care at the hospital or the offer of a payment plan. The World Fair exhibit was suggested to Catherine's parents and they took it. They were given passes to the fair so that they could deliver breast milk and visit Catherine whenever they wanted. All in all, if you ask a doctor today about Martin Cooney, they'll say how grateful they are for the work that he did. And again, back then, when Martin was doing this work, he was controversial. People really thought that let the weak die, let the strong survive, and that incubators just weren't worth the headache. But he kept fighting and fighting and fighting. And if the only way he could get seen was at a fair or an exposition, so be it. Eventually it took off, and he potentially saved thousands of babies during his time, and who knows how many since. I encourage you to read Don Raffles' book, The Strange Case of Dr. Cooney: How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies, and maybe do a little more poking around about the man, and come back next week to find out what else has been hidden.