Baby Incubators in Amusement Parks

These babies ain’t gonna grow themselves, eh?

Rick Sebak narrated a PBS documentary on the history of amusement parks (Youtube playlist here). He mentioned baby incubators at Luna Park in Pittsburgh at the turn of the century, but it was also at the Luna Park at Coney Island.

It comes off as unseeming to put babies and nurses on display for the curious, but it was probably more for the technology than anything else. This paragraph from a 1905 newspaper article^* hints at the charity status of the exhibit:

No charge is to be made for the care of infants and the only tax involved is the slight admission fee for spectators, which, while it bars the disinterested and undesirable, is essential to the proper conduct and maintenance of the exhibit itself. All they ask is that physicians and the public cooperate with them in this laudable work.

Photo of a photo of a baby incubator sign stolen without permission from Eleanor Jane.

* Notice the huge subtitle in that article.