Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
7
result(s) for
"Couney, Martin."
Sort by:
'Artificial Mothers' on Display: How Public Exhibits Shaped the Development of Incubators
For the first four decades of the twentieth century, premature babies in the United States were primarily treated in infant incubators not in hospitals, but in a public setting—at the Coney Island amusement park. Although incubators are now an indispensable medical device, their origins lie in public exhibitions rather than a professional medical environment. This article uncovers the longer history behind this unusual episode in neonatal care and technology. Offering the first comprehensive account of the early history of the infant incubator, it traces how these devices were first developed and showcased at exhibition sites across Europe in the 1890s. A comparative study of these exhibitions in Europe and the United States from 1890 to 1943 highlights significant differences in how industry, science, education, and spectacle interacted in each country. Moreover, it examines the changing relationship between public displays and professional medicine during this period, illustrating how technology developed in public spaces before transitioning into the professional medical domain.
Journal Article
Once a sideshow, former preemies praise doctor years later
[Martin Couney] died in 1950, shortly after incubators finally came into wider use. Horn and others who owe their lives to him want their stories told so the doctor's curious tale - one that would cause outrage by today's standards - doesn't die with them. \"He said: Well that's impossible; she's alive now. We have to do something for her,' [Barbara Horn] said. \"My father wrapped me in a towel and took me in a cab to the incubator; I went to Dr. Couney. I stayed with him quite a few days. Almost five months. Couney opened his first exhibit with \"live babies at Coney Island's Luna Park in 1903. By the 1920s, the incubators were kept in a Hansel-and-Gretel-like cottage decorated with the image of a stork overlooking a nest of cherubs. And in the 1930s, he took his incubator babies to the world's fairs in New York and Chicago, where the display was on the midway next to the show of burlesque fan dancer Sally Rand. Couney ended the sideshows in 1943.
Newspaper Article
Coney Island Park baby display saved preemies' lives: 'Incubator Doctor' forgiven by history
All those quarters bought a big house at Sea Gate for Dr. Martin A. Couney, the man who put the Coney Island babies on display. He died broken and forgotten in 1950 at 80 years old. The doctor was shunned as an unseemly showman in his time, even as he was credited with popularizing incubators. Half a century after his death the so- called Incubator Doctor has found acceptance among the boardwalk's latter-day boosters. On Saturday, his legacy went on display, as 11 impresarios, inventors, builders and performers were inducted into a new Coney Island Hall of Fame.
Newspaper Article
And Next to the Bearded Lady, Premature Babies
He was, in other words, not unlike what Coney Island would become, and half a century after his death the so-called Incubator Doctor has found acceptance among the Boardwalk's latter-day boosters. Yesterday, his legacy went on display, among 11 impresarios, inventors, builders and performers inducted into a new Coney Island Hall of Fame. ''[Martin A. Couney] was ahead of his time, and he found a place that was receptive to his dreams,'' said Charles Denson, curator of the hall and executive director of an accompanying oral history project. ''Coney Island is the greatest combination of magnificent artifice in a natural setting.'' Using babies from New York hospitals that lacked the facilities to care for them, Dr. Couney mounted a display at Luna Park, a Coney Island amusement park, in 1903, soon adding another at a second Coney Island park, Dreamland. In 1911, his reputation was tarnished when Dreamland went up in flames. The babies were safely whisked to Luna Park, but The New York Times incorrectly reported that six had burned to death. An article the next day under the headline ''All Well With the Babies,'' failed to undo the article's damage. [George Johnson], 67, and his twin sister, Norma Coe, two of the premature babies who were on display. (Photo by Andrea Mohin/The New York Times); Dr. Couney's daughter, [Hildegarde], at Coney Island in 1937 with a baby weighing 23 ounces. (Photo by Bettmann/Corbis)(pg. 46); Dr. Martin A. Couney, the so-called Incubator Doctor, took his popular display of premature babies to the World's Fair in Chicago in 1933. (Photo by Corbis)(pg. 1)
Newspaper Article
THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. COUNEY
A shocking and bizarre history of premature infant care in America.
Book Review