Jeff Maynor Looking for Help with News Story
From 1905 to 1929 Cleveland's favorite amusement park was Luna Park, on a hilltop bounded by Woodland Avenue, Woodhill Road, East 110th Street and Mt. Carmel.
Dick Francis and his wife Diane have written an absolutely beautiful history of Luna Park which fueled my interest in this long gone Cleveland institution.
From the period pictures in their book, Luna Park was quite different from the Cedar Point of today or even Euclid Beach of the mid-last century. Most of the people at Luna Park were adults dressed up for an outing. Luna Park didn't cultivate family trade, but was built for adults, with a dance hall and beer garden among its most popular attractions.
Luna Park's attractions are what interest me for a possible story.
One in particular--"Incubator Babies."
In the early 1900's the inventor of the infant incubator found hospitals disinterested in his device that could keep premature babies alive while their lungs and other organs developed to full term.
So he turned his incubator into a sideshow attraction, first at Coney Island in New York and then at Luna Park in Cleveland.
Parents of preemies could take their tiny newborns to the park where they would be placed in an incubator in a hospital-like setting alongside other early newborns struggling for survival. Luna Park patrons, for the price of a ticket, would enter the "ward" and watch nurses tending to the tiny newborns in the incubators.
The Incubator Babies exhibit is credited with saving the young lives of thousands of premature babies. Soon hospital maternity wards were all equipped with incubators.
I want to find local residents who began life as part of the Incubator Babies exhibit. I would like to speak with them and see any photos that they may have of this wonderful untold story of show business leading medicine.
If you began your life in an incubator at Luna Park, know someone who did or have pictures or other accounts of the exhibit, please contact me at jeffmaynor@wkyc.com. Thank you.
Dick Francis and his wife Diane have written an absolutely beautiful history of Luna Park which fueled my interest in this long gone Cleveland institution.
From the period pictures in their book, Luna Park was quite different from the Cedar Point of today or even Euclid Beach of the mid-last century. Most of the people at Luna Park were adults dressed up for an outing. Luna Park didn't cultivate family trade, but was built for adults, with a dance hall and beer garden among its most popular attractions.
Luna Park's attractions are what interest me for a possible story.
One in particular--"Incubator Babies."
In the early 1900's the inventor of the infant incubator found hospitals disinterested in his device that could keep premature babies alive while their lungs and other organs developed to full term.
So he turned his incubator into a sideshow attraction, first at Coney Island in New York and then at Luna Park in Cleveland.
Parents of preemies could take their tiny newborns to the park where they would be placed in an incubator in a hospital-like setting alongside other early newborns struggling for survival. Luna Park patrons, for the price of a ticket, would enter the "ward" and watch nurses tending to the tiny newborns in the incubators.
The Incubator Babies exhibit is credited with saving the young lives of thousands of premature babies. Soon hospital maternity wards were all equipped with incubators.
I want to find local residents who began life as part of the Incubator Babies exhibit. I would like to speak with them and see any photos that they may have of this wonderful untold story of show business leading medicine.
If you began your life in an incubator at Luna Park, know someone who did or have pictures or other accounts of the exhibit, please contact me at jeffmaynor@wkyc.com. Thank you.
Labels: amusement parks, incubator, incubator babies, Luna Park, sideshows
posted by WKYC Weekend Morning Show at
10:08 AM
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