Out of curiosity, and looking around for ideas, I've been doing some research into inventions that either never caught on, or which had their day and then were forgotten. This search led me to the baby cage, which was an eye opener.
The theory behind it was that babies and very young children need fresh air, and needed to be exposed to the elements in order to give them a healthy metabolism. This is true. The developers also said that not all families have sufficient outdoor room as part of their homes. This was true then and is very much true now.
The solution was a small structure, enclosed but open to the air, aka a cage. And it was to be placed outside the window. It raises questions. How firmly is the cage attached to the building's facade? How much do you trust the structural integrity of the cage itself. These are important matters, given how high some of the cages were placed.
In any case, enough parents had enough anxiety about dangling their babies out the window that the fad soon died out. In retrospect it seems like an imperfect and perhaps unworkable solution to an ongoing problem. In the real world there probably isn't one fix that will work for everyone.
2 comments:
I remember reading about 'baby cages' a good long time ago. They do look intimidating when you consider just how far down to the ground it was for the poor little things - and they looked pretty fragile too (cheap lumber and chicken wire).
What I came to understand about them was that people in general lived in rather dangerous environments. When you live in a tenement apartment with a shared heating system, no external ventilation, black mould, and likely carbon monoxide because of poorly built and vented stoves, the air outdoors was likely healthier than the air indoors. Plus, because there were no elevators or balconies going out took a lot of energy to do it more than once a day. The other thing happening a hundred years ago was that TB was rampant.
Pathe News 1953
https://youtu.be/NerS17sC0Bg?si=KP8R5wR-th2wiOMt
Interestingly, the 'baby cage' era did end but no accidents were ever reported.
Looking at them is pretty nerve-wracking. Of course the people who made them would be well-motivated to give them solid construction, but still, it's hard to be relaxed about it.
It's true that the structures people in general lived in had a lot of problems. Lead paint was a common feature until fairly recently. And I had forgotten how common TB was in those days as well. So it becomes a little more understandable that parents were looking outside the box for healthier ways of raising their children.
Those were cute kids in that old newsreel. Hope they grew up well.
I'm glad to know there were reported accidents. Knock on wood there were no unreported ones either.
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