World's Fair Exhibits

World’s Fair Contributions to Science

The St. Louis Exposition of 1904 

by Martha Rogers

Welcome to the Fair

Palace of Electricity

Many of the inventions on exhibit at the fair were forerunners to items that have become an integral part of our culture today. The Palace exhibited novel applications of electricity and how light waves could be used for communication and medical means were on display. The men behind the exhibit wanted to dispel the misconceptions people had about the dangers of electricity and educate them as to the possibilities for use. This photo is how the building looked in the daytime near the Lagoon and fountains.

 The palace also contained many communications exhibits. These included a wireless telephone or radiophone. The crowds were enthralled with being able to hear spoken messages transmitted from an apparatus in the Palace to a telephone receiver in the courtyard. Alexander Graham Bell invented the radiophone with a transmitter that transformed sound waves into light waves then into a receiver which converted them back into sound waves and became the precursor for the radio and early mobile phones which eventually evolved into our modern day cell phone.

The Fax Machine or telautograph was invented in 1888 by Elisha Gray and improved upon to be displayed at the fair. This was a device which sent electrical impulses to the receiving pen of the device to recreate drawings to a piece of paper at the same time a person wrote them in longhand on the other end.

At night, the fair became a virtual fairyland of light. Here is the Palace as it looked at night.

Palace of Transportation

Exhibits showcased vehicles which would revolutionize transportation for the future. Among them were the electric street railcars, the personal automobile or motor car powered by gasoline, electricity, and steam. 

This is a how the automobile exhibits 
One were arranged.





One of the largest was the locomotive pictured here.

Lee de Forest also exhibited a prototype car radio. The fair hosted the first ever “Airship Contest” and offered a grand prize of $100,000 to an airship or other flying machine that managed the best time through a course set out. Viewers became witnessed to the first public dirigible flight in America. This event led to the city’s nickname of “Flight City.”   

On The Pike

The Pike was a mile long midway much like we see at fairs today. It featured rides, amusements, food, and fantastic exhibitions for fun. Although a primary source of pleasure, many of its features were educational as well. This aerial photo gives a good picture of the length of The Pike.

 The expression “coming down the Pike” originated from this feature because one never knew what to expect. Exhibits included a Blarney Castle, a Parisian fashion show, wild animals, model ships staging a replica of the Naval Battle of Santiago, and a visit to the North Pole.

One of the most interesting was the display of Medical contributions. I was amazed by them. Things like the X-ray machine and infant incubator were on included. Invented in 1895 by German scientist, Wilhelm Rontgen, the machine was developed and perfected by Thomas Edison with his assistant Clarence Dally for exhibit at the 1904 Exposition. The infant incubator was an air-tight glass box with a metal frame.

 Here a nurse is attending an infant in an incubator on display.

This is the exhibit and how people were able to view the babies. 

Constant temperature was maintained by pumping in hot air. This provided a sanitary environment to reduce infection and preserve the lives of children born pre-maturely. The exhibit had ten nurses who cared for twenty-four neo-natal babies in the incubators. Glass walls separated the babies from visitors and prevented germ exposure. Known today as “isolettes,” this invention is a vital component of neo-natal intensive care units (NICU) all over our nation.

The Liberal Arts Palace was a nine-acre building housing some of the world's finest exhibits classified as Liberal Arts. These included models of famous lighthouses, a coin collection from the British Mint, photography, musical instruments and art from around the world. China had a display of ancient books and art from its people.

Researching all the exhibits from around the world revealed more and more fascinating displays.

For a chance to win a copy of my book, Meet Me at the Fair set at the fair in 1904 leave a comment answering one of the questions below along with your email address and be included in the drawing. 

1. What is your favorite part of going to the fair?
2. Which exhibit mentioned in the blog would you most liked to have visited?
3. Does your state have its own fair every year?



MEET ME AT THE FAIR
Laurel has a tragic past and the rejections of men who can't see beyond her scars keep her from opening up to others, and she keeps the scars well-

hidden. The first time Trent sees her, he is smitten with both her beauty and her delicious candy. When she goes to St. Louis to open her candy booth at the fair, Trent seizes the opportunity to learn more about her. He sees beyond the scars to the intelligent and talented business woman she is, but can she open her heart and trust him to find a love stronger and deeper than any physical scars?

Martha Rogers is a multi-published author and writes a weekly devotional for ACFW. Martha and her husband Rex live in Houston, Texas where they are active members of First Baptist Church. They are the parents of three sons and grandparents to eleven grandchildren and great-grandparents to four, soon to be five. Martha is a retired teacher with twenty-eight years teaching Home Economics and English at the secondary level and eight years at the college level supervising student teachers and teaching freshman English. She is the Director of the Texas Christian Writers Conference held in Houston in August each year, a member of ACFW, ACFW WOTS chapter in Houston, and a member of the writers’ group, Inspirational Writers Alive.

Find Martha at:  www.marthawrogers.com

Coney Island Miracles: Live Infants

The first time I saw the Coney Island attraction billed as "Live Infants", I thought I was seeing things. But it was true. Premature babies in incubators were once a popular attraction of Coney Island, as well as many world expositions including the 1933 World's Fair held in Chicago, Illinois. With mixed emotions, I began my research into how it came to be that people paid hard-earned money to see a human infant.

Luna Park at Coney Island circa 1905. Courtesy of Shorpy.com

The man who created this popular sideshow attraction was Martin Arthur Couney, born in Krotoschin, Germany on the last day of 1869. He studied medicine with a specialty of pediatrics under the hand of Dr. Pierre Budin, a Frenchman who pioneered the use of the incubator for the treatment of premature infants. At that time in the late 1800's, incubators were being used for hatching poultry. Budin had a great idea, but hospitals were skeptical and lacked the vision to use this method of saving premature infants. 

To gain attention for his invention, Budin sent Couney to the 1896 Great Industrial Exposition of Berlin in the hopes that others would see the benefits. 

Baby Incubator Display at The Trans-Mississippi Exposition, 1898. Courtesy of Omahalibrary.org

Six premature babies on loan from Berlin's Charity Hospital, under the auspicies of Empress Augusta Victoria, were kept alive by artificial means, which wowed the crowds who paid money to see the infants. Three years later at the 1899 Greater Britain Exhibition, however, Couney was unable to borrow premature British infants for his exhibit and was forced to bring in three wicker baskets full of infants from Paris. (Courtesy of omahalibrary.org)

Baby Incubator on Display, Seattle World's Fair,
1909. Courtesy of Wikipedia
 

With crowds of amazed people at several world fairs and expositions gawking at the babies living in boxes, there was enough money for Couney to introduce the incubator to American hospitals. But the medical world still wasn't ready to accept the incubators. Parents, however, saw the incubators as a miracle and willingly handed over their preemies into Dr. Couney's care. He had already proved that the public was willing to pay for such an exhibit, and he knew that few parents could afford the medical bills of keeping their babies alive. Such an exhibit would also expose the public to the need for such an invention and perhaps enough people would goad the medical community into providing their own staff with incubators. 

With no shortage of preemies, Dr. Couney and his staff set up the permanent exhibit at Luna Park, Coney Island which you see in the photo at the top of this blog - the one that started me on this quest. And with trained staff ready to care for the babies on the road, and deal with the public, babies in incubators were exhibited in major fairs and expositions around the world until 1941. 

Baby Incubator Exhibit at the 1909 Seattle World's Fair. Courtesy of Wikipedia

But why would people pay to see babies? Consider this... in the early 1900s, most babies were still born at home with the aid of a midwife. If a doctor was available, he or she was only brought in for the difficult births - the ones we now call high risk. Premature babies weren't given much of a chance to survive and many were tucked into shoe boxes and placed on the oven door to keep warm, especially if the mother was fighting for her own survival. At the time, only 25% of premature babies survived. This was the reality of life. 

It didn't matter to the new parents that their baby would be on display in a sterile glass and metal box. What mattered was that their baby survived! 

In August 1901, the Scientific American Volume 85 Number 5 published the article, Baby Incubators at the Pan-American Exposition showing how the babies were fed through their nostrils with a gavage spoon. 

Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY, 1901

Dr. Martin Couney closed his permanent exhibit at Coney Island and retired in 1941. At that time, New York's Cornell University had opened its own research and training center for premature infants. By the time he died in 1950, Couney had saved approx 7,000 of the 8,500 preemies brought to him for nurturing.

And what of the survivors? How did they feel about people paying to see them? That was the question asked of Lucille Horn in the interview, Babies on Display: When A Hospital Couldn't Save Them, A Sideshow Did. Lucille answered: "It's strange, but as long as they saw me and I was alive, it was all right." For the full interview including an audio version, click here. 

Another article with lots of photos is: Survivors Praise 'Incubator Doctor' Who Put Preemies on Display in Early 1900s.


Videos on the sideshow exhibit as well as the survivors are:

'Incubator Babies' Praise Doctor Who Saved Lives  (https://youtu.be/rLBTOlrrubA)

Were Premature Babies Really Displayed in Coney Island? (https://youtu.be/5DzEMRngR1Y)




Also, the History Detectives TV show broadcast an episode called Sideshow Babies (Season 7, Episode 4), where the first segment is about a woman who was born prematurely and within days of her birth, the Chicago Board of Health took her away from her parents and placed her under Couney's care, where she was put in an incubator and displayed at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. She has in her possession a personalized souvenir cup commemorating the event. The history detective's quest is to find out if babies were really on display at this event. 


When I started the research, I was uncomfortable with the thought that anyone would make money off the exhibition of babies in a sideshow. I changed my mind however, when I read that Couney charged money so that the babies could be cared for and their parents didn't have to worry about the expense. To a Canadian, that's a big deal. The fact that all 4 of my babies were premature ranging from 4-8 weeks early helped settle it in my mind. I would have given everything I had if there was a chance to pull them through. I was blessed with doctors and nurses in NICU's that took my hand and pulled all of us through. Back in history, they did what they could as well. 

What about you? What went through your mind as you read this post? 

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Anita Mae Draper's historical romances are woven under the western skies of the Saskatchewan prairie where her love of research and genealogy yields fascinating truths that layer her stories with rich historical details.  Anita's short story, Here We Come A-Wassailing, was a finalist for the Word Guild's 2015 Word Awards. Her novellas are included in Austen in Austin Volume 1, and The American Heiress Brides Collection. Readers can check out Anita's Pinterest boards for a visual idea of her stories to enrich their reading experience.  Discover more at:

Website - www.anitamaedraper.com

Pinterest - www.pinterest.com/anitamaedraper/