Summary
At Coney Island amusement park between 1903 and 1943 there was an extraordinary exhibit: tiny, premature babies. 'Dr. Martin Couney's infant incubator' facility was staffed by nurses in starched white uniforms and if you paid a quarter, you could see the babies in their incubators.
Journalist Claire Prentice has been following the story and tracked down some of those babies, now in their 70s, 80s and 90s, who were put on show. She discovers how Dr. Couney brought the incubator to prominence in the USA through World's Fairs and amusement parks, and explores how a man who was shunned by the medical establishment changed attitudes to premature babies and saved countless lives.
Producer Mark Rickards.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Seriously, I'm FEMI Martin. |
| 0:07.0 | We have an amazing program for you today, |
| 0:11.0 | a story that starts at the turn of the 20th century and |
| 0:14.3 | spans 40 years, the ripples can still be felt to this day. No more chatter from |
| 0:20.9 | me. Let's join journalist Claire Prentiss with life under glass. |
| 0:29.7 | The exhibit was in Luna Park and it was part of the sideshow. |
| 0:34.4 | It says incubators with living babies, all the world loves a baby. |
| 0:40.6 | It really is the moment the incubators sort of arrive on the American landscape. |
| 0:44.7 | Come in and take a look. |
| 0:45.7 | We've got the show if you've got the knife. |
| 0:49.3 | You hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry. I just weigh two pounds. I didn't wear anymore. My father said you know she's not dead I'm not going to bury her and he said I'm going to put her in the incubator in Connie Allen, the amusement park. |
| 1:03.5 | It was a strange place to find a baby. |
| 1:13.0 | Martin Cooney's infant incubator show |
| 1:16.0 | was sandwiched between the candy floss stand and the roller coaster |
| 1:19.0 | just steps from the beach. |
| 1:21.0 | There, the public could pay a quarter to watch tiny premature babies |
| 1:26.0 | and their struggle between life and death. Cooney had his exhibit at Coney Island, New York from 1903 to 1943 and was dubbed the Incubator Doctor. |
| 1:38.9 | At a time when American hospitals were ambivalent over whether premature babies could or even |
| 1:44.9 | should be saved, Kuni ran his facility as a medical outsider. The incubator |
| 1:51.6 | was not a new idea in 1993. |
| 1:54.0 | Kuni was building on scientific developments which had originated in France in the late 1800s, |
| 2:00.0 | but the principle went back even further than that to the way farmers incubated eggs and chicks. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.