Dr. M. A. Couney, who exhibited premature infants at fairs and amusement parks, ran one of the Zone's steadiest attractions. Behind the glass, tiny babies born too early were kept in warm incubators and nursed until they were strong enough to leave. The Official Guide presented it as a demonstration of saving the lives of premature and weakly born infants. Crowds found the babies and their careful scientific care endlessly absorbing.
The concession advertised itself with tall Hungarian storks in the little garden out front. For the Zone Day parade it sent a circus cage full of them. It took in over $72,000 for the season.
At a glance
- Operated by Dr. M. A. Couney; receipts over $72,000.
- Storks stood in the garden in front of the building.
- The incubator concession was among those contracted by July 1913.
Afterward
Demolished with the Zone in 1916.
Where it stood
Infant Incubators stood at about 37.80283 N, 122.43040 W on today's map. The whole fairground over the city →
Sources
- Frank Morton Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. II (1921), ch. XVIII, p. 93
- Frank Morton Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. II (1921), ch. LXVI, p. 361
- Frank Morton Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. III (1921), ch. IX, p. 63
- Official Guide of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915), p. 69
- Map of the Zone concessions, spring 1915 (reproduced in 'Let Me Get There', USC Scalar), Spring 1915 map of the Zone concessions