Fingy Conners & The New Century

by Richard Sullivan

  The children were ecstatic and awestruck, the women lost in wonderment. The great expanse of water contained within the basin of the Court of Fountains spread out expansively below in one vast flow of luminous golden-glowing liquid broken through by powerful jets from many fountains gushing. A fairyland of electric lights, millions of them it seemed, shone as never before anywhere in history. This was the greatest water illumination ever attempted. A gigantic spray six stories in height rose powerfully like a geyser in front of the Tower, the geyser’s apex seemingly almost close enough to touch. Such a combined hydraulic and electrical display was only possible in the vicinity of Niagara Falls with the protean power that the great cascade was capable of producing.

  The view did not distract the Alderman from noticing that people recognized him and tipped their heads in greeting, or also that the restaurant still had plenty of Connecticut Blue Point Oysters left.

  All was right with the world.

  A Free Lunch

  Hannah and Annie had been planning for months to attend the Pan together, just the two of them. The scheme included leaving the children at home with Sophie as soon after opening day as could be arranged. Both women were excited by the promise of the naughty, the extreme, the dangerous, the exotic and the unbelievable.

  There were many attractions they knew would be unsuitable for children, as well as those others best enjoyed minus the company of husbands or other members of the male species. They wanted to see for themselves the public drinking fountains, the first of their kind anywhere, and the Butterick pavilion, showcasing all the latest dress patterns.

  Together they followed the daily accounts in the News, the Star, the Commercial, the Courier and the Express, the newspapers all competing for who could provide the most colorful coverage of the planning, building and presenting of the astounding attractions of the Pan American Exposition to the point of, the women were quite certain, exaggeration. Especially suspect were the attractions of the Midway which were described in the most outlandish and far-fetched manner.

  “A ‘realistic’ Trip To The Moon? scoffed Annie. “Now, really! How realistic could it be if nobody’s ever been there?” .

  Hannah countered by doubting that an enormous full-grown live elk could possibly be coaxed to voluntarily plunge off a high cliff into a deep pool, or that actual bullfights with matadors and raging bulls would take place daily at the Streets of Mexico amid the streets of Buffalo, New York.

  “And how are the Arctic Esquimaux going to compete in dog sled races in the heat of summer?

  One exhibit that intrigued both, and hopefully would not be unmasked as some faked sideshow attraction, was the Infant Incubator Building.

  Said to be outfitted with the latest scientific equipment to keep babies alive who would normally die due the deficiencies of their premature birth, the infants were placed safely behind plate glass in individual capsules elaborately fitted with ventilating devices. Most curious of all, it was said the machinery was all automatic and that nurses need attend very little to the babes.

  Hannah and Annie discussed this, initially fearing the possibility of seeing helpless babies on display suffering or ignored, knowing that witnessing such an exploitation would affect them terribly. But upon reading glowing opinions from reporters who had gone before them, and after learning that Dr. Roswell Park himself was overseeing the enterprise, they grew increasingly fascinated and eager to view this miracle of modern science with their own eyes.

  At the last minute, Annie announced to Hannah that Mazie, Annie’s oldest, wanted to come along.

  “No,” stated Hannah, flatly.

  “Oh,” responded the surprised Annie. “All right. I just thought…”

  “Annie, we agreed, no children. I didn’t even tell David we were going, because I knew he’d throw a fit. And besides…Mazie sassed me yesterday, so I’m not feeling very generous toward her right now.”

  Annie went silent. Never in their entire years together had Hannah said even one critical word about any of Annie’s children, despite some rough behavior on the part of the older boys. She sensed something was not being said.

  “No, that’s fine, Hannah. We’ve been looking forward to this day as being just yours and mine, anyway.”

  ...

  Mazie shot daggers from her eyes toward her mother and aunt as they walked out the door.

  Even though the West Amherst Gate was a much more convenient entry, Annie wanted to use the spectacular Lincoln Parkway entrance over the Triumphal Bridge again, as the neighborhood along its approach was gracious and elegant, and she especially enjoyed seeing how the city’s wealthier citizens lived.

  “I promise you Hannah, someday I’ll convince JP to buy us a house in this part of the city,” she said wistfully, recalling the temporary rental they’d moved into on Depew Avenue during the dangerous time of the Scoopers’ Strike. She felt that it was here in North Buffalo that she belonged, rather than festering alongside the filthy stinking Buffalo River to the south.

  “Annie, if you want to use the Lincoln Parkway gate, you’re going to have to pay for a wheel chair for us. You know I can’t walk all that distance to the Midway.

  Annie hesitated.

  “Okay. Well, maybe we should use the West Amherst Gate after all, since the naughty things are all grouped conveniently together right there!”

  The two giggled at the prospect.

  “I’m guessing it’s no accident they located the Exposition Hospital right on the Midway,” Hannah laughed, as they passed the building.

  “Kodak?” asked the young man, trying his best to look authoritative despite his baby face.

  “What?” Hannah asked.

  “Do you have a Kodak or other camera hidden away? You have to buy a permit to use it at the Pan.”

  The whole city was aware that this policy was being strictly enforced at the Exposition and a highly unpopular tax it was indeed. The entry fee was twenty five cents as it was, and yet they wanted double that amount in addition, just for the privilege of snapping personal souvenir shots for people’s own memory albums. The Eastman Kodak Company tried to stop it, unsuccessfully. But being bafflingly shortsighted and having unwisely decided not to participate, to not erect a building or even mount an exhibit of their own at the Pan, Kodak exercised no leverage.

  “No, we have no camera, young man,” barked Hannah.

  “Well, it will be confiscated if you do have one and don’t purchase a permit. It’s not worth fifty cents to lose your Kodak,” sneered the officious youngster.

  “What is wrong with you, boy?” snapped Annie, looking ready to pounce on the little pest. “Are you accusing us of something? Because my husband Alderman Sullivan will be very interested in removing you from your position here at the Pan if you are!”

  Almost as if he’d been slapped, the boy jumped back and said, “No, no Ma’am. I meant no harm. I…”

  “Shut up, you little vermin!” shouted Hannah, staring holes into him as the two stalked past him, insulted.

  “The nerve of that little brat!” huffed Annie as she cradled the purse containing her Kodak a bit closer to her bosom.

  They apprehensively approached the compact red brick building at the intersection of the Midway and the Mall, directly across from the merry Alt Nuremberg beer garden restaurant. They managed to ignore all the other barkers’ excitable ballyhoo out front of every other midway attraction, but could not resist seduction by the persuasive solicitator and Dean of the outside talkers himself, the famous Mr. Alexander Donaldson. For fifty years Donaldson, who pronounced his Christian name Alexandah, had been perfecting the art of alluring enticement at every exposition since the London Crystal Palace of 1859.

  The extravagantly mustachioed Donaldson strode back and forth, claiming to all within earshot “…while it is conspicuous for the absence of any unpleasant features, at the same time it is of an eminently instructive and interesting nature and well calculated to provide many hints to mothers and to femal
es generally in the successful rearing of weakly infants.”

  The Sullivan wives were at first put off by the fanciful nature of the building, which was bedecked with dozens of fluttering flags, banderole and colorful pennants more appropriately suited to a Mutuals Rowing regatta than a hospital. Nor did they find endearing the enormous solicitous letters over the colonnaded entry that spelled out INFANT INCUBATOR. They hesitated before parting with their precious quarter.

  Accurately assessing their procrastination, the illustrious talker encouraged as best he could, claiming that many a woman attendee arrived at this very place on the Mall clutching the one and only quarter she would ever spend for entry to any Exposition exhibit.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes, Madame,” responded barker Donaldson.

  “Is it really worth our while, then?” asked Annie.

  “Why Madame, there is nothing else in this entire glorious, monumental, epic Exposition that will affect you more, or quite so deeply, and continue to do so for multitudinous years to come,” Donaldson proclaimed, calling upon the air of absolute certitude emblematic of his profession.

  He noticed Hannah shading her eyes as she looked up at the Alt Nuremberg’s cylindrical tower across the way, a distinctive beacon for the well-heeled tourist at the Pan crazy enough to pay forty-five cents for an imported frankfurter when a ham sandwich could be had at the Pabst for merely ten cents.

  “Is that creature up there real?” she asked.

  “One day this April,” Mr. Donaldson explained, readjusting his tall hat, “before the Exposition was finished, a woman whose age is a trifling subject, for time has touched her lightly, whose features yet mirror the buoyance of youth, a vision dressed to the tips of her ears in furs, was driven by this very spot in an open barouche. She glanced with the tragic eyes of Phedre lightened with merriment at the artistically age-mellowed walls of the Alt Nuremberg we view there across the way. She gazed up at that tower just as you do so now, and saw there, in a nest of pliant reeds, its long legs doubled under and its head poked to the west at half-elevation, a stork, the indispensable adjunct to all German villages. Then she looked over here at our red building bearing the conspicuous announcement: INFANT INCUBATORS. The woman in the carriage, the famous Mme. Sarah Bernhardt of Paris, France, regarded the two edifices and then said, ‘Eez not ze stork on ze wrong beelding?’

  The women roared with laughter.

  “Although the actress continued on her way the stork has thus remained, having sat there ever since in the exact position faithfully watching over the babes it has delivered here to us.”

  The ladies giggled approvingly at Donaldson’s colorful tale and handed over their quarter to the attendant.

  As they shyly entered the doorway of the exhibit they were guided along the designated pathway by an iron railing designed to contain the wanderings of the overly-curious. The large main incubator room was bright and airy, painted snowy white, with a very high ceiling. The blue railings kept visitors corralled at the perimeter of the room along which the twelve incubators were arranged, leaving the spacious center of the gallery unoccupied. Circumscribing the large room below the level of the incubators ran a polished steel pipe about eight inches in diameter. At each incubator another pipe connected to this main pipe, a gauge at the side of each unit measuring delivered sanitized air to the babes. Another pipe followed a similar route above, near the ceiling. A pipe emerging from the top of each incubator withdrew stale air from each unit and sent it away.

  Each little glass and polished steel cubicle housed a single infant. Every beribboned newborn was dressed in warm flannel from head to toe, save for their bright pink hands and their bald heads snugly cushioned on dainty pillows. They had been taken from mothers of low vitality when the conditions of food and air made their survival outside of this rarefied enclosure impossible.

  Each pod was supported by metal legs that elevated the housing to a comfortable working height. Each unit had a double glass door in front and glass windows at the sides.

  Two nurses in spotless white floor length dresses, their hair neatly gathered at the tops of their heads, wandered from incubator to incubator assessing the monitors, feeding the infants every two hours with a nasal spoon, and changing their diapers.

  Two male attendants were stationed here as well, their contribution less than hand-lending, other than offering a spoken History of Modern Infant Incubation.

  “The employment of incubators for the purpose of saving the lives of prematurely born or weakly infants, although much on the increase in all other civilized countries of the world, has not as yet become a general factor either in the United States or in Great Britain,” the guide intoned. “France and Germany use such methods to a large extent and it is proven with satisfactory results. One of the most essential measures to preserve the lives of prematurely born or weakly infants is to protect them from change of temperature and cold. In bygone days these children were wrapped in wadding or sheepskin with the wool left on. In Silesia and Westphalia infants were sometimes placed in a jar filled with feathers. In the United States the cot or cradle was placed near the hearth, a custom which entailed the necessity of watching the fire by day and by night so that the temperature should be kept as constant as possible. Hot water bottles inserted in the bedding was a custom also largely resorted to. Devices of this nature, however, could not be relied upon; their success was too dependent upon chance.”

  “In 1878 the first attempt was made to construct an infant incubator on scientific principles. The celebrated Dr. Tarnier when visiting the Jardin d’Acclimatation at Paris was struck by the artificial couveuses for the rearing of poultry, and the thought entered his mind that a similar apparatus might be utilized for the rearing of children. He therefore ordered to be fabricated a couveuse, sufficiently ventilated and large, to contain one or two infants. Although defective in many respects, notably in the mode of heating, Mr. Tarnier’s innovation was attended with a fair measure of success and many lives were saved by its agency.”

  A nurse who had been feeding an infant with a nasal spoon suddenly became quite agitated as the little one began to distress. She quickly grabbed the babe’s feet and held him upside down, like a bat from a rafter. She then slapped him on the back as the child choked and coughed. The women present grew very distressed themselves seeing the infant struggle to breathe. The nurse then took the infant and draped him over her shoulder, patting him continually between the shoulder blades as his choking subsided, the child screaming with fright. Seeing the alarm on the faces of all the women who had stopped listening to the male guide she said, “The nasal spoon method sometimes causes an infant to inhale the mother’s milk, and we must expectorate all the liquid from their lungs lest they contract pneumonia. Do not be alarmed. The child will calm in a few moments after I get him to clear his little lungs.”

  Annie and Hannah were unsettled. The guide continued his lecture. They looked to leave, but dozens of people lingering in front and behind caused them to remain.

  “The heat of the incubator,” the guide continued, “is regulated by a thermostat, the construction of which is so delicate that the slightest variation of temperature suffices to set it in motion. Consequently the heat within the incubator, never varies more than 2° F.

  “To ventilate the incubator, there is a pipe which is conducted through the wall of the building so that no air but outside air is supplied to the infant within. This pipe delivers the air into a box at the side of the incubator, but before the child is permitted to breathe the air, it is first moistened and washed by being passed through a layer of absorbent material suspended over a utensil containing an antiseptic solution. In the same box is dry wool which takes up any physical impurities. A second pipe conducts the air from this box into the bottom and center of the incubator. Thus the air is washed, filtered, and warmed before it reaches the infant. So long as the lamp or gas burns, the temperature and ventilation within the incubator will be automatically maintai
ned. Every two hours, by day and night, the infants are taken out and supplied with breast-food and their coverings cleaned.”

  Annie and Hannah had each birthed premature infants and both had suffered miscarriages. Visions of their past torment entered each woman’s mind, but neither spoke her thoughts aloud to the other.

  As they prepared to depart the room they were solemn, but not unhappy, knowing that their child-bearing days were not yet over, and thus the future looked brighter because of this new technology.

  “Adjoining the incubator room you will next visit the model nursery, constructed principally of glass, in which there is a small pharmacy, contrivances for sterilizing milk, scales for weighing, miniature tubs for bathing, etcetera. It need hardly be said that scrupulous cleanliness is observed in every minute detail of this establishment. We can confidently claim that by means of this improved incubating system, eighty-five percent of prematurely and weakly born infants are saved.”

  Hannah observed that in the short time they spent there that the nurses washed their hands twice.

  “I’m starting to get hungry,” said Annie.

  The brilliant sun blinded the two upon emerging from the incubator building. They shaded their eyes.

  “Well,” said Hannah, “I can’t afford the menu at the Alt Nuremburg, and you won’t let me go anywhere near the Pabst restaurant until Junior announces that he’s comfortable about having us see him working there, and I’m already tired from walking, so what do you propose?”

  “I propose,” said Annie with a twinkle,” that we next visit Fair Japan, right over there,” she said pointing directly across the Midway’s avenue to the beautiful red foreign construction. “And afterward I will treat you to a rickshaw ride on our way to a big surprise.”