{"id":4653,"date":"2021-02-08T22:01:52","date_gmt":"2021-02-08T22:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/?p=4653"},"modified":"2025-08-28T20:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T20:04:07","slug":"couneys-baby-incubators-vs-the-progressive-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/couneys-baby-incubators-vs-the-progressive-era\/","title":{"rendered":"Couney’s Baby Incubators vs. the Progressive Era"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/a>
(Babies under glass at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific-Exposition, Seattle, Washington. (1909))<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin A. Couney was not your typical Progressive Era American doctor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For one thing, Couney may not have been an officially-approved doctor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that he’d studied under Dr Pierre-Constant Budin. Maybe he had. But if so, he’d have been very young when he did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Couney revised his origin story rather often. That, changing his name at least once, and at-best-sparse documentation makes sorting out his history challenging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s what we know and can reasonably guess about his story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin A. Couney was born in Poland, and named Michael Cohen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ideally, his name wouldn’t have been a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But \u2014 I keep saying this \u2014 we don’t live in an ideal world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Efficiency, Eugenics, and Me<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>A Jew with an obviously-Jewish name might know enough of European and Euro-American culture and history to desire a more conventionally gentile moniker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another point against Couney \u2014 by his era’s standards \u2014 was his attitude toward premature infants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He thought keeping them alive made sense. This was in direct conflict with late Progressive Era eugenic ideals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think American Better Baby Contests and other efforts to standardize Americans and American life were well-intentioned. I also think that there’s more to life than efficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>\"'Lebensunwertes<\/a>And, being Lebensunwertes Leben, I’m none too keen on efforts to prevent people like me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which doesn’t mean that efficiency is a basically bad idea, or that curing disease and dealing with disabilities is wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there was Christine Frederick’s quest to promote American prosperity by encouraging standardized kitchens and shoddy consumer goods.1<\/a><\/sup> “Planned obsolescence” sounds so much nicer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Designing kitchens that work makes sense to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So does standardization: as a general principle. In practice \u2014 I married a woman who is five-foot-nothing. I don’t think she married me because I can (usually) reach standardized kitchen cabinets, and that’s another topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Not Doing Today What Can be Done Tomorrow<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\"Eugenics<\/a>All that, or most of it, is worth more research and writing than I’m giving myself time for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe I’ll get back to Couney’s groundbreaking notion of using egg incubator tech to keep babies from dying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And why I don’t entirely agree with Frederick’s idea that the good old-fashioned ‘buy, break, buy and break again’ philosophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if I do, I’ll be doing it during another day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A tip of the hat, by the way, to number-one daughter \u2014 when online, she mostly uses the name Brigid \u2014 for showing me this ‘sideshow baby incubator’ video:<\/p>\n\n\n\n