The Intriguing History of 1930s Baby Cages

Yes, that is an infant dangling out a window.

                

By: Lauren Piro

You probably remember your mom being a little more freewheeling about child safety than today's young parents are. Perhaps you roamed aimlessly around the neighborhood until dinner, or rode in a not-so-secure carseat (or, if you were really lucky, a "travel platform").

But new parents from a generation or two ago had nothing on the daring London moms of the 1930s: They literally hung their babies out the window.

Dangling "baby cages" came into vogue after they were invented in 1922, but Gothamist reports that their origin really began with the 1884 book The Care and Feeding of Children, by Dr. Luther Emmett. In his book, Emmett carefully describes how babies need to be "aired" (you know, like a musty rug) to "renew and purify the blood."

But whatever was a doting, apartment-living mom to do? Responding to a lack of homes with outdoor space, some London communities began outfitting windows with infant-sized cages for babies to hang out in.

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