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The Weirdest Ways Children Were Treated in History

Khalid Elhassan March 28, 2021 36 min

Baby dangling over the street in a cage. The Sun

Child in a window cage. Rare Historical Photos

27. The Decline of a Hazardous Fad That Terrorized and Endangered Many Unfortunate Children

Baby cages hit peak popularity in 1930s London. They were handed out by neighborhood communities, such as the Chelsea Baby Club, to all members who lacked a backyard. Even The Royal Institute of Architects pushed for the increased use of baby cages. In 1935, it all but called for making baby cages mandatory. The organization, which warmly praised the Chelsea Baby Club’s practice of giving contraptions to members, wrote that fixtures for the cages were essential features that should be standard in all middle-class housing windows.

World War II and the years of German bombers, rockets, and missiles, ended the use of baby cages in London. They made a comeback after the war, but were not as popular as before, and sales gradually declined. The world, and attitudes towards safety, had changed. There was growing awareness of the immediate risks of the cages failing, and sending babies plummeting to their doom on the street below. There were also long-term health concerns. Increased automobile traffic led to an increase in exhaust fumes and other pollutants, which made city air anything but “fresh”. Since getting fresh air was why baby cages existed in the first place, the contraptions lost their chief purpose.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.