29. The Unfortunate Roosevelt Who Was Dangled in a Cage Outside a Window
In 1906 Eleanor Roosevelt, then 21 and a new mother, was told by her doctor that her newborn daughter, Anna, needed lots of fresh air. The future First Lady had a brainstorm: she had a chicken wire cage, with a wooden basket in it, attached to a window. As she described it in her autobiography, it was: “a kind of box with wire on the sides and top” out of a back window, in which Anna was placed while her mother napped. The unfortunate Anna was understandably terrified and made her feelings known. However, Mrs. Roosevelt’s doctor had also told her to ignore babies’ screams and cries, so she ignored Anna’s shrieks.
The neighbors, however, were alarmed by the caged baby’s continuous cries, and threatened to call The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty Toward Children. Mrs. Roosevelt, who by her own admission “knew absolutely nothing about handling or a feeding a baby“, had thought that she was being a good modern mother, following the best childcare recommendations. She was thus shocked by the neighbors’ negative reaction. As seen below, Eleanor Roosevelt was ahead of her times: a few years after she was criticized for sticking her baby in a window cage, the practice became widespread.