Got a Baby? Got a Window? - Neatorama

This "baby cage" was marketed for families living in tenements without easy access to outdoor spaces.

Suspended from the side of the building, the baby would have access to fresh air and sunlight through the cage's wire frame, and still have sufficient room to play with toys, according to a patent filed in 1922 by an Emma Read of Spokane, WA. The patent also notes that the cage could double as a place to sleep, with removable curtains working to prevent a draft.

There is an additional photo and further explanation at the Atlantic link.

Link, via. Photo credit Getty Images.

Lucky baby. He got a wire screen. Not all of us grew up so privileged.

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Charles Lindbergh got the very first one.

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I like it, strange as it seems. In a high rise apt. bldg. before AC...as long as you don't have a fear of heights.

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UGH god that makes me nervous just looking at it.

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"Rock-a-bye baby
'bove the rooftops
when the rain blows
your wood beams will rot

When the beams break
the cage, it will fall
and down will come baby,
Caging and all"

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meg FTW!

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"I'm not afraid of heights! I'm afraid of PARENTS!"
---Mel Brooks, HIGH ANXIETY

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Apparently it was a great idea - I couldn't find a historical record of an accident using one of those devices.

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As long as it's properly engineered and constructed, it would be no less safe than a balcony, which technically I guess it is. I'd be more worried about what the baby might rain down on passersby.

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30th December, 2009: http://boingboing.net/2009/12/30/baby-in-overhanging.html

IMG-TIMELINE guys

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I'd be afraid of smaller baby toys falling through the bars.

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I guess baby cages were pretty common back then. I was watching an older movie about a family who had a child that they continually suggested was "lame" or mentally handicapped and they kept him in a cage with a pad lock and only took him out for 5 minutes at a time. Sometimes the child would be in there with the dog as well. It may have been a comical suggestion but it didnt seem so.

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It's also a good way to teach your kid to climb out windows...

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As long as there's not misfortune with the device, it could be good training for possible careers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lunch-atop-a-skyscraper-c1932.jpg

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Too bad Eric Clapton didn't have one.

http://cherylbycheryl.blogspot.com

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the Hasidim in south Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, still use these. every building with Hasidic tenants there has these really intense iron bars on all the windows and there's always a wrought iron version of a baby cage in at least one window. and yes toys do fall through, and sometimes toys are forcibly thrown at shiksa outsiders.

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