The 1930s Baby Cage For City Apartments

In 1922, Emma Read patented a wire enclosure that was bolted outside a flat window. At the time, doctors believed city babies needed constant fresh air to prevent rickets, but many London apartments had no garden. So mothers would place their infant in the cage, suspended many feet above the street, for naps. They were sold in Chelsea for a few pounds. The cages were used in London and New York in the 1930s but disappeared by the 1950s due to safety fears and increasing traffic pollution.