Measuring Up: Better Baby Contests at the State Fair (episode 103)
Hot dogs, deep fried oreos, and thrill rides – all things you can find at Minnesota’s State Fair. But dig a little deeper, and you’ll find stories more interesting than the latest food on a stick. Tucked in the History and Heritage Center are two placards highlighting “baby competitions” that once took place on the fairgrounds.
In this episode, historian and host Dr. Chantel Rodríguez unpacks the complicated, nuanced history of Better Baby competitions. What were they, where did they come from, and what were they hoping to achieve? To get the answers, Chantel sits down with public historians Laura Leppink and Sarah Pawlicki.
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Transcripts
Competitions of the Past at the Minnesota State Fair History & Heritage Center (photo courtesy Laura Leppink)
Richardson, Ann. "The Best Crop in the World: Minnesota Joins Other States in Offering Prizes for Most Nearly Perfect Specimens of Babyhood." The Minneapolis Sunday Tribune May 4, 1913, 1-2. (MNHS Digital Newspaper Hub)
Guests
Laura Leppink
Laura Leppink (she/her) is a founding member of REPAIR: Disability Heritage Collective, and she received an MA in Heritage Studies and Public History from the University of Minnesota in 2020. Her most recent work includes an article on “Deaf Agency Through Architectural Design: Olof Hanson’s US Legacy,” coauthored with Gail Dubrow, set for publication in December 2024.
Beyond disability history, Laura is also an advocate and educator in historic preservation trades, serving as a board member with Minnesota-based nonprofit Northern Bedrock Historic Preservation Corps.
In all her work, Laura aims to apply disability justice principles and accessibility practices to existing preservation frameworks.
Sarah Pawlicki
Sarah Pawlicki earned a PhD in History with minors in Heritage Studies and Public History and Native American and Indigenous Studies at the University of Minnesota in 2023.
Sarah's public history work has ranged from mapping and interpreting sites of disability history with REPAIR: Disability Heritage Collective to creating history-based Ethnic Studies lesson plans for high- and middle-school students in Minnesota.
Sarah is currently a Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow, working with the National Historic Landmarks Program to expand the interpretation of women's histories as told through historic places.
Sarah's work has appeared in print and online in forums including Early American Studies, Nursing Clio, and NPS.gov.
Primary Sources
"Better Babies." Woman's Home Companion, November, 1916: 32–36. http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013734101;view=1up;seq= 13 (Accessed September 16, 2024).
Holt, Luther Emmett. Food, Health, and Growth: A Discussion of the Nutrition of Children. New York: Macmillan, 1922. https:// archive.org/details/foodhealthgrowth00holtiala (Accessed September 16, 2024).
Richardson, Ann. "The Best Crop in the World: Minnesota Joins Other States in Offering Prizes for Most Nearly Perfect Specimens of Babyhood." The Minneapolis Sunday Tribune May 4, 1913, 1-2.
"To All Mothers and Mothers-in-Waiting." Woman's Home Companion, January, 1916: 31. http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013734101;view=1up;seq= 13 (Accessed September 16, 2024).
The Farmer’s Wife, May 1914.
Secondary Sources
Klaus, Alisa. “American Women and the ‘Better Baby’ Movement.” In Every Child a Lion: The Origins of Maternal and Infant Health Policy in the U.S. and France, 136–71. Cornell University Press, 1993. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctvr7f4cz.8.
Ladd-Taylor, Molly. “Eugenics and Social Welfare in New Deal Minnesota.” In A Century of Eugenics in America: From the Indiana Experiment to the Human Genome Era, edited by Paul A. Lombardo, 117-40. Indiana University Press, 2011.
Lovett, Laura L. “‘Fitter Families for Future Firesides’: Florence Sherbon and Popular Eugenics.” The Public Historian 29, no. 3 (2007): 69–85. https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2007.29.3.69.
Pawlicki, Sarah and Laura Leppink. “Eugenics and Euthenics at the ‘Great Minnesota Get Together.’” REPAIR: Disability Heritage Collective at the University of Minnesota. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/36759aaef79442df94ebcab0326a1bef (accessed June 5, 2024).
Pearson, Susan J. “‘Infantile Specimens’: Showing Babies in Nineteenth-Century America.” Journal of Social History 42, no. 2 (2008): 341–70. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27696444.
Pernick, Martin S. “Eugenics and Public Health in American History.” American Journal of Public Health 87, no. 11 (1997): 1767–1772. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.87.11.1767
Stern, Alexandra Minna. “Better Babies Contests at the Indiana State Fair: Child Health, Scientific Motherhood, and Eugenics in the Midwest, 1920–35.” In Formative Years: Children’s Health in the United States, 1880-2000, edited by Alexandra Minna Stern and Howard Markel, 121–52. University of Michigan Press, 2002. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3998/mpub.17065.11.
Warren, Sasha. "Eugenics in Minnesota." MNopedia, Minnesota Historical Society. http://www.mnopedia.org/thing/eugenics-minnesota (accessed June 5, 2024).
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