Motography (Apr-Dec 1911)

80 MOTOGRAPHY Vol. VI, No. 2. "Can't I Give My Baby Beer?' Water Babies at the Lincoln Park Beach. Free Pure Milk for Sick Babies. The Producer of ''Summer Babies" Giving Instructions. ing a drink, presses the can to the baby's lips. Just then a visiting nurse enters, sees what the mother is giving her child and lays a firm hand on the woman's shoulder. She remonstrates with the father and mother for giving the baby the beer and the father with an angry scowl slinks off, muttering that it is his baby and he can give his own baby whatever he chooses. The nurse leaving here encounters a group of mothers on the street, one of which has a sick baby. After much persuasion the mother accompanies her to the baby tent. On the way the nurse points out a poster, the headline of which reads, "Don't kill your baby," and shows the kind of food to give baby and the kind not to give him. This poster is printed in several different languages, Hebrew, Polish, German, English, etc., and is doing much toward saving babies. At the baby tent, on the roof of the Mary Crane day nursery, the nurse turns the baby over to a physician, who strips the child, weighs it, and gives it to another nurse, who assigns it to a clean white bed, along with a score of other little tots. The mothers here are taught how properly to care for their babies and are supplied with medicine, etc. Every little girl in the Ghetto, who is old enough and strong enough — though there are many who are not — is given charge of the youngest infant to care for while the mother busies herself with other work. "Little Mothers of the Ghetto" is the title preceding a scene which is truly typical of this section of Chicago. Four or five little girls, each with a baby in her arms, are shown talking to one of their good friends, the nurse, who pats each little one on the head and asks how the babies are getting on. At the milk and ice station are shown mothers waiting for their daily supply of pure milk, which is furnished to the mothers by the health department nurses free of charge. The department also gives these mothers small ice boxes and supplies them with ice to keep the baby's milk cool and clean. Little day outings at the park and beaches show nurses with little toddlers playing games on the grass or paddling in the water and playing in the sand at the beach. Under the title, "What shall we do to be saved?" is shown a large group of babies, some laughing, some crying. There are not less than twenty of them and they make a fine bouquet. This film should prove a valuable educational contribution and besides being genuinely interesting to all picture theater patrons will do an immense good in furthering the cause of saving babies. The film is 600 feet in length, released with a short comic, entitled "Gossiping Yapville," Tuesday, August 22. It has already received an immense amount of free newspaper publicity, and the Chicago press is unanimous in praising its good work. Here is what the Chicago Post of August 10 had to say about it, after the reporter had witnessed a preliminar3> showing: How Chicago's babies are being cared for will be shown throughout the city at the five-cent shows under the title "Summer Babies." Pictures that will be placed in all the shows, beginning on August 22, were given a trial exhibition today at the Schiller building and were approved by Dr. George B. Young, health commissioner ; Assistant Commissioner Koehler, Dr. Caroline Hedger and Sherman C. Kingsley, president of the United Charities.