Fictions of the scientific imagination: researching the Dionne quintuplets

Journal of Canadian Studies, Winter 1994 by Dehli, Kari

Annette, Yvonne, Marie, Cecile and Emilie Dionne became the darlings of Canadian and North American popular culture in the 1930s. Media organizations eagerly cultivated and sought to satisfy the curiosity of millions of people with stories about the miracle babies. Newspaper readers, radio listeners and movie goers were supplied with facts and images representing almost every aspect of life in the Dionne nursery. The earliest Quintuplet lore to enter popular culture in the Thirties circulated romantic and dramatic tales of innocent children rescued from certain death by modern medicine, and of a benevolent state acting to rescue the five girls from the dangers of poverty, greed and ignorance. Popular accounts of the girls and the adults who surrounded them offered a drama of struggle, survival, heroism, happiness and romance. However, other and more contradictory and confusing stories soon began to appear. Theirs was not to be a fairy tale with an uncomplicated happy ending, nor was it a story where the cast of characters could easily be sorted into good and evil.

In this paper I explore stories told by scientists about the Dionne Quintuplets. The five girls were subjected to intense and detailed scrutiny by a group of researchers working under the leadership of University of Toronto psychologist William E. Blatz. Between March 1935 and March 1938, Blatz exercised a major influence in the Dionne nursery. He hired, trained and supervised the young nurses and teachers who were responsible for applying scientific child - rearing methods to the Quintuplets. In addition to coordinating research and teaching, he also influenced the remodeling of the Dafoe Hospital buildings and grounds, where the five girls spent all their time during this three - year period. Initially built as a hospital, Blatz aimed to turn it into a more school - like environment. Thus rooms and furniture in the nursery incorporated many features from the St. George School for Child Study at the University of Toronto, where Blatz was the director. He also oversaw the design of a circular public viewing gallery and one - way screens to resemble those used in psychological observation rooms. Here the Quintuplets were put on daily display for thousands of tourists flocking to Callander to see the "miracle babies."(f.1)

At first the scientists were interested in the physical survival and healthof the Quintuplets. As the girls miraculously lived through the first few days and weeks, however, psychologists and educators, as well as zoologists, biologists, forensic scientists and dentists began to vie for an opportunity to study them for other reasons. Many scientists had great expectations that these babies -- the only surviving set of identical quintuplets in an age before fertility treatments -- offered opportunities to discover new truths (or affirm old ones) about human nature and growth, or to demonstrate the efficacy of modern child - rearing methods and educational practices. Blatz's enthusiasm for the potential of this research project was palpable: "never before in the history of human genetics have five identical children been born into circumstances where the opportunity not only may but must be provided for following their growth and development under controlled conditions."(f.2)

The Quintuplets provided a unique opportunity to demonstrate the benefits of modern child - rearing and nursery education methods, and to test new theories of child development. Working with children widely and adoringly referred to as "our Quints" offered a chance to demonstrate the efficacy of scientific child - rearing methods to a broader public, beyond the small group of urban and well - educated child - study converts. One journalist wrote in October 1937 that "at the age of three years and four months the quintuplets already provide perhaps the clearest test we have ever had of our modern educational skills and theories," ironically adding that "for once we shall see what the experts can do unaided, or shall we say unimpeded, by the vagaries of home, sweet home." Another writer suggested that "modern methods of bringing up children are on trial at Callander and well do these scientists know it."(f.3)

The reports generated from research in the Dionne nursery were published with great fanfare by the University of Toronto Press in 1938. Stories told by scientists about the Quintuplets' personalities, development and intelligence were widely circulated through newspapers, newsreels and radio programs. This paper revisits these reports, as well as some of the debates about child psychology and child - rearing that they generated among scientists and in the public media more broadly. It also reviews notes of meetings and correspondence between researchers and staffinvolved with the Quintuplets' education and care. While the Dionne girls feature prominently in the story I tell as well as in the stories told by Blatz, my main interest is to explore how he and his colleagues' images and representations of them constructed a set of fictional Quints. Stories fashioned around these images and representations were used to promote, popularize and make claims for the new science of child psychology in the 1930s. Cracks and contradictions in these stories appeared when the girls "failed" to conform to either popular or scientific representations of them, and when the young women who looked after them tried to alter the child - rearing regime that organized life in the Dionne nursery.