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Monday, July 13, 9-10 pm ET
A child who may have been exhibited in an incubator at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair; an early movie mogul’s dramatic rise and fall; and a controversial design woven into a Navajo rug.
Sideshow Babies - A Colorado woman has a silver baby cup engraved
"Patricia - 1933. A Century of Progress Chicago." She hopes this
1933 Chicago World's Fair souvenir can unlock the mystery of her
mother's unusual start in life. Family lore holds that the Chicago
Public Health Board took premature Patricia from her shoebox cradle
at home and put her in an incubator at the 1933 Chicago World's
Fair. Why were babies exhibited at the fair? HISTORY DETECTIVES
host Elyse Luray learns about the forgotten doctor who brought
life-saving incubator technology to the United States at the turn
of the 20th century.
Lubin Photos - A contributor from Branford, Florida, inherited two
bulging photo albums, dated 1914 to 1916, that contain hundreds of
photos of old silent film stars and a behind-the-scenes look into
an enormous film studio empire - not in Hollywood, but
Philadelphia. She received the albums from a distant relative,
Herbie Lubin. One of the books holds many Western scenes, including
a cowboy character captioned "Herbert Lubin." Other captions refer
to the Siegmund Lubin Studios. Who was Siegmund Lubin? And was
Herbie a movie star? HISTORY DETECTIVES host Tukufu Zuberi takes
viewers on an excursion through an early movie mogul's dramatic
rise and fall.
Navajo Rug - At auction, a contributor bought a rug whose woven
designs intrigued him. A Southwest American history buff, he's
fascinated by the rug's central figure of a man with a feathered
head holding lightning bolts. He believes the figure was never
meant to be captured by a loom. Did the weaver violate a taboo? Who
wove the rug? HISTORY DETECTIVES guest host Eduardo Pagán
meets with a Navajo medicine man and a traditional Navajo weaver
and travels to Crownpoint, New Mexico, long considered the center
of Navajo weaving. Finally, HISTORY DETECTIVES visits a textile
historian to find out who may have been behind this controversial
design.