Dionne Quintuplets During The Great Depression

In the midst of the Great Depression was the birth the Dionne quintuplets, comprised of five identical girls, they were the first ever surviving quintuplets in history, sparking their exploitation. Since the world had never seen anything so unique, it led society and many of those involved with the quintuplets to offer up the children’s lives for publicity and fame. The children were helpless in their own lives, leaving many to blame for their poor uprising. Those who were blamed for the mistreatment of the daughters included their father Olvia who signing away the rights early in their lives to an attraction in Ohio. Their doctor Allan Roy Defoe, who looked after the children, and the government for taking the children away from the care of

The Great Depression was especially hard on the Dionne family. A family of seven, parents Olvia Dionne and Elzire Dionne and their five children unknowingly they were expecting five more. In May 1934 came the birth of The Dionne quintuplets, they were the first ever quintuplets in history to survive more than a few days. They were born in a town just outside of Corbeil by a doctor named Alan Roy Defoe. The birth would immediately shake up the country. “The worldwide Great Depression of the early 1930s was a social and economic shock that left millions of Canadians unemployed, hungry and often homeless. Few countries were affected as severely as Canada during what became known as the Dirty Thirties, due to Canada’s heavy dependence on raw material and farm exports, combined with a crippling Prairies drought. Widespread losses of jobs and savings ultimately transformed the country by triggering the birth of social welfare, a variety of populist political movements, and a more activist role for government in the economy.”The economic state of the country met with the large desire for change led many Canadians to make desperate choices to make their lives better. This desire and the birth of the Dionne quintuplets created a large jump in morale for many Canadians, this new found hope made Canadians want more of the quintuplets. Forcing the children

The girls quickly rose to fame, becoming the world’s sweethearts. The media followed their every move and the public tracked the wherever they were, mostly at an attraction called Quintland. Quintland is an amusement park in Ontario, Canada that housed the five girls in their early childhood, under the care of Defoe. The girls grew so quickly in fame because of the hardships the public was faced with during the Great Depression, the girls served as a perfect distraction from the hard times then was faced with. The public and media being infatuated with the girls for their own selfish need to feel better led the girls to be exploited very early in their childhood. “Between 1934 and 1943, about 3 million people visited a Canadian tourist attraction called Quintland, in the middle of nowhere. They made great journeys to get there, on poor roads, through a landscape of forest, swamp and wilderness, to a point near the village of Corbeil, in Northern Ontario. On arrival: a dusty, frenzied knot of cars and commerce - bumper stickers, "fertility stones", and refreshments. And, to one side, a low modern building with a garden and a high fence - and a public spectacle that today seems uprooted from another century, from fiction. Along the edge of the garden was a raised corridor whose windows were covered by a fine gauze - like a bird hide. In groups of 100 or so, tourists made