The Corner Society "Childproof: Health, Safety, and the Electric Vaporizer, c. 1920-1990"

Dr. Alexander Parry, Assistant Professor of Health Humanities and Bioethics, University of Rochester Medical Center

Childproof: Health, Safety, and the Electric Vaporizer, c. 1920 - 1990

Over the course of the twentieth century, businesses, medical practitioners, and magazines for parents and homemakers routinely prescribed electric vaporizers to treat coughs, colds, croup, and other respiratory illnesses. These commercial devices were portrayed as safe and effective alternatives to old-fashioned steam kettles and were expected to relieve the discomfort of sick children at home. At the same time, these vaporizers could burn, shock, and trip their users or cause house fires and explosions. From the 1950s to 1970s, serious injuries involving hot-water vaporizers pushed consumer protection advocates to reconsider the safety of these appliances for children. This talk shows how and why U.S. experts and families changed their minds about the benefits of hot steam and the risks of domestic technology. The rise and fall of the electric vaporizer fueled continuing debates over the possibility of childproofing home appliances and the social duty to protect children from injuries.

Dr. Alexander Parry is a historian of medicine and Assistant Professor of Health Humanities and Bioethics at the University of Rochester Medical Center. His research focuses on home injuries and consumer product safety from the early-twentieth century to the present. His current book project examines the ways U.S. society has tried to control the use and sale of risky appliances using education, markets for safe goods, and engineering. This work has won funding from the National Science Foundation; Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy; and National Endowment for the Humanities. Alex has written broadly on U.S. public health and the home for Isis, the Journal of the History of Biology, Nursing Clio, and the Washington Post. He also directs the interdisciplinary Injury Studies Network.