The Exposition Prize Nobody Knew Was a Baby
A one-month-old boy in the care of the Washington Children's Home Society was offered as a prize at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, and no one had claimed him.
Seattle.—A baby boy, one month old, the charge of the Washington Children's Home Society, was one of the prizes offered at the exposition. His name is Ernest and maybe he will have a surname if the winner, holding the proper ticket, comes to claim him. L. J. Covington, in charge of the society booth in the Agricultural Building, said that no one had claimed the baby. The winner will not know what the prize is when he comes to the booth and Mr. Covington is anxiously waiting to see what will happen when the ticket holder makes the discovery.
“The winner will not know what the prize is when he comes to the booth and Mr. Covington is anxiously waiting to see what will happen when the ticket holder makes the discovery.”
The story is a jarring reminder of how casually child welfare and publicity could intersect in the fairground economy of 1909. Today, such a promotion would be unthinkable; the item survives as a strange window into the ethics of an era that treated a foundling as a raffle surprise.
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