The Dionne Quintuplets: Fortune ... But Unfortunate?

Annette, Emilie, Yvonne, Cecile and Marie - the Dionne Quints - aroused worldwide attention after their birth at Corbeil, Ontario in 1934. This miracle (they were the only identical quintuplets in recorded history to survive), plus their cuteness, the poverty of their French Canadian parents, and the controversy over their guardianship, made them the sensation of the Depression era: the 1930s. In an unbelievable move, the Ontario Government removed them from their parents and placed them in a specially-built hospital, which became a major tourist attraction: "Quintland." This lecture, as well as a documentary film, will look at their father's legal battle to regain guardianship, as well as their continuing attention in the popular eye and their fight for compensation.

* Lecture Notes *

Link to PowerPoint presentation (PDF format)

 

Reading:

Barry Came, "A Family Tragedy," Maclean's (21 Nov. 1994), 40-43. [LINK]

Also go through the following website, which frames some of the debate over the Dionne Quintuplets:

CBC, "The Dionne Settlement: Justice at Last," available online at: http://www.tv.cbc.ca/newsinreview/apr98/dione/index.htm

 

What do you think?

Further Reading:

"Dionne Quints," http://www.city.north-bay.on.ca/quints/digitize/dqdp.htm (An interesting website with links to primary materials, timelines, and popular magazine images.)

Arnup, Katherine. "Raising the Dionne Quintuplets: Lessons for Modern Mothers."Journal of Canadian Studies 29:4 (Winter 1994-1995): 65-81.

 

Berton, Pierre. The Dionne Years: A Thirties Melodrama. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977.

 

Brough, James, Annette Dionne, Cecile Dionne, Marie Dionne, and Yvonne Dionne. We Were Five: The Dionne Quintuplets’ Story From Birth Throughout Girlhood to Womanhood. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965.

 

Dehli, Kari. "Fictions of Scientific Imagination: Researching the Dionne Quintuplets." Journal of Canadian Studies 29:4 (Winter 1994-1995): 86-107.

 

Doyon, Pierre and Larry Prochner. "Researchers and Their Subjects in the History of Child Study: William Blatz and the Dionne Quintuplets." Canadian Psychology 38:2 (May 1997): 103-110.

"Point- Counterpoint: Gazing Through the Window: The Ethics of Dionnology?" Journal of Canadian Studies 29:4 (Winter 1994-1995): 144-152.

"Quintuplets." Time. 14 June 1934: 39-41.

 

Soucy, Jean Yves, Annette Dionne, Cecile Dionne, and Yvonne Dionne. Family Secrets: The Controversial and Shocking Story of the Dionne Quintuplets. Trans. Kathe Roth. Toronto: Stoddart Publishing Company, 1996.

 

Tesher, Ellie. The Dionnes. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1999.

 

Welch, D. "The Dionne Quintuplets: More Than an Ontario Showpiece-- Five Franco-Ontarian Children." Journal of Canadian Studies 29:4 (Winter 1994/95): 36-64.

 

Wright, Cynthia. "They Were Five: The Dionne Quintuplets Revisited." Journal of Canadian Studies 29:4 (Winter 1994/1995): 5-14.