Lives On Display: The Dionne Quintuplets

Episode 425: In May 1934, five identical girls were born in a farmhouse outside Corbeil, Ontario. They were the first quintuplets known to survive infancy anywhere in the world. Within weeks, the Province of Ontario had taken them from their parents. What followed was nine years inside a government-run compound called Quintland, where millions of tourists paid to watch the Dionne sisters play through one-way glass, twice a day, while their faces sold soap, cereal, and corn syrup across North America. The girls went home in 1943. The horror of what happened next took decades to come to light. Sources: The Canadian Encyclopedia — Dionne Quintuplets | (Canadian Encyclopedia) Dionne Quintuplets: The Miracle Babies | (Canadian Encyclopedia) Dionne quintuplets | (Wikipedia) Dionne quintuplets | Deaths, Parents, Names, & Facts | (Britannica) The Birth of the Dionne Quintuplets | (Government of Canada) The Dionne Quintuplets National Historic Event | (Parks Canada) Dionne Quintuplets (1934—) | (Encyclopedia.com) Dionne Quintuplets (b. 1934) | (Encyclopedia.com) The Miracle and Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets by Sarah Miller (Scholastic Focus, 2017) | (Book) We Were Five: The Dionne Quintuplets' Story from Birth through Girlhood to Womanhood by James Brough with Annette, Cécile, Marie, and Yvonne Dionne (1965) | (Book) Family Secrets: The Dionne Quintuplets' Own Story by Jean-Yves Soucy with Annette, Cécile, and Yvonne Dionne (1997) | (Book) The Dionne Years: A Thirties Melodrama by Pierre Berton (1977) | (Book) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices