Unseen History

With over 40,000 artifacts,
five current outreach exhibits, and two stories full of history, culture, and art open to the public, the Dacotah Prairie Museum is best known for its records of Brown County. However, there’s much more to the institution than meets the eye. In fact, only about five percent of the museum’s many items are ever on display at any given time. The rest quietly sit out of sight, one such item being a juvenile iron lung. 

In the 1970s, the Dacotah Prairie Museum received an iron lung made for children from Avera St. Luke’s Hospital. According to Sherri Rawstern, Curator of Education at the museum, it’s possible they received the juvenile machine rather than an adult-sized one because of its smaller size and relatively easier transportation, but the true reason remains unknown. Either way, the device changed hands from St. Luke’s to the third floor of the museum. 

Despite rarely being on display, the iron lung stands as more than just an artifact. Rather, it’s a larger symbol of an era. 

The Iron Lung’s Role in History 

The iron lung was a medical device created in 1927 at Harvard University by Philip Drinker and Louis Shaw. When the polio epidemic was ramping up in America until its peak in 1952, the iron lung assisted those afflicted by polio’s paralysis, left unable to breathe on their own as their respiratory systems had ceased to function. Strangely or, fascinatingly enough, patients would enter the metal apparatus, which served as a pressurized chamber. The pressure would force their lungs to rise and fall, simulating breathing while saving thousands of lives during the epidemic. 

Though life-saving, living in the iron lung was not easy. Rawstern recounts conversations she’d had with Helen Bergh, former Curator of Education of the museum. According to Bergh, patients in the iron lung would have been put on a liquid diet, as the muscles used for chewing would have been paralyzed.

Iron Lung being displayed. Photo by Audrey Reineke

Additionally, Bergh stated that if the iron lung’s power failed, nurses would have to run the machine manually. They’d count the beat just to keep the patient inside the machine alive; a stressful process for those in and outside of the iron lung. 

Fortunately, there was a slight accommodation for patients of the iron lung. Above the sling holding patients’ heads, a mirror was often attached, tilted to allow patients to see themselves and others. 

Some patients would also eventually leave the iron lung, having only been in it temporarily, often in addition to undergoing other treatments such as physical therapy. However, many spent their lives in the iron lung. The last person to have done so, Paul Alexander, passed away on March 11, 2024. 

South Dakota was no stranger to polio, having one of the highest per-capita number of cases from the 1940s to 1950s. Furthermore, Aberdeen itself was no stranger to the sickness’s treatment, with as many as six iron lungs having been in use around the 1940s at St. Luke’s Hospital. The 40 & 8 organization once affiliated with the American Legion had donated one themselves in 1938; the same iron lung for children that was later donated to the Dacotah Prairie Museum in the early 1970s. The museum’s iron lung sat in Lourde’s Hall of St. Luke’s campus up on the fourth floor, where as many as 40 polio patients were treated at a time. 

Putting the Iron Lung on Exhibit

When the iron lung was donated in the early 1970s, the Dacotah Prairie Museum was composed of Director Elsworth Brown, Secretary Alexa Mitchell, and volunteer Helen Bergh. How the group managed to get it into the building initially is unknown, but they likely required the help of a few extra volunteers, according to Rawstern. 

Pulling the machine out later for an exhibit in 2001 required a bit of work for the museum’s new staff. Rawstern recalls Neil Schaunaman, husband of the museum’s new Curator of Exhibits at the time Lora Schaunaman, and custodian Dick Schooley having to remove the sling, which supported the patient’s head, from the iron lung. They then had to remove the cover through which the head would poke out from. Only then would the machine barely fit into the elevator before being transported for display on exhibit. 

The iron lung was first displayed when the museum featured its “Avera St. Luke’s 100 years of Blessings” exhibit; the grand opening was on October 16, 2001. There, the machine sat in Gallery 1 just ahead of the second-floor landing, where the Children’s Frontier Town exhibit is now. The exhibit also extended onto the second-floor landing, with a case displaying artifacts related to the hospital. Surrounded by old flyers, newspaper clippings, and mannequins modeled after those at St. Luke’s, the machine was displayed until October 2002.

Outside of that, the iron lung was “displayed” at an exhibit at Northern State University in the Jewett Science Center from September 2020 to July 2022. More specifically, a life-sized photo of the iron lung was displayed as transporting the item posed a challenge. The exhibit in which the photo of the iron lung sat was titled “Epidemic,” which covered the history of epidemics from the 1830s to 1950s, including smallpox, diphtheria, and typhoid fever, among others. Many artifacts from the eras were on display in front of the iron lung’s photo on the back wall. 

An iron lung used negative pressure to help push air into and out of a patient’s lungs. The museum’s iron lung was a juvenile model used for children. Photo by Audrey Reineke

Purpose Despite Difficulty

The juvenile iron lung was not an easy artifact to transport, store, or showcase. This difficulty poses the question of why the museum accepted it back then. According to Rawstern, the museum accepted it not just as any other artifact, but as the marker of a larger era, which brought to light the trials and technology following the polio epidemic. 

“How are things and people going to change?” posed Rawstern. 

She continued, noting that technology is always evolving, warranting a record of what once was. With a disease as brutal as the polio epidemic, Rawstern noted that it’s especially important to preserve relics of the time. She stressed that if there is no trace of an item, people may not believe it ever existed. After all, a large mechanical chamber that many people were treated in, and some lived in, may hardly seem real when first considered. 

And yet, it was. The tragedy that spanned years and afflicted thousands was not a work of fiction, but a sobering reality for those living through it. Now, well over 50 years later, a piece of the era quietly sits among the third floor of the Dacotah Prairie Museum. Though it’s been on display a limited number of times, its significance continues to lurk as long as the world around us continues to change. Perhaps one day it will appear in a future display, re-emerging in a new era. //