Quintuplets Research Paper

They Were Five On May 28th, 1934, a Canadian sensation was born: Annette, Emilie, Yvonne, Cecile, and Marie (Berton, 2013, p. 1). The Dionne 's were born in the small town of Corbeil, Ontario, and were the first quintuplets to survive after birth. This was a shock to Canada and to the world, and became a very entertaining and profitable business for Canada. However, this event brought much controversy to Canada, a controversy that may be one of the worst Canada has made. Due to the fame of the Quintuplets, it became a worldwide media circus, with many articles written about them daily. The Dionne family had always struggled financially, even though there was a great amount of profit being earned from the Quintuplets. Also, the government

Right from birth until age ten, they were exploited by everyone and anyone, and were treated as if they were a freak show for all. As soon as news broke about their birth, they aroused worldwide attention (Berton, 2013, p. 1) so the government detained them, and the quintuplets “spent 9 years of their lives on display to millions of tourists in a specially-built hospital called 'Quintland '” (CTV News, 2015, p. 1). They were then exposed to the world for anyone’s entertainment and therefore received little to no privacy from the outside world. Around 6000 tourists visited them per day at Quintland. The media immediately became obsessed over the Quintuplets because of the peoples ' interests in them, and “the girls were used in various types of advertisements” (Gaffney, 2009, p. 1). Due to the fact that they made a lot of profit, they were watched to maintain their behavior, which meant that they rarely had any alone time, or privacy, which would become a major controversy in Canada during the 1930 's. And even though they were a media sensation, and many were able to profit from this, somehow, the family could not support themselves