Dawn Raffel - The Strange Case of Dr. Couney: How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies

Chicago, 1934

Chicago had already sweated through one hell of a week, and today was only Wednesday. The trouble began with a bang, literally, on Sunday when the cops shot down John Dillinger outside the Biograph. Gangster was seeing a movie. If you didnt know better, you might have believed the deceased was seeking revenge: As the final larcenous breath rattled out of his lungs, the city was being strangled.

By Tuesday, the mercury in the snazzy Havoline Thermometer Tower, soaring over the Century of Progress fairgrounds on the lakefront, had shot up to 105with 109 degrees reported inland at the airport. Either way, it was the hottest day ever on record for Chicago.

Heat deformed the air, which seemed to wobble. Clothes stuck to flesh. Flesh stank. With ice in short supply and the stench of the slaughterhouses ripeningwhere pigs strode doomed over the bridge of sighs and cattle hung bloody from hookspeople fled to the beaches of Lake Michigan to sleep.

During the day, perspiring throngs pressed their way into the Great Halls and pavilions at the worlds fair, less interested in the scientific and cultural marvels on display than in inhaling refrigerated air. They poured out onto the midway, dripping into their summer cottons and brimmed hats, fanning their faces with folded maps, mopping up ice cream that melted faster than they could eat. Freaks, savages, steamy strippers, and miniature humans were there for their viewing pleasure. If people couldnt stanch the sweat, they could at least secure a couple of hours respite from the cruel Depression and the news coming out of Germany.

Today, the highfinally!was supposed to be south of 100. That in itself was cause for celebration. As for the news, for the fifteen minutes between 12:45 and 1:00 p.m., the airwaves would belong to Dr. Martin Arthur Couney and the adorable babies whose lives he had saved in his incubator sideshow.

The radio script had a written instruction not to conduct todays program as a farce. Yes, the announcer could make a few cracks about all the crying and yelping, but he needed to mind himself, on account of the ethical standing of the citys physicians who had a manicured hand in this thing. This baby homecoming would not be half as fun as the midget wedding two weeks earlier. Why, even a former vice president of the United States had been out in the Lilliputian village when that tiny torch singer married her groom, and the cops had to stop the mob from going nuts.

Every day, you had a new extravaganza at the Century of Progress. It wasnt just the grand Hall of Science, the Halls of Religion, and Travel and Transport, the Homes of Tomorrow, with everything prefabricated, some kind of dream. It was Ripleys and strippers and marching bands and neon Deco blazing through the sweltering night. So what if it wasnt as grand as the famous White City back in 1893? Who cared if the old folks didnt find the sky ride quite as stirring as the Ferris wheel they liked to carry on about? You really had to hand it to the planners and the backerstheyd managed to pull a rabbit out of the hat of the Depression.

The worlds smallest man and women, at the Century of Progress.

Given a choice, you might rather escape than eat. People jam-packed the midway, reeking of Tabu perfume, of Burma-Shave, and summer BO, ready to part with whatever they had, dollars thick in silver clips or crumpled in a pocket, a scavenged coin or two, nickels pilfered from a pay phone.

Train after train steamed into Union Station, belching out tourists. Folks at home depended on the radio, the ticket to the world. Todays show would reconvene the tots whod been the littlest humans breathing, premature babies so small you could scarcely imagine a heart, a lung, a soul. Theyd spent the summer of 33 sleeping and cooing in Martin Couneys sideshow on the midway. Infant Incubators with Living Babiesthe sign so big youd have to be dead to miss it. Just next door, inside the Streets of Paris, Sally Rand was doing her scandalous fan dance that made her look naked, but Martin Couney had something most of these people had never seen before.