The Strange Case of Dr. Couney

by Dawn Raffel

  “I should like to emphasize the fact that we believe”: Julius Hess, ibid.

  “who have come here for the purpose”: Martin Couney, ibid.

  One paper boasted that while Canada had the Dionne quintuplets: “Tiny Infant Attracts Nationwide Interest,” Atlantic City News, August 17, 1934, p. 1.

  At noon on September 12: The precise details of Hildegarde’s journey are detailed in an unidentified newspaper clipping provided by Emanuel Sanfilippo (the baby’s brother), July 6, 2015. Mr. Sanfilippo provided a half-dozen such clippings.

  heated to 80 degrees: Unidentified newspaper clipping provided by Emanuel Sanfilippo.

  “the flickering spark of life glimmered”: “Hammonton Incubator Baby to Get New Home,” Associated Press, dateline Hammonton, New Jersey, September 11, 1934; article provided by Emanuel Sanfilippo.

  “We cannot reveal the child’s name” . . . “The child is colored”: Press release, September 25, 1934, A Century of Progress records, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago, Box 143.

  “lots of Negro and Chinese babies”: Paul Harrison, “New York Letter,” The Brownsville Herald (Texas), August 8, 1933, p. 12. Oddly, Couney himself was in New York when this feature ran. In 1939, the famous columnist Walter Winchell would write that while the number-one attraction at the New York World’s Fair was the Perisphere, “the little Negro babies” in Martin Couney’s exhibit are “what make the mouth corners curl.” Walter Winchell, “Walter Winchell on Broadway,” Daily Mirror (New York), repr. Bradford Evening Star (Pennsylvania), June 3, 1939, p. 7.

  Mobs of people: William Shinnick, “Jam Fair As Closing Nears,” Chicago Daily Tribune, October 28, 1934, p. 1.

  The Century of Progress made a modest profit: Ibid.; this was widely reported and factored into the decision-making regarding the 1939–1940 New York World’s Fair.

  Herman Bundesen made his move: Bundesen’s detailed protocol for Chicago, and his showbiz turn, are found in Gerald Oppenheimer, “Prematurity as a Public Health Problem: US Policy from the 1920s to the 1960s,” American Journal of Public Health 86, no. 6 (June 1996), p. 872. In her papers, Julius Hess’s nurse wrote that some of the nurses at Cook County Hospital’s new premature station were trained at the Century of Progress. Evelyn Lundeen, “History of the Hortense Schoen Joseph Premature Station,” The Voice of the Clinic 2 (Fall 1937).

  Chicago’s citywide initiative was to become: Oppenheimer, “Prematurity as a Public Health Problem,” pp. 872–873.

  “My Little Brother”

  “My parents never spoke about him”: Letter from Emanuel Sanfilippo to the author, July 6, 2015.

  “This hat belongs”: All documentation in this chapter was provided by Emanuel Sanfilippo, July 6, 2015.

  Sorrow in Sea Gate

  Isador was dying and wouldn’t last through spring: Isador Schulz’s 1936 will (file 5179, Kings County Surrogate Court Archive) indicates that a private nurse had tended to him in his final illness.

  Maye’s condition was sudden, and urgent: “Mrs. Martin Couney, Operator of Fair Baby Incubator, Dies,” Chicago Tribune, February 23, 1936. The obituary states she had been ill for three weeks. Her New York City death certificate (5100) identifies the cause as cerebral arteriosclerosis.

  Maye died on the table: Her death certificate and obituaries indicate this surgery and her death at the Manhattan Neurological Institute.

  “Leave As Soon As You Get This”

  The letter that came from Uncle Martin: Ilsa and Alfred Ephraim, interview with Lawrence Gartner, January 1980. The letter itself and the recording of this part of the interview have been lost. Dr. Gartner relayed the information to me on July 20, 2015. Ruth Freudenthal, the Ephraims’ daughter, subsequently confirmed that she came here with her parents after her great-uncle sent for them in 1936, and that they left all their furnishings behind, on his instructions.

  No flood of Jews: For a thorough exploration of the difficulty of bringing in Jewish refugees, see Steven Pressman, 50 Children: One Ordinary American Couple’s Rescue Mission into the Heart of Nazi Germany (New York: Harper Perennial, 2015); Edwin Black, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race, rev. ed. (Washington, DC: Dialog Press, 2012). See also Laurel Leff, Buried by The Times: The Holocaust and America’s Most Important Newspaper (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 44–45. Leff contends that even The New York Times was not entirely sympathetic. In 1939, the St. Louis, a ship filled with more than nine hundred Jewish refugees, spent nine days waiting near the American coast before they were infamously turned away. The Times reported on the crisis but did not publish an editorial about it until two days after the ship was on its way back to Europe, remaining silent while the refugees’ fate was being decided.

  “Why do you want to know about my grand-uncle?”: Ruth Freudenthal, telephone conversation with the author, August 12, 2015.

  “Whatever she said is true”: Ruth Freudenthal, interview with the author, August 18, 2015. All of Ruth Freudenthal’s quotations in this chapter are from that interview.

  The Ones Who Got Away

  “The doctor said, ‘The boys won’t make it’”: Norma Johnson, interview with the author, August 20, 2015.

  Playing with Matches

  Its planners expected this fair to easily exceed: The New York Times, October 28, 1940, p. 1, called it “the biggest, costliest, most ambitious undertaking ever attempted in the history of international expositions.”

  “If Science, like Art, is to perform”: Einstein’s speech in the rain was widely reported. I watched it on Science Planet’s Vimeo, https://vimeo.com/28281530.

  General Motors’ Futurama: The depiction of the popular exhibits and the overall feeling at the 1939–1940 World’s Fair are informed by two books—David Gelernter, 1939: The Lost World of the Fair (New York: Free Press, 1995), and James Mauro, Twilight at the World of Tomorrow: Genius, Madness, Murder, and the 1939 World’s Fair on the Brink of War (New York: Ballantine Books, 2010), along with many clippings found in the Patricia D. Klingstein Library at the New-York Historical Society.

  the Amusement Zone was the place: Descriptions of the Amusement Zone are based on my viewing of the World’s Fair photo collection in the archives of the Queens Museum, June 4, 2015, courtesy archivist Richard J. Lee.

  “bristling with appendages and cast in crepuscular light”: Ingrid Schaffner, Salvador Dalí’s Dream of Venus: The Surrealist Funhouse from the 1939 World’s Fair, photographs by Eric Schaal (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002), p. 10.

  envisioned some of the women with hideous fish heads: Ibid., pp. 105–106. The illustrated book details the entire conflict, including the angry tracts.

  the American Medical Association had honored him: William A. Silverman, “Incubator-Baby Side Shows,” Pediatrics 64, no. 2 (August 1979), p. 137. Silverman writes that the gift was given in 1937. I could find no further record of it.

  Martin had started early, writing in January: Letter from Martin Couney to Maurice Mermey, Department of Exhibits and Concessions, January 7, 1937, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, Manuscripts and Archives Division. The New York Public Library. Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations (hereafter NYPL).

  He followed up with eight references: Report from W. H. Lynn to George P. Smith (Department of Exhibits and Concessions), February 7, 1938, summing up his interview with Dr. Couney, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL.

  He sweetened his résumé: Ibid.

  With permission, he dropped the names of Dr. Frederick Freed . . . and Dr. Thurman Givan: Letter from George P. Smith, Jr., to Director of Exhibits and Concessions, March 3, 1938, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL.

  Many years later, Thurman Givan would write: Letter from Thurman Givan to Lawrence Gartner, January 18, 1971, Newborn Medicine History Collection, Pediatric H
istory Center, American Academy of Pediatrics.

  Both doctors asserted their willingness: Letter from George P. Smith, Jr., to Director of Exhibits and Concessions, March 3, 1938, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL.

  the committee member who objected to the exhibit: Letter from H. A. Flanigan to President, March 10, 1938, and memorandum from W. Earl Andrews to President, March 12, 1938, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL. As it happens, the two-headed dead-embryo showman, Lew Dufour, did get a concession, called Nature’s Mistakes; this one featured animals.

  he intended to give the building: Memorandum from Ruth S. Witherspoon to Director of Exhibits and Concessions, May 19, 1937, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL.

  At first, he estimated initial expenses at $80,000: Ibid.

  By February of 1938, that had already jumped: Financial analysis for Infant Incubator project, February 15, 1938, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL.

  “He enjoys a very fine reputation”: “Credit and Financial Comments on [Martin Couney’s] Application for Concession,” January 25, 1938, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL.

  Dun & Bradstreet reported: Ibid.

  a rat-infested mess: Letter from George P. Smith to M. J. Lembo, March 2, 1939, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL.

  the extravagant U-shaped structure: The specifics of the building are found in an undated press release from Ruth R. Meier, Public Relations Council for Skidmore & Owings. New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL. The building was also widely described in the press.

  six carpenters “on a job that could easily stand twenty men”: Amusement Control Committee memo from A. N. Consier, March 23, 1939, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL.

  forced to sell critical stocks: Report from George Smith to Director of Exhibits and Concessions, April 4, 1938, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL.

  bickering about everything from smidgens of inches: A March 25, 1939, letter from Louis Skidmore, the architect, to Joseph L. Hautman, on the board of design, relays his client’s complaint about the reduction of allowable size from three to two and a half inches. New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL.

  install an electric dishwasher: Letter from George P. Smith to Director of Exhibits and Concessions, May 20, 1939, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL.

  “lay an egg”: “Incubator Man Tells Fair Solons to Lay an Egg,” unidentified newspaper clipping, Newborn Medicine History Collection, Pediatric History Center, American Academy of Pediatrics.

  “my nurses are strictly prohibited to smoke in the building”: Letter from Martin Couney to Knox Burnett, March 25, 1939, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL.

  “Everything I do is strict ethical”: A. J. Liebling, “Patron of the Preemies,” The New Yorker, June 3, 1939, p. 20.

  wasn’t “intricate” work and “came from the heart”: John Proctor, “Beginner’s Luck,” The Family Circle, November 24, 1939, p. 9.

  “Are these the same babies from Chicago?”: Unidentified newspaper clipping provided to me by Katherine Ashe Meyer, one of Martin Couney’s patients.

  “How do they live in the gas stoves?”: “Loss of Investment at Fair Increases Dr. Couney’s Gloom,” New York World-Telegram, partial clipping (date and page number missing), Newborn Medicine History Collection, Pediatric History Center, American Academy of Pediatrics. The article also cites “Where did you get the eggs?” and “Are they all from Chicago?”

  “I’d rather be helping my father with this work”: Sally MacDougall, “It’s Fun to Keep House for Babies at the Fair,” unidentified newspaper clipping in the scrapbook of Katherine Ashe Meyer, with the handwritten date of June 16, 1939.

  “My Dear Martin, Now that I cannot be with you”: Julius Hess’s letter is found on the comprehensive resource Neonatology.org (http://www.neonatology.org/pinups/couney.html). It is identified as having been discovered in the visitors’ book for Couney’s 1939 exhibit. I have been unable to find the original.

  “I’m a baby of yours”: Lucille Horn, interview with the author, April 12, 2017.

  “You don’t know how much the help of the incubators”: Julia McCarthy, “Sees Her Baby First Time at Fair,” clipping, Newborn Medicine History Collection, Pediatric History Center, American Academy of Pediatrics; title of publication, date, and page number are missing. The speaker is identified as Mrs. Charlotte Preston of Jackson Heights, Queens. I was unable to locate her daughter, Patricia Beverly Preston, who was Martin Couney’s patient.

  Moe Goldstein was young: Moe Goldstein, interview with Lawrence and Carol Gartner, April 22, 1970. In this interview, Goldstein related his medical training.

  And here was a fascinating job: Moe Goldstein, speaking to a gathering of doctors at Long Island Jewish Hospital on July 18, 1967, recorded by Lawrence Gartner.

  As far as Moe could tell: Ibid. In his 1970 conversation with the Gartners, Goldstein reiterated a little more strongly, “I don’t think he was a licensed M.D. . . . I don’t know what, really, what went on,” but, he said, “I learned more from them.”

  he was in awe of Madame: Moe Goldstein, speaking at Long Island Jewish Hospital, July 18, 1967. Many of the children became his patients.

  the gals from the jiggle joint next door: Ibid.

  Martin had put him in charge of keeping records: The season results are presented in “Incubator Babies at the World’s Fair,” The Journal of the American Medical Association 115 (November 9, 1940), p. 1648.

  The tiniest went in Hess beds: Ibid. For more on the 90 percent survival rate, see the chapter “Who Will Save You Now?”

  “Dr. Hess copied a good deal of Dr. Couney’s system”: Ibid.

  He was certain the boss’s daughter had a crush: Moe Goldstein, interview with Lawrence and Carol Gartner, April 22, 1970.

  a team of doctors came from Yale: Gesell Correspondence, Martin Couney, 1939–40, Box 21, Arnold Gesell Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Gesell wrote to Couney throughout the fair.

  In some of the photos the infants are nude: Arnold Gesell, in collaboration with Catherine S. Amatruda, The Embryology of Behavior: The Beginnings of the Human Mind (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1945). Dr. Martin Couney, Dr. Moe Goldstein, and Madame Louise Recht are acknowledged in the preface, p. x; however, Dr. Gesell chose not to mention that the setting was a sideshow.

  He griped about the “sketchily dressed” women: Letter from George P. Smith to Chairman, Amusement Control Committee, August 9, 1939, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL.

  They hit back with a medical complaint: Letter from H. M. Lammers, Chairman, Amusement Control Committee, to Martin Couney, August 9, 1939, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL.

  He couldn’t, and wouldn’t, reduce personnel or skimp: Letter from W. S. McHenry to Fred Schulz, Comptroller’s Office, July 13, 1939, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL.

  Vision and Hindsight

  “I would love to talk”: Katherine Ashe Meyer, e-mail to the author, July 31, 2015.

  “My mother was skinny as a rail”: Katherine Ashe Meyer, interview with the author, August 3, 2015. All of Katherine Ashe Meyer’s quotations in this chapter are from that interview.

  Who Will Save You Now?

  more than $100,000 in operating expenses: Report of the Infant Incubator for the Season 1939, notarized statement from Martin Couney, February 5, 1940, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, Manuscripts and Archives Division. The New York Public Library. Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.

  Moe was never paid—he was given a watch instead: Moe Goldstein, interview with Lawrence and Carol Gartner, April 22, 1970.

  they discussed what it would cost to move the concession: Letter from Walter M. Langsdorf to Director of Op
erations, November 1, 1939, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL.

  At the same time, an official wrote to the Smith Incubator Corporation: Letter from S. M. Smith to H. D. Gibson, Chairman of the Board, November 29, 1939, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL.

  He’d mistaken a previous “deferred”: Letter from Edward Rancizl to Co-Director of Amusements, March 29, 1940, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL.

  could they please turn the water back on: Letter from M. A. Couney to Frank D. Shean, March 29, 1940, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL.

  “As you perhaps know, Dr. Couney is well into his 80s”: Letter from George P. Smith, Jr., to Vice President in Charge of Finance, March 30, 1940, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL. The Couney buffs also wrote that the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Leona Baumgartner, was giving him a hard time, but I have not been able to locate any further record of this. It might have been told to William Silverman during unrecorded conversations. I found only a note from Baumgartner trying to place some of the nurses after the fair closed: Letter, Leona Baumgartner to Dr. Ethel C. Dunham, Director, Division of Research in Child Development, U.S. Department of Labor, in Dr. Lawrence Gartner’s collection.

  In the end, they agreed on a plan: Itemized plan stamped by George P. Smith, April 19, 1940, New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 records, NYPL.

  The previous fall, when Julius was in town: “Julius Hess Honored at Fair Incubator Exhibit,” New York Herald Tribune, October 6, 1939, p. 15.

  In July, he entertained Morris Fishbein’s son: Thank-you letter from Morris Fishbein to his “dear friend” Martin Couney, July 10, 1940, Morris Fishbein Papers, Box 2, Folder 1, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

  proof they had saved more than 90 percent: “Incubator Babies at the World’s Fair,” Journal of the American Medical Association 115 (November 9, 1940), p. 1648.

  a single paragraph about Martin Couney’s incubators: Ibid.