The Hatbox Baby

On a sweltering Chicago morning in 1933, a baby is delivered in a hatbox to the Century of Progress Exposition -- the World's Fair. This very tiny baby, born three months early, is brought to the fair's famous baby doctor, Leo Hoffman, to be saved. Dr. Hoffman -- part showman, part scientist -- finances his neonatal research by exhibiting a collection of live premature babies. His "Infantorium" attracts huge, gawking crowds every sultry day. At the fair -- a place of freaks and marvels, mysteries and miracles -- the notion of what is "normal" comes into question daily. Before the summer ends, a number of remarkable persons will invest heavily in this fragile baby's life: Dr. Hoffman; his registered nurses and wet nurses; Caroline Day, the beautiful fan dancer and another of the fair's biggest attractions; and a sideshow barker named St. Louis Percy whose stake in the hatbox baby's future becomes the most serious of all.