Wartime Manhattan : from Mars ... or from Venus ?

If I might be permitted to gently chide the citizens of Manhattan, may I suggest that they had done very little, themselves, to balance the horrific wartime image of their city created by being tagged as the place that 'birthed' the atomic bomb and its potential destruction of the entire world.

To the 911 bombers, it is the best known image of the borough.

(And by the way, it is only men, like the bosses of the best known wartime Manhattan Project , who talk about 'birthing the bomb' and think of naming it 'Little Boy'.)

Woman know better.

They actually do birth children and know that a bomb isn't a baby.

But little Patty Malone was a baby - and it was only the fearless challenging spirit of the native born Manhattanite that saved her life ... when a heartless government refused to help.

So, People of Manhattan, take a bow.

True, it was only men that did all the heavy lifting in saving this particular child, but I am convinced that her story moved millions of Doctor Moms to demand that their men get off the sofa and start making penicillin for real, right away.

In particular, her story moved one Doctor Mom with the real power to move mountains of inertia : Mae Smith.

She was the wife of the boss of Brooklyn-based Pfizer,  John L Smith.

In the summer of 1943, his firm was best positioned (culturally) in the world to make the needed penicillin ---- all by its self.

But he was a very cautious and frugal man and he refused to do the right thing, rather than the financially safe and lucrative thing.

Until his wife reminded him, once again, that Dr Henry Dawson had always insisted that their eldest daughter would have remained alive, if only penicillin had been earnestly produced, not long after its discovery.

Learning of little Patty Malone plucked from death's door touched Smith's heart ; finally made Dawson's claim seem real to John L.

In a few short months, Pfizer was indeed producing enough penicillin for all those in the world dying of susceptible infections.

Abundant amounts of Pfizer Penicillin created an opportunity for America to practise influential penicillin diplomacy , replacing Pax Britannia with Pax Americana.

Britain and its Dominions had the most moral capital, from standing all alone against Hitler for years, and it had the moral first claim on penicillin.

But for want of a price of a single additional bomber squadron for Butcher Harris, the Conservative Party-dominated British government threw all that moral capital away, handed it over to the Americans on a platter, gratis.

That price, of just one bomber squadron among many, would have given Glaxo a Pfizer's sized plant, months before Pfizer.

By contrast, WWII is usually seen as the process that finally killed the hopes of the New Deal.

But I argue, that the New Deal's final act was actually its finest hour.

Britain's Ministry of Supply set the amount of penicillin it wanted produced during the war years to just be enough ( barely) for front line troops.

It forbade the bigger colonies like India to make their own penicillin (postwar export market considerations dominated official thinking.)

The supply amounts set by the gutless Dominions perfectly reflected Britain's niggardly attitude to the needs of their own civilians and the civilians of the occupied lands.

By contrast, in May 1943, one of the last big New Deal organizations created, the American WPB (War Production Board) , set the amounts of American penicillin it wanted produced so high that it could easily supply America ( military and civilian) and most of the world besides.

Thirties style "Social medicine" concerns had finally won out over the Forties "War medicine" niggardliness.

Henry Dawson's long, lonely defence of heightened social medicine in a time of war against an enemy who didn't believe in it even in peacetime had finally borne fruit : now America was preparing to combat the Nazis morally , as well as just militarily.

Venus Manhattan was in the driver's seat, along with Mars Manhattan ....

Who am I ? asks a very famous bright yellow powder from WWII

OK, Manhattan : Who am I ????

(a) In the popular imagination, I am often thought of as being a bright yellow powder (though if fact I might often be dark red or brown or even some other color).

(b) Oddly enough, it is exactly the same for me.

(a)  Some of my most important developments happened on Manhattan island, with strong Canadian involvement --- I think that was all about the word "Hope".

(b) Wow ! Me ditto,ditto,ditto !

(a) The international visual symbol for me is characters in dense black type on a bright yellow background.

(b) That's me too .

(a) A large sample of Americans (men mostly) voted me the top news story of the 20th century for the Newseum.

(b) A large sample of Americans (women mostly) also voted me the top news story of the century for the Newseum.

(a) A little boy is the dramatic climax of my story.

(b) Strange, a baby girl is the dramatic climax of my story as well.

(a) Much of my story happened on a campus at Columbia university and involved Columbia university professors.

(b) So did my story !

(a) I was top secret through most of WWII and I was regarded as one of the best Allied military weapons of the war.

(b) What can I say : ditto ditto .

(a) I am regarded as one of the top scientific discoveries to come out of WWII.

(a) Yeah ? Well so am I .

(a) I was a big project for the OSRD, who spent a fortune on me, until another government agency took me over : but the bosses at the OSRD still kept their hand in.

(b) The OSRD spent quite a bundle on me too - still kept doing so, even after I was taken over by another government agency.

(a) Oh yeah, well I was so important that I was flown all over the world in big bombers.

(b) Bet you weren't flown about as much as me in big bombers.

(a) I was a big deal in Britain : they even act like they invented me.

(b), Oh boy, don't I know that feeling.

(a) The British chemical giant, ICL looked for a while like it would be running me but Vannevar Bush of the OSRD soon stopped that.

(b) And that goes for me too.

(a) In my natural state, I hardly seem to exist, consisting of less than 1% of the natural mix.

(b) I know the feeling, too, actually being much less than 1% of the natural mix.

(a) Well I am so similar to others in the mix, at least in conventional chemical terms, that its a life's work to separate me from them.

(b) That's what all the chemists say about me - usually with a very deep sigh.

(a) I won't work at all, unless I am separated from my natural mix and am about 88% pure.

(b) Now there we finally do differ : because I still work perfectly well even if I am only one part in million of the original natural mix.

(a) There was (and is) a tremendous moral row over whether I should have been built at all but none whatsoever about all the money and effort spent on separating me from my natural mix.

(b) Odd, because while there is no debate at all about whether I should have been built, there is a serious moral debate underway about whether so much scarce wartime energy and resources should have been spent on separating me from my natural mix.

 (a) I am considered one of the biggest killing machines in history.

(b) Boy or girl, do we ever part company there : I am one of the smallest lifesavers ever, and one of the best too.

Can you answer this puzzler ?

(a) and (b)  So, dear reader : Who am I ? Who am I ?

Answer : (a) the U-235 in the Little Boy Bomb  (b) an early vial of Penicillin, who baby Patty Malone and  teenagerAnne Shirley Carter helped make an overnight world sensation in August-September 1943 .....

Janus Manhattan

It is no longer the world's biggest city
but it is still the world's most important
city.

The most power-filled city on Earth but

the most hope-filled city as well.

Home to Wall Street and Ellis Island.

Organizational birthplace of Eugenics and

home to more Jews than any other city on the planet.

The world's biggest life-ender was birthed here, as was the world's smallest (and best) lifesaver -- at the exact same time in history, in the same small neighbourhood.

The little boy and baby patricia both were born here.

Epicenter of an inhumanly endless megalopolis stretching from Portland Maine to Richmond Virginia, it is also home to hundreds of tiny ,distinctive, fiercely independent neighbourhoods.

Janus Manhattan.

The rest of the world is forced to function as any illiterate must, to become very very good at reading the face of this inscrutable giant, because the continued existence of our planet might depend on our skill at reading it correctly.