The Baby Race

"The Baby Race – The millionaire who paid women to breed for sport" tells the unbelievable true story of the "Great Stork Derby." In 1926, eccentric Canadian lawyer Charles Vance Millar died and left a mischievous will. He promised the bulk of his massive fortune to whichever woman in Toronto could give birth to the most children in the ten years following his death. Historian Caleb Rich chronicles the decade-long frenzy that ensued. Against the backdrop of the Great Depression, where families were starving, this contest became a desperate survival strategy. The book details the lives of the mothers who competed, birthing 9 or 10 children in a decade, and the legal battles waged by the government to stop the "immoral" contest. "The Baby Race" is a story about the cruelty of the rich and the resilience of the poor. It exposes how a dead man's prank turned women's bodies into factories and captivated a nation hungry for distraction during its darkest economic hour.