A heat wave in 1916 caused the deaths of 161 people within 48 hours in the midwest. Of those 161 deaths, 44 of them were babies. Here is one of the newspaper reports about the heatwave.
Heat Levies Heavy Toll – 161 Perish in 48 Hours
July 29, 1916. — Business in the middle west was at a standstill this afternoon as a result of 19 days heat wave which reached its highest temperature today. The death toll for the last 48 hours reached 161 at noon today. Sixteen died today at Chicago; nine at Milwaukee; four at Aurora, Illinois, and two at Kansas City. A 112 have died at Chicago within the last 48 hours.
At Milwaukee, Wis., and Belvedere, Ill., factories were closed down when employees found it impossible to work in the driving heat. Department stores here planned to let their employees off two hours earlier. At some of the stores those who showed the slightest distress were ordered home. Stout people were told they would not have to work. Scores of horses dropped dead in Chicago streets today from exhaustion caused by the heat. It was estimated that several hundred persons were prostrated.
All records for the number of babies killed directly or indirectly by the heat in Chicago were broken today when figures showed in the last 24 hours 44 babies under one year of age died from the heat or causes superinduced by the heat.
Chicago’s high temperature for the day was reached at 2 p.m. when the mercury registered 96.
Source: Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon), 29 July 1916.
