The authors of these recent publications have all utilized the resources of the March of Dimes Archives in their research and/or have purchased photos from our photography collection. The books range from juvenile fiction (Blue; The Wonder Kid) and personal memoirs (The Fortune Teller's Kiss; The Christmas House) to definitive scholarly treatments of their subjects (The Life of a Virus; The Cutter Incident; Polio: An American Story). Several were written to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Salk polio vaccine in 2005.
Creager, Angela N. H. The Life of a Virus: Tobacco Mosaic Virus as an Experimental Model, 1930-1965 (2002) University of Chicago Press
Angela N.H. Creager is Associate Professor in the Department of History and Program in the History of Science at Princeton University. The Life of a Virus is a masterful history of Wendell Stanley's path-breaking research on tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) and its role as a “model system” for virology and molecular biology. Stanley was a Nobel Prize winner and early grantee of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, and his work on TMV was critical to the understanding of all viruses, including polio. Professor Creager's flair for revealing the interlocking histories of science, institutions, and politics in virus research also reveals the critical role of the NFIP in this story and the origins of molecular biology.
Harrar, George The Wonder Kid (2006) Houghton Mifflin
George Harrar is a freelance writer of children's books who resides in Massachusetts. The Wonder Kid is written for children ages 8-12. It tells the story of eleven-year-old Jesse MacLean, who contracts polio in the epidemic of 1954. Though his legs remained paralyzed, Jesse reinterprets his misfortune as “The Wonder Kid” in a series of imaginative comic strips that he creates.
Hostetter, Joyce Moyer Blue (2005) Calkins Creek Books
Joyce Hostetter is a teacher and writer who lives near Hickory, North Carolina. Blue is a fictionalized account of the 1944 polio epidemic that centered in Hickory, seen through the eyes of a local girl, Ann Fay Honeycutt. Ann Fay's personal, first-person narrative intertwines grief over her father's departure for war and her experience of the epidemic with their effects on family and community life. Emergency relief to Hickory occurred largely through March of Dimes funds, a story touted as “The Miracle of Hickory.” This wistful, authentic, and simple story is expertly told, and though intended for younger readers, is an enjoyable and informative depiction of polio's effect on families in the North Carolina hills in 1944.
Jackson, Stevan (ed) A Summer Without Children: An Oral History of Wythe County, Virginia's 1950 Polio Epidemic (2005) Town of Wytheville Department of Museums
Stevan Jackson is a cultural anthropologist who teaches at Radford University in Radford, VA. This oral history memoir includes personal interviews, photographs, maps, and clippings from period newspapers concerning the 1950 polio epidemic in Wythe County, Virginia. The Wytheville epidemic was the worst per capita polio outbreak in American history, and the critical March of Dimes role in combating this epidemic looms large in this fascinating and detailed foray into local history.
Kluger, Jeffrey Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio (2005) Penguin
Jeff Kluger is a Senior Writer at Time magazine and co-author (with astronaut Jim Lovell) of Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, upon which the 1995 movie was based. Splendid Solution is a popular retelling of the early career of Jonas Salk and the historic role of the March of Dimes in the development of the Salk polio vaccine. Mr. Kluger's account sparkles with journalistic touches that effectively impart the daily struggles of Dr. Salk's life in his Pittsburgh laboratory and with his family. Many of the photos originate in the March of Dimes Archives. Excerpts were published in the Smithsonian Magazine.
Moeschen, Sheila C. Benevolent Actors and Charitable ‘Objects': Physical Disability and the Theatricality of Charity in Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century America (2005) Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University
Sheila Moeschen is the Assistant Director for Women in Leadership at Bentley College in Waltham, MA. Her dissertation focuses on the social evolution of charity in the U.S. through an examination of disabled children and laborers, the role of FDR's polio disability in early March of Dimes campaigns, and the Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon. She devotes one chapter to the cultural perception of FDR as the “cured polio” in March of Dimes publicity and fund raising during World War II. This is the first Ph.D. dissertation ever written based on original research in the March of Dimes Archives.
Paul A. Offit, M.D. is Chief of Infectious Diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. His book is the first in-depth study of the release of contaminated polio vaccine manufactured by Cutter Laboratories of Berkeley, California which caused over 200 cases of polio, most paralytic and some fatal, in April 1954 immediately after the Salk vaccine was licensed for use in the United States. Dr. Offit's analysis of the tragic aftermath and legal ramifications of “the Cutter incident” on the pharmaceutical industry and vaccine manufacture is an insightful blend of science, medicine, and law.
Oshinsky, David M. Polio: An American Story (2005) Oxford University Press
David Oshinsky is George Littlefield Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. He is author of A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy and other books on American history. Polio: An American Story may become the standard scholarly history of polio in America; it is based on extensive research in the March of Dimes Archives and is illustrated with many March of Dimes photographs. In recounting the story of polio, Professor Oshinsky assesses the historical importance of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, the rivalry between Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin to develop a polio vaccine, and the role of Isabel Morgan in vaccine development. Polio: An American Story won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in history.
Serotte, Brenda The Fortune Teller's Kiss (2006) University of Nebraska Press
Brenda Serotte is a poet and writer who teaches literature and writing at Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Florida. The Fortune Teller's Kiss is a personal memoir about her childhood experience with polio. The memoir focuses on her youth and adolescence in the Bronx, New York as a member of a colorful and offbeat Sephardic Jewish family from Turkey. It depicts not only her personal struggle with polio and disability, but also the social ostracism she experienced from her beauty-obsessed, superstitious relatives who dreaded, and failed to cope with, the biological contagion that polio represented. Ms. Serrote's memoir is a subtly humorous, wry, and wise immersion into 1950s American culture.
Shell, Marc Polio and Its Aftermath: The Paralysis of Culture (2005) Harvard Univ Press
Marc Shell is Irving Babbitt Professor of Comparative Literature and Professor of English at Harvard University. His book blends a personal memoir about his own experience with polio along with a cultural and literary analysis of the disease and its impact in post-war America of the 1940s and 1950s. Professor Shell contextualizes the meaning of polio in the anxiety-ridden atmosphere of the Cold War, observing that polio's “debilitating uncertainty” signified a continual undercurrent of fear in American communities.
Skinner, Georja The Christmas House: How One Man's Dream Changed the Way We Celebrate Christmas (2005) New World Library
Georja Skinner is President of Skinner Entertainment, a management and production firm with offices in Hawaii and Hollywood. The Christmas House is a memoir of the author's father George, who was disabled in the 1934 polio epidemic in Los Angeles, California. George Skinner's recovery from polio involved the outlandish Christmas decoration of his house, setting a trend in house decoration for years to come. This touching memoir is designed like a scrapbook, with many illustrations and memorabilia. See my review of this book at www.calegion.org/html/christmas_house.html.
Wilson, Daniel J. Living with Polio: The Epidemic and Its Survivors (2005) University of Chicago Press
Daniel J. Wilson is Professor of History at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA. Living with Polio focuses on the lived experience of polio: diagnosis, hospitalization, paralysis, psychology, rehabilitation, recovery, and disability. Professor Wilson has illustrated his study with photos exclusively from the March of Dimes Archives; most are seldom seen depictions of polio patients in various stages of crisis and recovery. Professor Wilson's own experience with polio is a touchstone in his account.
Commemorative Books
These books include corporate and organizational histories, commemorative editions, and technical publications that have utilized photographs from the March of Dimes Archives.
Baker, Jeffrey P, and Howard A. Pearson Dedicated to the Health of All Children; 75 Years of Caring (2005) American Academy of Pediatrics [commemorates the 75th anniversary of the American Academy of Pediatrics]
Bowden, Mary Ellen et al Pharmaceutical Achievers: The Human Face of Pharmaceutical Research (2003) Chemical Heritage Press
Daemmrich, Arthur et al Reflections from the Frontiers, Explorations for the Future:
Gordon Research Conferences, 1931-2006 (2006) Chemical Heritage Foundation
Fess, Elaine et al Hand and Upper Extremity Splinting: Principles and Methods, 3rd edition (2005) Elsevier/Mosby O'Donnell, John Corriell: The Coriell Institute for Medical Research and a Half Century of Science (2002) Science History Publications Reef, Catherine Childhood in America: An Eyewitness History (2002) Facts on File, Inc.
April 18, 2006 / David Rose / March of Dimes Archives
