NEW “The Roosevelt Story” Presentation:
Inside the Archives: FDR and the Politics of Celebrity
Wednesday, August 17 at 2PM EDT
FDR loved movies and movie stars. He enjoyed their celebrity, too, and as a shrewd politician, he knew their support and their fame could prove beneficial to his Administration. Acting Director William A. Harris highlights evidence of these relationships through a selection of key documents from the Library’s collection.
Artifact Road Trip - Georgia
ALTThis box was sent to President Roosevelt by J. E. Ankus on June 23, 1941. Ankus was the parent of a polio patient admitted to the Warm Springs, Georgia, polio rehabilitation center established by FDR.
ALTFind out more about this #ArtifactRoadTrip cigarette box on our Digital Artifact Collection: https://fdr.artifacts.archives.gov/objects/29709
Follow along each week as we feature a different artifact in our Museum Collection from each of the United States.
World Polio Day
Yesterday was World Polio Day
One hundred years ago this past August, Franklin Roosevelt was stricken with polio and permanently paralyzed below the waist. Watch Supervisory Curator Herman Eberhardt’s special program about FDR’s disability that includes one of the President’s wheelchairs and a set of his steel leg braces.
100 years ago today, Dr. Robert Lovett diagnosed FDR with infantile paralysis (i.e. polio). At that time, polio had no known cure and often resulted in full or partial paralysis and the erosion of one’s motor skills. Learn more on our website: https://www.fdrlibrary.org/polio
📷: NPx 48-65:1 - FDR assisted by his valet Leroy Jones and Dr. MacDonald, 1924, Marion, MA
FDR Contracts Polio
100 years ago today, FDR was enjoying a day of sailing on his yacht when he suddenly fell overboard into the icy waters of the Bay of Fundy, which ironically felt paralyzing to his body. The following day, FDR complained of lower back pain and went for a swim in hopes to ease the soreness. As the day progressed, he could feel his legs becoming weaker and by the third day, he could no longer hold his own weight. His skin quickly became very sensitive and eventually even a slight breeze across his body caused great distress.
Eleanor, who couldn’t bear to see her husband in such anguish, began to contact a handful of doctors, hoping one of them would be able to find a remedy to his unknown infirmity. One of these doctors was Dr. Keen who insisted the issue stemmed from a blood clot located in the lower spinal cord and recommended that he receive lumbar massages daily in order to help circulation. Days later, FDR was notified by Dr. Keen that his earlier diagnosis was incorrect and instead he claimed the distress was being caused by spinal lesion. The massage therapy continued but did not prove to be successful in curing the paralysis.
It would be weeks before he had a diagnosis: Infantile Paralysis (i.e. polio). Learn more on our website: https://www.fdrlibrary.org/polio
Junior officers at the San Diego Naval Air Station converted an aerial practice bomb into this coin bank, filled it with $15 in dimes for polio research, and presented it to President Roosevelt as a birthday gift on January 30, 1942.
FDR created the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (which became known as the March of Dimes) in 1938 to support the polio rehabilitation center he had established in Warm Springs, Georgia and aid polio victims around the nation. The Foundation urged Americans to send their loose change to the President in a “march of dimes.” The March of Dimes supported the research and development of a polio vaccine by Jonas Salk in 1955 that eradicated the disease throughout most of the world.
Learn more on our Digital Artifact Collection: https://fdr.artifacts.archives.gov/objects/2250
The anniversary of Franklin’s birth became a great cause for celebration every year, and throughout his life FDR would use the occasion to honor devoted friends as well as to raise money in the fight against polio. https://www.fdrlibrary.org/fdr-birthday
W is for Wheelchair
President Roosevelt used this wheelchair during his frequent visits to the Roosevelt Library from 1941-1945. The wheelchair is one of several built to his specifications. FDR had workers cut the legs off of an ordinary wooden chair and mount it to a custom-designed chassis.
Learn more: https://fdr.artifacts.archives.gov/objects/4036/wheelchair-used-by-franklin-roosevelt
📷: NPx 73-113:61 - February 1941, FDR with Fala and Ruthie Bie at Top Cottage, Hyde Park, New York
Previously unseen and historically significant home movie footage of FDR “walking”!
The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum recently received footage of the 1935 White House Easter Egg Roll. Roosevelt historian and Library Trustee Geoffrey C. Ward believes the footage offers “the most vivid glimpse we’ve yet had” of President Roosevelt’s unique adapted walk made possible by the use of steel leg braces. FDR lost the use of his legs after contracting polio in 1921, at the age of 39.
In December 2017, the Roosevelt Library received a donation from Richard G. Hill, whose grandfather, Nevada ranch owner Fred Hill, captured 16mm home movie footage of the 1935 White House Easter Egg Roll.
Visit fdrlibrary.org/FDRwalking to read Mr. Ward’s article and to view the entire film online. Clipped from Film ID: MP 18-05: 0:53-1:23.
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