Friends and Partners

Friends and Partners: The Legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Basil O'Connor in the History of Polio presents the story of two men, one the President of the United States, the other an ambitious attorney, who became the 'architects of the fight against polio.' With unfettered access to the March of Dimes Archives, this book explores the friendship and partnership that ensured the end of polio in the US, with exclusive pictures and documentation. The book describes the founding and history of Franklin D. Roosevelt's (FDR) polio colony in Warm Springs, Georgia, and the early years of the March of Dimes as established by FDR in 1938 as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. Other little-known aspects of the partnership are also included, such as O'Connor's participation in FDR's 'Brain Trust,' the President's birthday ball fundraisers during the Great Depression, the March of Dimes during World War II, and O'Connor's simultaneous leadership of the American Red Cross. Finally, the book explores, in detail, how O'Connor used the legacy of FDR after his death in 1945 to promote the philosophy of 'freedom from disease' to achieve the goal of ending polio through the March of Dimes. Friends and Partners: The Legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Basil O'Connor in the History of Polio will appeal to researchers, students, and policy makers in public health and medicine as well as all those interested in learning more about this pivotal period in history. - Presents the story of two men, one the President of the United States, the other an ambitious attorney, who became the architects of the fight against polio - Draws upon the March of Dimes archive to provide information exclusive to this publication - Constitutes the first biography of public health hero Basil O'Connor - Provides historical insights into the development of philanthropy in conjunction with major public health initiatives

David W. Rose is Archivist of the March of Dimes at the foundation's national office in White Plains, NY. He is a certified archivist of the Academy of Certified Archivists, and he oversees the preservation and organization of the documents, photographs, and audiovisual materials of the March of Dimes Archives. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Anthropology and Philosophy from Case Western Reserve University and a Master's degree in Anthropology from the New School for Social Research. David is author of the first photographic history of the March of Dimes in the Images of America series published by Arcadia. He is an active member of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC) and Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York and serves as an advisor to the Jonas Salk Legacy Foundation. David is a writer and amateur mycologist, past president of the Connecticut-Westchester Mycological Association, and contributing editor to Fungi Magazine. He has been consulting archivist to the New York State Museum and to the North American Mycological Association. His writings on the history of mycology have covered a range of topics including mushrooms in cinema, science fiction, ethnopoetics, and popular culture; the history of amateur mycology in the United States; and biographical portraits of musical composer John Cage, Johns Hopkins surgeon Howard Atwood Kelly, and molecular biologist Max Delbruck.