Looks at responses to disasters in history with an emphasis on research and writing. Over the semester, we have examined various disasters from different perspectives. First of all, the psychological and physical problems from jamestown. Disasters, responses to fires, hurricanes, and epidemics in colonial america, famine suffered by the donner party en route to california, irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine and the ability to create new lives in this country, disaster tourism, the johnstown flood of 1889, the impact of the fire in new york city, and disaster art that emerged from the 1930s dust bowl. So, today, we are discussing david oceanfys Pulitzer Prize winning book polio an american story. You all received questions that i posted and im really interested in the topic because i also teach a seminar on the 1950s and of course thats when this takes place and i think just looking at polio, really, so many different issues that affected that decade. Before starting, though, i just want to mention one thing in light of what we were talking about in terms of dust bowl art. I was reading the new york review of books and there is a review of a novel that Woody Guthrie wrote, a novel called house of earth. Doesnt get a very good review. But obviously, he gets some attention. And youll be pleased to know that the introduction was by a historian names Douglas Brinkley and johnny depp, so i think theyre trying to sell copies by having a superstar on the cover. Okay, i divided the discussion today into four sort of major themes. We cant cover all of the book but i thought the most interesting were looking at philanthropy, medical research, scientists and their various personalities, which are interesting, and also the ethical issues. So, with that, lets start with the way we always do when looking at anything we have to read, and that is, first of all, who is David Oshinsky . Yeah, katie . A professor at the university of texas at austin and a distinguished scholar in residence at nyu. Okay. So fairly reputable, we would say. Yeah. Probably knows what hes talking about. Yeah, david. I saw that he won the cartwright award, cartwright prize from Columbia UniversityMedical Center in 2010. And that was for his research into the history of polio. So that definitely adds some credibility. He also won the Pulitzer Prize award in 2006. Yes, winning a pulitzer is substantial. Thats for sure. Overall what did you theyve his writing, his scholarship, his research . Were you impressed . Yeah, elizabeth. I was impressed by the thoroughness of his research. I think he went above and beyond researching the relationships between the scientists and ten, you know, the politicians and the scientists and the foundation. I think there was a lot. He sort of like went pretty much as far as he could. A lot of when we talked to robert caro, how it took him seven years to write his book instead of like two. It kind of felt like the same way. Yeah. Right. Very much in depth. And really a nice variety in terms of people he interviewed. Caroline . I thought it was a good balance between information and kind of story in the book. I found it very readable. I thought originally when we had to read the whole book it was going to take me a really, really long time but i found myself getting really into it and i thought it was really easy to read and really interesting. I think he did a good job of making it accessible and not so academic. I think this is one of the great examples of how history is really stories. And this is a very, very well told story on multiple levels. Carly . I think also he did a good job describing the historical point of it as well as the scientific point but also the kind of politics of each point. Like not only a political aspect but the politics of science. Which was an interesting review for us to read. Something really different. We havent done that before. What do you think . Did he deserve the Pulitzer Prize . Should we vote . I think thumbs up, right . Obviously a man some of repute and certainly did a good job on this book. The first wellrecorded outbreak of polio took place in rutland, vermont in 1894. 123 people there caught polio. There was another outbreak, substantial outbreak in 1907 and then a major outbreak in 1916 that began in pigsty or pigtown, excuse me, pigtown in brooklyn, new york. And that spread across the northeast. And some 6,000 people died from that outbreak. Oshinsky has an interesting comment or thoughts to make about why these epidemics suddenly broke outy it is in the late 19th and early 20th century suddenly we see so many more people affected by this disease. And what does he say . How does he tie in the germ theory of disease with his comments about the outbreak of those polio epidemics . He describes it as the age of cleanliness. So america became so preoccupied with hygiene, sanitation, cleaning up the cities, and with that as the youth werent as exposed to microorganisms that carried disease and bacteria. So they were more likely to be infected and not have an immune system to certain diseases. Okay. And carry that forward. Or somebody else. What does that mean in terms of children not being exposed to the germs and bacteria . What happens . He said when you got polio as a young child it was a lesser dose or it wasnt as effective, you didnt have as many side effects from. So when you get it as older its stronger. So chicken pox its better to get it as a young kid, its a much milder case. And particularly when youre really young, you have your mothers antibodies too. Sort of withstand the impact of those diseases. That was all something that traditionally happened in america but suddenly everybodys washing hands, cleaning clothes. Better sanitation. I dont know if its an argument for not washing hands these days. I dont think so. But still, something had happened in this country to make people more susceptible to polio. So by the early 20th century americans were in a panic about polio. And what was so frightening about that disease . What was different about polio that hadnt been true of diseases before this . Megan. I think what made it so frightening is that primarily children who got it and it wasnt they saw no reason for why certain children got it wasnt like children in poor communities. It was children all across the board, maybe even more so in like rich and clean areas. And there was no cause or no cure i mean no known cause. So for a disease like cholera this would be traditionally among the poor. Those who were drinking bad water, those who were living in filthy conditions. Polio hit everybody. Okay . There was no class issue when it came to polio. And also initially it hit very, very Young Children. It was called infantile paralysis because it hit children typically sort of between the ages of 1 and 3. Thats going to change. But nevertheless, here it is affecting innocent children. What else was different about this dead . Yeah, elizabeth. It just like accelerated very quickly. It was as if all of a sudden one morning a child would wake up with a stiff neck and a fever. And a couple hours or a day later they could be losing feeling in their limbs. And that was terrible for a lot of parents. It was just like that. And no idea how the child had gotten the disease. Were you going to add Something Else . I was going to say along the same lines, but i was also going to say they recently came out with like the antibiotic of penicillin. That had no effect on polio because it was a viral infection. Right. And so a viral infection was kind of like new to that age. With like influenza db. Yeah. This is viral infection, not bacterial. So penicillin did absolutely no good. Anything else that was sort of unique and different about this disease . In some of the later cases they say it could wipe out the entire family. I think theres one family that had five kids that died one day after each other. And there were cases after other. And there were cases like that. Terrifying. Totally terrifying. This was something you can just imagine imagine being a parent and having a very, very young child suddenly succumb to this horrible, horrible disease. So nobody knew what caused it. Nobody knew how to cure it. And initially what was the response if a child got polio or if you feared polio in your community . How did people react . What did they do initially . They were quarantined and they shut down public spaces where children would gather like swimming pools and movie theaters. Rightly understood. It was contagious. It spread from person to person. They understood this was a contagious disease. I can tell you stories of friends of mine at least who remember in childhood when they couldnt go to the local public swimming pool, movie theaters were closed, where literally you were forced to stay out of any situation that involved a whole lot of people, particularly areas were children gathered. Oshinsky also shows the very sorry state of medical research in the late 19th century. This was people almost distrusted medical research. And of course no one could conceive of the federal government supporting medical research. We didnt have the National Institute of health, we didnt have the centers for disease control. This was something medical research, if it happened, was something that had to be funded by individuals or by foundations. But it really wasnt generating that kind of response. And for many doctors certainly this was true in the mid to late 19th century. If you really wanted a good medical education, you went abroad. If you really wanted to engage in any kind of research, you went to europe. But all that changed in 1902 when what happened . What major donor changed all of that . Yeah, reagan . Rockefeller. John d. Rockefeller. Right. He had millions. What is he going to do with his money . And indeed he was convinced to give this money to found a research institute, not a hospital, not a medical school, but an Actual Research institute. And this of course is the Rockefeller Institute which is in new york city. In fact, if you go to new york city, you can see this beautiful, beautiful these beautiful grounds and this building. Its right on the east river i think in the high 50s or low 60s. This was something new. This was very exciting. And the director of the man who was appointed director of this institute was a man named simon flexner, who held this position for 40 years. And what did you get . Did you get any sense of his personality, the man who headed this institute . Yeah, peggy. He seemed rather headstrong, like how about removing the rather. Yes. Okay. Headstrong. Polio was kind of like his domain. If you were going to research polio, you had to do it his way or do another area. He seemed to be rather controlling, there was like one way for Polio Research and that was his yes. And he was an incredible autocrat. But he ran this institute with an iron fist in a way. This was his thing. This institute took on many, many diseases. Polio is merely one of the many diseases studied at the Rockefeller Institute. Now, of course the major event that really put polio in sort of on the map, when it gained a lot more attention was of course a personal tragedy and that was Franklin Delano roosevelt coming down with polio in 1921. Here is a 39yearold, hes not an infant, from a very welltodo family, a very robust man, and suddenly he succumbed to polio at his family summer home on campa bello island. How does oshinsky explain how someone like roosevelt got polio . What had happened in his past or recently to him to explain this . He says that he was extremely vulnerable because as a child he didnt have many illnesses and as he was growing up he became very active. He was traveling the world. And he also became exhausted and stressed with the amount of work that he had. And that led to, like, being his immune system going down and being, of course, around a bunch of other people who he could have contracted the disease from. Okay. Anybody know anything about roosevelts childhood . He was very wealthy so he was separated from the mainstream American Population which meant that he wasnt he didnt contract common childhood diseases which would have raised his immune system. So once he went out in the real world, he was much more susceptible. Yes, his mother, sarah, was an extremely controlling individual and she basically oversaw his childhood. She made sure he was totally protected from everything and everybody. She was quite something. But anyway, of course that was just exactly what was not good for a child. Not having the normal exposure to diseases that most children did. As you said, very this was, you know, a sort of unique childhood in this very, very privileged, privileged upbringing. Anything else about roosevelt that would help explain he was exhausted, okay, where had he been right before he went to campa bello island . The boy scouts convention. Yeah. He was at a boy scout meeting just days before. Met a whole bunch of young boys. And thats probably where he contracted polio. What else . Wasnt he battling some sex scandal he had been in washington, d. C. , and he had been for three days under tremendous pressure going through these congressional investigations and questioning. So, again, getting absolutely exhausted. Were you going to add Something Else, josh . Yeah, i was going to say its called the lynn navy scandal. And it was regarding homosexual, scandal. Pressure, tension, et cetera. And i dont know if he fell off the boat, sailboat or if he actually went swimming. But he went into this really cold water. I dont know if any of you have tried to swim up in northern maine its absolutely frigid. He fell into the water and he stayed in his bathing suit. So obviously he got chilled. And this, again, interfered with his immune system and basically lowering his resistance. So suddenly we have this energetic robust 39yearold man, woke up and was paralyzed. And from that point forward, of course, Franklin Roosevelt never walked alone. He always wore metal braces. He usually was he was assisted by somebody, if he ever managed to walk to a podium to give a speech. Typically, though, he was sitting. That was usually whenever you see a picture of him, typically he was sitting down. And he was often in pain. And his mother felt the best path for roosevelt to follow would be to come home to hyde park, she would take care of him, and he could lead this lovely quiet life. But his wife, eleanor, convinced him otherwise. She thought the best thing was for roosevelt to reenter public life, to really try to get back to some kind of normal life if at all possible. And fortunately of course, that is what he did. Its amazing how many people in this country never realized that roosevelt was handicapped, that he had had polio and that he could not walk. Ive had students do oral histories of people who lived in the 1930s and 40s. And theyre like no, he wasnt paralyzed, he wasnt. They really did not know. And so roosevelt was determined not to make a big deal of this, not to become this sympathetic character and also there was a stigma about being handicapped. Youre not robust, youre not in a sense a whole person. He really didnt want people to know and he did a great job of really hiding this fact. Well, he returned to a normal life. He partnered with a young man named Basil Oconnor. They started a new york law firm. And then shortly thereafter roosevelt heard about this kind of decrepit sort of seedy spa called warm springs, georgia. So this is where the waters bubble up and there are all these minerals in the water and its all warm and wonderful. By the way, did any of you ever see the movie called warm springs . With Kenneth Branagh and cynthia nixon. Anyway. I saw it. It was a good movie. Roosevelt traveled there and he got in the waters and this was just wonderful. Really soothing. It was exactly what he needed. So much to his mothers dismay, he spent like 2 3 of his inheritance buying this property. Because what he realized is that this is exactly what he needed and also realized that other Polio Victims needed the same. And so out of this he formed the Warm Springs Foundation and its base of course was in warm springs, georgia. He built his own cottage and every summer he would spend weeks there just enjoying these wonderful warm mineral waters. In 1928, life changed again for roosevelt. Al smith, the governor of new york, the catholic who ran for president in 1928 against Herbert Hoover asked roosevelt to be his Vice President ial candidate. And so after much soul searching, roosevelt agreed. They didnt win that. In fact it was a pretty cataclysmic outcome. Herbert hoover won, as we know. But roosevelt became governor of new york and he served two twoyear terms as governor of new york. Well, in 1932, of course, the Democratic Party decided roosevelt would be the perfect candidate to run against Herbert Hoover. The heart of the depression, americans were really suffering, roosevelt ran an incredible campaign. His Campaign Song was happy days are here again. Even though nobody was too happy at that point. And of course he won the presidency and took office in 1933. Now, many a number of scholars have looked at roosevelt and his character and feel that polio had an incredible impact on who he was as a person. What did you get out of oshinsky in terms of how what polio did for roosevelt as a man, as a person . Did it have a positive impact, a negative impact . I think so much there was a stigma against polio he realized if he could go in and be such a fundamental change in the government that other people who were down and out with a depression could do the same thing, the stigma didnt need to be there. Didnt really agree with the fact he hid it from everyone but it proved that just because you have a physical handicap doesnt mean you cant go on and do impressive things. And there were people who knew about it. All the more. That they would admire this man and see what he was able to accomplish with a man who was basically handicapped by polio was quite incredible. Roosevelt before he had polio was pretty much called a lightweight. I wouldnt say he was a playboy, but he was not regarded as a man of great substance. Just thi