Authors: Karen Bruner Stroup, PhD, Retired Director, Community Education and Child Advocacy, Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health; Secretary, Riley Hospital Historic Preservation Committee and
Richard L. Schreiner, MD, Edwin L. Gresham Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics, Indiana University School of Medicine; Retired Chairman, Department of Pediatrics; Chairman, Riley Hospital Historic Preservation Committee; Retired Physician-in-Chief, Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health
Before the Riley Dance Marathon began in 1991, there were the President’s Birthday Balls that took place every year in January from 1934 to 1945. Both the Riley Dance Marathon and the President’s Birthday Balls shared similar goals — to raise funds to put an end to a pandemic. For the Riley Dance Marathon when it began, the pandemic was AIDS and for the President’s Birthday Balls, the pandemic was polio. Both helped to raise funds that benefitted Riley Hospital for Children.
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Poster for The President Hotel's birthday ball
Roosevelt, who served four terms as President of the United States (1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944), contracted polio in 1921 and was paralyzed from the waist down. Devoted to finding a way to rehabilitate himself and others, Roosevelt used his personal fortune in 1926 to purchase a facility in Warm Springs, Georgia where he created the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation. He opened the facility to patients with polio from across the country and provided leading medical treatment and rehabilitation, including a hydrotherapy pool that served as a model for Riley Hospital’s hydrotherapy pool built and dedicated in 1935. By 1934, the growing demands of Roosevelt’s Warm Springs facility and increasing numbers of patients required more money than Roosevelt or a small number of contributors could give.
The first President’s Birthday Ball was held in January 1934, half-way through Roosevelt’s first term in office, with 4,376 communities joining in 600 separate celebrations that raised over one million dollars for Warm Springs. Future Birthday Balls through 1944 continued to raise about a million dollars per year, with contributions split between Warm Springs and the local communities where the balls were held.
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Poster for The Birthday Ball for the President event on Jan. 30, 1935. | Photo courtesy: the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, 1935
The President’s Birthday Balls brought all people together in our country to get behind one clear goal — dance to find a way to eradicate polio, a disease that affected all people, regardless of age, race, income or religion. Dr. Martin Luther King’s (whose birthday falls on January 17) vision of a “Beloved Community” where all in a community are cared for was well in mind here but in the world at that time (mid-1930s), the African-American community of Indianapolis had to plan and present “separate” Birthday Balls to raise money to stop polio. The Indianapolis Recorder, a leading African-American newspaper, nevertheless recognized the importance of the President’s Birthday Balls for all people, writing in a 1936 editorial that “citizens all over the country without regard to race, political affiliation, religious beliefs or other superficial distinctions, will gladly pay a good price for admission tickets to officially sponsored dances in their localities, happy in the knowledge that thereby they are contributing to a worthy cause.” The Recorder editorial added: “Those who love to dance may have the added pleasure of knowing that their dancing will help bring relief to many who are and will be the victims of one of the most stubborn and devastating diseases that fasten itself on humankind.” Today, nearly sixty years later, Dr. King’s vision for a “Beloved Community” is reflected in the inclusiveness of the Riley Dance Marathon, an opportunity for everyone to participate together, not separately, to dance and to help Riley patients and families.
President Roosevelt came to Riley Hospital just before Labor Day during the 1936 presidential campaign to see the hydrotherapy pool modeled after the one in Warm Springs, Georgia. Dr. George J. Garceau, (first Chairman of the IU School of Medicine Department of Orthopedic Surgery, 1948-1966), was Resident Surgical Director for Riley Hospital for Children when he visited Warm Springs for 3 days in 1931 to study the swimming pools there before making plans for a specialized hydrotherapy pool at Riley Hospital. Also in 1931, Indiana’s Rotarians significantly expanded Riley Hospital’s space to care for all children, regardless of color, with polio with the dedication and opening of the Rotary Convalescent Building, entirely supported by $276,000 raised by Indiana’s Rotary clubs from 1923 to 1931.
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Polio PLUS campaign miniature sculpture given to Riley Hospital for support of the Polio PLUS campaign to eradicate polio worldwide. | Photo courtesy: Sydney Gendron
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Dance Marathon dancers in 2006. | Photo courtesy: IU Indianapolis University Library Special Collections and Archives
References:
Negroes name Group for Birthday Ball, Indianapolis Times, January 24, 1935, p. 22, accessed through Hoosier State Chronicles.
10,000 Honor Roosevelt at Five Dances in City, Indianapolis Times, January 31, 1934, p. 1, accessed through Hoosier State Chronicles.
Six Roosevelt Birthday Fetes Arranged Here, Indianapolis Times, January 17, 1935, p. 3, accessed through Hoosier State Chronicles.
Roosevelt Birthday Observance Asked, Indianapolis Times, January 28, 1935, p. 2, accessed through Hoosier State Chronicles.
‘Happiest Birthday of All,’ says Roosevelt, Indianapolis Times, January 31, 1934, p. 1, accessed through Hoosier State Chronicles.
Roosevelt due for Tribute at Dances Tonight, Indianapolis Times, January 30, 1935, p. 2, accessed through Hoosier State Chronicles.
Polio Treatment Grant Approved, Indianapolis Star, December 6, 1941, p. 26, accessed through Indianapolis Public Library.
Polio Foundation Grants Funds Here, Indianapolis Times, July 24, 1943, Second Section, accessed through Hoosier State Chronicles.
Grant of $4,200 is given Riley, Indianapolis Times, January 29, 1943, p. 8, accessed through Hoosier State Chronicles.
Two from Riley to learn New Infantile Paralysis Treatment, Indianapolis Star, December 28, 1941, p. 7, accessed though Indianapolis Public Library.
When Dancing Helps, Indianapolis Recorder, January 25, 1936, p. 10, accessed through Hoosier State Chronicles.
How’s that for a Muscle, Pal?, Indianapolis Recorder, January 29, 1944, p. 1, accessed through Hoosier State Chronicles.
Combatting an Epidemic: President Roosevelt’s Birthday Celebrations on January 30, Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College
Rotary Unit at Hospital is Dedicated, Indianapolis Times, November 16, 1931, p. 5, accessed through Hoosier State Chronicles.
Elizabeth J. Van Allen and Omer H. Foust (eds.), Keeping the Dream: Commemorating 75 Years of Caring for Indiana’s Children—James Whitcomb Riley Memorial Association, (James Whitcomb Riley Memorial Association, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1996), p. 19, accessed through James Whitcomb Riley Collection, IUPUI University Library Special Collections and Archives.
Polio PLUS is 30 Years Old, Rotary (World’s 1st e-Club), January 2002
Polio PLUS in Bronze, The Rotarian, November 1991, pp. 36-37