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.
One of the greatest battles against polio ever waged began with the idea to invite communities all across the country to “dance so that others may walk” on the January 30 birthday of President Franklin Roosevelt and raise funds to support an end to polio. At the suggestion of public relations consultant, business magnate and Roosevelt political ally Henry L. Doherty, the National Committee for Birthday Balls was launched to sponsor a dance in every town across the nation, both to celebrate the President’s birthday but also to raise money for Roosevelt’s Georgia Warm Springs Foundation.
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.
Howard Chandler Christy, a popular and masterful illustrator for the poetry of James Whitcomb Riley, was also the illustrator for the poster shown in this post that promoted the 1935 President’s Birthday Ball.
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.
Roosevelt went on to win the 1936 presidential election and during Roosevelt’s second term in office in 1938, he created the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, not only to help Warm Springs but also the victims of polio throughout the country. To increase awareness of the campaign, radio personality and philanthropist Eddie Cantor took to the air waves and urged Americans to send their loose change to President Roosevelt in “a march of dimes to reach all the way to the White House.” Soon, millions of dimes flooded the White House. In 1945, the annual March of Dimes campaign raised 18.9 million dollars (approximately $280-$300 million today) for the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, led by Basil O’Connor, Roosevelt’s former law partner friend, and advisor. President Roosevelt’s face was placed on the dime in 1946 and issued in time for his posthumous birthday on January 30 that year. Ultimately, the March of Dimes (as the National Foundation became known) financially supported the research and development of a polio vaccine by Jonas Salk in 1955, eradicating the disease throughout most of the world by the 1960s. Salk’s successful tested polio vaccine was announced on April 12, 1955, exactly ten years after President Roosevelt’s death. Rotary International packed a knock-out punch to help control the spread of polio worldwide with Rotary’s 1985 launch of the Polio Plus campaign to immunize children everywhere against polio. Indiana Rotarians presented a smaller replica of the “Polio PLUS” sculpture (see photo) to thank Riley Hospital for support of Rotary’s Polio PLUS campaign. A larger version of the statue was erected in 1991 at Rotary’s international headquarters in Chicago to commemorate the near-eradication of polio worldwide.
Riley Hospital for Children was a recipient of grant funds from the Marion County Chapter of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. Grant support provided by the Chapter to Riley Hospital supported research on polio and later made it possible for two physiotherapy technicians to participate in a six-month course on how to use the Sister Kenny Method to support rehabilitation progress for patients with polio. Riley Hospital was one of the first in the state to be trained in the Sister Kenny Method. The transforming power of dance continues to change the world today through the Riley Dance Marathon. Since 1991, the Riley Dance Marathon has raised more than $70 million and continues to raise dollars to fund many programs of need by children and families at Riley Hospital, including the Ryan White Center for Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Global Health.
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