Today in Presidential History: March of Dimes Edition

 

1.3.1938: The March of Dimes is organized.

In 1937, after he was already president, Roosevelt established the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. Comedian Eddie Cantor suggested a plan to help raise money for the foundation, whose goal was to provide care to polio victims and to support research. Call the foundation “The March of Dimes,” Cantor said, and suggest that everyone send a dime for polio research to the president. The dimes poured into the White House, and in 1938, the March of Dimes made its first research grant, to Yale University. By 1955, the year the Salk vaccine was declared safe, effective, and potent, the March of Dimes had invested $25.5 million in research. Although Roosevelt did not live to see the vaccine, he and the March of Dimes were so closely associated that the U.S. Congress honored his memory by putting his face on the dime. The government released the first Roosevelt dimes on January 30, 1946, FDR’s birthday and the start of the annual March of Dimes campaign.

From HHMI.