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Roosevelt remained paralyzed from the waist down and relied on a wheelchair and leg braces for mobility, which he took efforts to conceal in public. In 1938, he founded the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, leading to the development of polio vaccines.
- Roosevelt’s ‘Splendid Deception’
- FDR’s Health Falters
- Roosevelt’s Final Months
Left paralyzed from the waist down, the optimistic Roosevelt never lost hope that he would regain the use of his legs and return to politics. “I’m not going to be conquered by a childish disease” he vowed. He found respite in the therapeutic mineral waters of Warm Springs, Georgia. Meeting others stricken by polio at Warm Springs altered Roosevelt,...
Roosevelt’s health began a steep decline after his nearly 18,000-mile roundtrip to the Tehran Conference in November 1943 to meet British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin on strategy to fight Adolf Hitler. Upon his return, an ailing, exhausted Roosevelt lost weight, and his trembling hands struggled to light cigaret...
Two days after taking the oath of office for the fourth time on January 20, 1945, Roosevelt departed on an arduous five-week journey to meet again with Churchill and Stalin at the Yalta Conference. While Cold Warcritics later derided Roosevelt as “the sick man of Yalta” who yielded too many concessions to Stalin, Woolner asserts the president’s min...
Aug 2, 2021 · A century ago, polio struck a handsome young politician — and forged one of the country’s greatest presidents. In August 1921, Franklin D. Roosevelt was stricken and transformed by a ...
Jan 3, 2013 · Franklin Roosevelt ’s crusade to defeat polio actually began more than 10 years before he created the group that would become known as the March of Dimes. His first efforts centered on a...
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Jul 24, 2024 · Two themes emerged among these early retellings of his experience with polio and paralysis—that FDR "conquered" disability, or that his personal struggle with it made him especially attuned to the nation's suffering during the Great Depression.
Jun 27, 2018 · Crippled by polio, FDR took great pains to manage public perception of his disability. But the Secret Service likely never saw the tourist in the crowd with a film camera.
Aug 2, 2021 · On the morning of Aug. 11, 1921, Franklin D. Roosevelt got out of bed and tried to make it to the bathroom in the summer house on Campobello Island, off the coast of Maine, where he and his...
