March of Dimes
March of Dimes is an American nonprofit organization that works to improve the health of mothers and babies. The organization was founded by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938, as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, to combat polio. The name "March of Dimes" was coined by Eddie Cantor as a pun on the newsreel series The March of Time. After funding Jonas Salk's polio vaccine, the organization expanded its focus to the prevention of birth defects and infant mortality. In 2005, as preterm birth emerged as the leading cause of death for children worldwide, research and prevention of premature birth became the organization's primary focus.
Organization
March of Dimes improves the health of mothers and babies through five programming areas: medical research, education of pregnant women, community programs, government advocacy, and support of pregnant women and mothers. The organization provides women and families with educational resources on baby health, pregnancy, preconception and new motherhood. It also supplies information and support to families in the NICU who are affected by prematurity, birth defects, or other infant health problems.March of Dimes began in 1938 as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. In 1976, it became known as the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation. In 2007, the formal name became the March of Dimes Foundation.
Anti-polio efforts
The group was founded by Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 3, 1938, as a response to U.S. epidemics of polio, a condition that can leave people with permanent physical disabilities. Roosevelt was himself diagnosed with polio in 1921. The foundation was an alliance between scientists and volunteers, with volunteers raising money to support research and education efforts.The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis was a reconstitution of the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation, which Roosevelt and his friend Basil O'Connor founded with other friends in 1927. O'Connor became the foundation's president, a position he held for more than three decades. His first task was to create a network of local chapters that could raise money and deliver aid; more than 3,100 county chapters were established during his tenure.
The name "March of Dimes" — a play on the contemporary radio and newsreel series, The March of Time — was coined by stage, screen and radio star Eddie Cantor. He inspired a nationwide fundraising campaign in the week preceding President Roosevelt's birthday on January 30, 1938. Lapel pins were sold for ten cents each; special features were produced by the motion picture studios and radio industry; and nightclubs and cabarets held dances and contributed a portion of the proceeds. As Cantor himself stated, "The March of Dimes will enable all persons, even the children, to show our President that they are with him in this battle against this disease. Nearly everyone can send in a dime, or several dimes. However, it takes only ten dimes to make a dollar and if a million people send only one dime, the total will be $100,000." Cantor's appeal collected only few dimes and donations to begin with; just $17.50 had been sent in to the White House in two days, but what followed was a flood: by January 29, over 80,000 letters with dimes, quarters and dollars poured into the White House mail room so that official correspondence to the president was buried in donation letters, with a final count of 2,680,000 dimes or $268,000 donated in what the press called "a silver tide which actually swamped the White House." Roosevelt went on the air to express his thanks, saying:
Donald Anderson was the very first "poster child" to raise money for the March of Dimes. He was from Oregon and had been diagnosed with polio in 1943. Photos were taken of Donald in an almost-paralyzed state. Another photo was taken seven months later to show how he had improved after receiving treatment funded by the foundation. His story was meant to show how regular, everyday Americans had helped Donald during his time in the polio ward by donating to the March of Dimes.
The March of Dimes was the title used for the foundation's annual fundraising event that requested each child donate a dime. At the Christmas season, booths were set up in cities where the children could drop their dime in a slot. These were out on the street and sometimes not even overseen by anyone. Gradually the name became synonymous with that of the organization.
"His genius was in generating large numbers of relatively small contributions for a cause," The New York Times wrote of O'Connor. "Over the years he collected and spent more than seven billion dimes — many of them from schoolchildren — with a half-billion dollars of it going to the war on polio."
Publisher Gerard Piel credited O'Connor with a "unique social invention: a permanently self-sustaining source of funds for the support of research — the voluntary health organization." With a centralized administration, state and local chapters and a large corps of volunteers, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis became the prototype for dozens of similar foundations.
In 1945, a journalist named Elaine Whitelaw created the women's division for the March of Dimes. Her main reason for doing so was to empower women, as primary caregivers, to come together to support the foundation's cause. The division's very first event was a fashion show in the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, which was a great success and had a large turnout. An award would later be named in her honor, as the Elaine Whitelaw Volunteer Service Award is listed as "the most prestigious award March of Dimes presents to recognize a lifetime of distinguished volunteer service."
Following the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, there was an entirely new challenge to fighting polio: Hollywood studios decided that the March of Dimes would no longer be allowed to collect donations from movie theater audiences, taking away a great portion of the foundation's funding. The foundation realized that his connection to the people, and to polio, was what had made Roosevelt effective at raising funds. The foundation sought a new way to make people feel a connection to polio by reminding families that this disease cripples small children and that mothers, especially, should protect those children. Because Franklin D. Roosevelt founded the March of Dimes, a redesign of the dime was chosen to honor him after his death. The Roosevelt dime was issued in 1946, on what would have been the president's 64th birthday.
In 1950, a group of Phoenix women, aware of the urgency of funding shortages at the Maricopa County March of Dimes, created the first Mothers' March on Polio establishing the model that the national foundation would adopt and spread nationwide starting in 1951. Between 1951 and 1955, contributions to March of Dimes doubled to $250 million, which the organization's fundraising department attributed to the nationwide introduction of the Mothers' March on Polio calling the campaign, "the single greatest activity in the entire March of Dimes."
From 1938 through the approval of the Salk vaccine in 1955, the foundation spent $233 million on polio patient care, which led to more than 80 percent of U.S. polio patients' receiving significant foundation aid.
Sabin vaccine and conflict with the March of Dimes
Around the same time, Albert Sabin developed a simpler version of the vaccine, which was based on an attenuated live version of the polio virus. Both Salk's version and Sabin's version had potential safety concerns; Salk's vaccine had the risk of a virus which is not completely inactivated, while Sabin's vaccine had the risk of reversion to virulence.In 1955, a batch of Salk's vaccine made by Cutter Laboratories in Berkeley, California was inadequately inactivated and, as a result, 11 children died. After this incident, production methods were changed and no further incidents were reported. Sabin became highly critical of O'Connor and the March of Dimes, who he believed were biased towards Salk's vaccine and made statements inconsistent with the scientific research. In the meantime, trials of the vaccine based on Sabin's version were carried out in the Soviet Union with important contributions made by Mikhail Chumakov.
In 1958, the Soviet Union organized industrial production of this vaccine and polio was largely eradicated in Eastern Europe and Japan. This success led to trials in the United States as well and the licensing of Sabin's vaccine in 1961, over the considerable opposition of the March of Dimes, which supported Salk's vaccine. Eventually, Sabin's vaccine superseded Salk's vaccine based on its advantages, which included a simpler administration and lifelong immunity.
Change of mission
Following widespread use of the polio vaccine, the organization was faced with disbanding or steering its resources toward a new mission. Basil O'Connor, then the organization's president, directed his staff to identify strengths and weaknesses and reformulate its mission. The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis shortened its name to the National Foundation in 1958 and launched its "Expanded Program" against birth defects, arthritis, and virus diseases, seeking to become a "flexible force" in the field of public health.In the mid-1960s, the organization focused its efforts on prevention of birth defects and infant mortality, which became its mission. At that time, the cause of birth defects was unknown; only the effects were visible. In 1976, the organization changed its name to the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation. Reducing the toll of premature birth was added as a mission objective in 2005.