107. Laurence “Older Age Groups Attacked by Polio.”
108. [Cohn interview with] Amy Lindsey, May 19 1955, Cohn Papers, MHS-K
109. [Cohn interview with] Morris Fishbein, November 16 1953, Cohn Papers, MHS-K; and see Fishbein An Autobiography, 233.
110. Roland Berg to Roy Naftzger, November 23 1948, Public Relations, MOD-K.
111. Albert Deutsch “Sister Kenny and the Foundation” New York Star July 14 1948.
112. “Illinois: Film on Poliomyelitis” JAMA (1948) 137: 1325; “Medical Motion Pictures” JAMA (1948) 138: 111.
113. “New Kenny Institute Setup Announced” Minneapolis Star December 6 1948; “The Kenny Institute” Minnesota Medicine (December 1948) 31: 1349.
114. “New Kenny Institute Setup Announced.”
115. [Transcript] “Telephone Conversation between Dr. Van Riper and Dr. Huenkens, Medical Director, Kenny Institute, Minneapolis—Dec. 8, 1948,” Public Relations, MOD-K.
116. [Transcript] “Telephone Conversation between Dr. Van Riper and Dr. Huenkens”; Van Riper to Dear Mr. [Charles B.] Sweatt, January 25 1949, Public Relations, MOD-K.
117. “Citizens Form Polio Research League, to Ask Congress to Institute New Project” San Fernando Sun [1948], Clippings 1948, MHS-K; “Anti-Kenny Stand Hit By League” Glendale News-Press August 4 1949; “Sister Kenny Hospital Plans Mapped; L.A. to Hail Polio Foe” Los Angeles Examiner October 23 1949; [editorial] “The Polio Controversy”, San Fernando Sun October 28 1948; “Polio Conference Set” New York Times December 9 1948; [Transcript] “Telephone Conversation between Dr. Van Riper and Dr. Huenkens.”
118. “Citizens Form Polio Research League”; “Group Launches Federal Polio Research Drive” [newspaper name missing], September 30 1948, Public Relations, MOD-K.
119. Citizen’s Polio Research League Petition, Public Relations, MOD-K; [Transcript] “Telephone Conversation between Dr. Van Riper and Dr. Huenkens.” We know little about this group, although it may well be part of the wider postwar conservative movement in southern California; see Kurt Schuparra Triumph of the Right: The Rise of the California Conservative Movement 1945–1966 (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1998).
120. Herbert Avedon to My Dear Sister Kenny, “A Third Open Letter,” San Fernando Sun, October 14 1948; Herbert Avedon to My Dear Mr. Sheppard, “An Open Letter,” San Fernando Sun, October 14 1948; Herbert Avedon to My Dear Mr. O’Connor, “Another Open Letter,” San Fernando Sun, October 14 1948.
121. Herbert Avedon to Sister Kenny, October 29 1948, General Correspondence, July–December 1948, MHS-K; Harry R. Sheppard to Herbert Avedon, October 21, 1948, San Fernando Sun; “Sister Kenny Answers Sun Open Letter,” San Fernando Sun, October 28 1948.
122. Barbaralu Sanderson to My Dear Mr. O’Connor, San Fernando Sun, December 2 1948.
123. “Polio Conference Set”; Sonja Betts to Dear Miss Truman, December 2 1948, General Correspondence-T, MHS-K.
124. “Citizens Form Polio Research League.”
125. “Sister Kenny Gives Counsel On Polio” New York Times December 17 1948; Mildred Freeston to R. A. Burcaw, December 16 1948, Memorandum on Citizens Polio Research League Conference, Jersey City, December 16 1948, Public Relations, MOD-K.
126. “Sister Kenny Gives Counsel On Polio”; Freeston to Burcaw, December 16 1948.
127. Chester LaRoche to Dear Sister, October 28 1948, Clara and Chester LaRoche, 1945–1948, MHS-K.
128. Kenny to Dear Mr. LaRoche, November 8 1948, Clara and Chester La Roche, 1945–1948, MHS-K.
129. Marvin Stevens to Dear Chet [LaRoche], December 20 1948, Clara and Chester La Roche, 1945–1948, MHS-K.
130. Kenny to Dear Mr. LaRoche, December 27 1948, Clara and Chester La Roche, 1945–1948, MHS-K. Note that in June 1948 a subcommittee of the Committee on Medical Education of the New York Academy of Medicine viewed the Kenny film and after consulting with its sections on Pediatrics and Orthopedic Surgery decided not to request showing the film at its next general meeting; Mahlon Ashford to Dear Sister Kenny, January 21 1949, General Correspondence-A, MHS-K.
131. John Ralph “My Struggle By Sister Kenny” [Britain] Sunday Graphic May 11 1947, OM 65-17, Box 1, Folder 4, Chuter Papers, Oxley-SLQ; Kenny to Mr. President, Mrs. Webber and Gentlemen, May 24 1948.
132. Kenny to Dear Sir [Haverstock as secretary of KF], September 2 1947, Henry W. Haverstock, 1942–1951, MHS-K; Kenny to Mr. President, Mrs. Webber and Gentlemen, February 24 1948.
133. Kenny to Mr. President, Mrs. Webber and Gentlemen, February 24 1948; Kenny to Dear Sir [Haverstock as secretary of KF], September 2 1947.
134. [Cohn interview with] William O’Neil, May 20 1955; John F. Pohl “Early Diagnosis of Poliomyelitis” JAMA (July 26 1947) 134: 1059–1061.
135. Kenny to Dear Sir [Haverstock as secretary of KF] September 2 1947.
136. Kenny to Dear Dr. Pohl, September 20 1947, [accessed in 1992 before recent re-cataloging], UMN-ASC.
137. [Cohn interview with] William O’Neill, May 20 1955.
138. Kenny to Dear Miss Truman, January 6 1949, General Correspondence-T, MHS-K; Sonja Betts to Dear Miss Truman, December 2 1948.
139. “Kenny Picture Shown” New York Times July 1 1948; [Advertisement] “To the Publishers, Editors, Columnists and Reporters of Metropolitan Area Newspapers, Leaders of Parent-Teacher, Civic, Fraternal, Trade Union, Business, Women’s and Public Service Organizations, Men and Women in All Branches of Public Life, the Medical and Nursing Professions” [unnamed New York newspaper 1948], Public Relations, MOD-K; “Kenny Polio Therapy Film Shown” New York World-Telegram [1948] Public Relations, MOD-K; “Asks Unity on Kenny Method” [unnamed New York newspaper] [1948], Public Relations, MOD-K; “Change Arrival Time For Sister Kenny’s Visit to Centralia” Centralia Sentinel September 24 1951.
140. Christabel Pankhurst to Dear Sister Kenny, January 15 1948, Rosalind Russell (Brisson) 1947–1952, MHS-K.
141. “18,000 Begin Kenny Drive” [with Karsh photograph and caption “Sister Elizabeth Kenny, Polio-Fighting Australian Nurse”] Minneapolis Sunday Tribune November 7 1948; Doris B. Medsger to Dear Sister Kenny, October 26 1948, General Correspondence, July-December 1948, MHS-K; Yousuf Karsh “Women of Achievement” Coronet (November 1948) 25. This portrait is not mentioned in Maria Tippett The Life of Yousuf Karsh (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007).
142. Mary Kenny McCracken said later that the cape was Karsh’s own; McCracken, interviews with Rogers, November 1992.
143. “Medicine: Sister Kenny’s New Center,” 49.
144. Deutsch quoted in Aaron “Polio: A Story of Conflicting Personalities,” 80.
145. [Transcript] “Telephone Conversation between Dr. Van Riper and Dr. Huenkens.”
146. Hart Van Riper to Dear Mrs. Karlsteen, January 5 1950, Public Relations, MOD-K.
147. McCracken, interviews with Rogers, November 1992; See also “the Amazonian figure of the gray-haired, steely-eyed, strong-jawed Elizabeth Kenny;” Albert Deutsch, “The Truth About Sister Kenny,” American Mercury (November 1944) 59: 610.
148. Gallup, Gallup Poll, 1: 775. The poll was done on December 26 1948.
149. Dana S. Creel to Isabel Robertson Memorandum Re: National Infantile Paralysis Foundation, December 11 1950, Record Group III-2K, OMR, Series Medical Interest, Box 14-171A, Folder 115, Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown.
150. Thomas M. Rivers to Dear Mr. Rockefeller, December 7 1950, Record Group III-2K, OMR, Series Medical Interest, Box 14-171A, Folder 115, Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown.
151. Aaron “Polio: A Story of Conflicting Personalities,” 78.
152. Aaron “Polio: A Story of Conflicting Personalities,” 78–81.
153. Aaron “Polio: A Story of Conflicting Personalities,” 79.
154. Basil O’Connor to Dear Mr. Rockefeller, February 21 1951, Record Group III-2K, OMR, Series Medical Interest, Box 14-171A, Folder 115, Rockefeller Archive Center.
155. “Polio Foundation Leader Denies Pfeifer Charges” Buffalo Courier-Expre
ss October 14 1949; “ ‘Dimes’ Accounting Is Asked; Kenny’s Unit’s Charges Denied” Buffalo Evening News October 14 1949, Public Relations, MOD-K; “Dimes Drive Has Failed To Aid Kenny Center, Foundation Says” Buffalo Evening News October [n.d.] 1949, Public Relations, MOD-K.
156. “Sister Kenny Foundation Scores March of Dimes Head” [unidentified newspaper 1949], Public Relations, MOD-K.
157. Inez Mattson to Dear Mrs. White, October 10 1948, Public Relations, MOD-K.
158. C. W. Plattes [chair of NFIP Hennepin County Chapter] to Dear Mr. Savage, October 5 1949, Public Relations, MOD-K.
159. J.L. Morrill to Dear Mr. [Charles Bolles] Rogers, November 15 1946, Presidents Papers, Box 119, UMN-ASC.
160. “Mapping Campaign” [photograph of Kenny, Sonja Betts and Mrs. J. Harold Dexter planning a West Coast Kenny Hospital] Los Angeles Examiner October 23 1949; “Sister Kenny Hospital Plans Mapped; L.A. to Hail Polio Foe” Los Angeles Examiner October 23 1949.
161. George D. Roberts “Activities of the Northern California Chapter,” November 4 1949, San Francisco-Misc., MHS-K; Kenny “Concerning the Extension of My Work in the State of California” [1949]; “Judge Bullock Commends Sister Kenny Fund Drive” Los Angeles Times June 5 1950.
162. “Anti-Kenny Stand Hit By League”; “Gird for Total War on Polio” Herald Express July 28 1949. Betts identified Representative Republican Carl Hinshaw, Republican William Knowland and conservative Democrat Sheridan Downey.
163. Herbert J. Levine to Marvin H. Kline [telegram], [January 1948] Centralia, Illinois, MHS-K; H.D. Gillette to Sister Kenny [telegram], February 20 1948, Centralia, Illinois, MHS-K; Harley Queen to Marvin Kline [telegram], February 21 1948, Centralia 1948, MHS-K; Marvin Kline to Dr. Herbert J. Levine [telegram], [1948] Centralia 1948, MHS-K; Kline to Dr. H. Logan [president, Medical Board, Salem IL] et al [telegram], [1948] Centralia, 1948, MHS-K.
164. John L. Matthews to Sister Kenny [telegram], February 21 1948, Centralia, Illinois, MHS-K; John L. Matthews to Marvin H. Kline, February 21 1948, Centralia, Illinois, MHS-K.
165. Kenny to John L. Matthews [telegram], February 23 1948, Centralia, 1948, MHS-K; Kenny to Harley Queen [telegram], February 23 1948 Centralia, 1948, MHS-K; Kenny to Julius Kissel [telegram], February 23 1948, Centralia 1948, MHS-K; Kenny to Dear friends [Reverend and Mrs. Robert Hastings], May 26 1948, Centralia, Illinois, MHS-K; Dr. Kissel to Sister Kenny [telegram], [1948] Centralia, 1948, MHS-K; Harley Queen to Kenny [telegram], February 21 1948, Centralia 1948, MHS-K.
166. Kenny to Sir [Governor Dwight Green], June 4 1948.
167. Anthony Fleege “The 1947 Centralia Mine Disaster” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (2009) 102: 163–176. The governor’s investigative commission exonerated Green but blamed officials of the mining company and poor attention by state inspectors.
168. “Sister Kenny Will Appeal to Governor Of Illinois for Certification of Polio Clinic” Houston Chronicle [August 1948], General Correspondence-K, MHS-K; “Only Kenny Clinic in Illinois Denied O.K. on Staff Setup” Chicago Daily Tribune July 22 1948.
169. Herbert J. Levine I Knew Sister Kenny: A Story of a Great Lady and Little People (Boston: Christopher Publishing House, 1954) 128–130, 137.
170. “Sister Kenny Will Fight State Ruling on Her Clinic Today” Chicago Daily Tribune August 6 1948; “Kenny Treatment Upheld” New York Times August 7 1948; John Chapman to Dear Sister Kenny, June 14 1948, Invited Physicians Letters, 1939–1949, MHS-K.
171. Levine I Knew Sister Kenny, 153, 162.
172. Herbert J. Levine to Dear Mr. Cohn, August 30 1972, Cohn Papers, MHS-K; Levine I Knew Sister Kenny, 203–206. Note that Huenkens later claimed that Matthews had had a stroke with paralysis in one leg which was called polio; [Cohn second interview with] E.J. Huenkens, June 3 1964, Cohn Papers, MHS-K.
173. “Centralia’s Kenny Clinic Patients to Get Care in Chicago” Chicago Daily Tribune March 17 1949; Levine I Knew Sister Kenny, 173–174, 223.
174. “Polio Rises in Illinois” New York Times July 18 1949; Levine I Knew Sister Kenny, 222; B.K. Richardson A History of The Illinois Department of Public Health 1927–1962 (Illinois: [Governor’s Office] 1963), 85–87.
175. Kenny “For the Information of the Citizens of the State of Minnesota and the Citizens of the United States of American Concerning My Approaching Departure” [1947] Mayoralty Files 1945–1948, Box 10, Humphrey Papers, MHS.
176. “Scope of Kenny Clinics’ Work Expanding in U.S.” [Toowoomba newspaper, n.d.], Clippings, MHS-K; Margaret Opdahl Ernst, interview with Rogers, May 11 2001, St Paul, Minnesota; Kenny to Dear Mary [McCracken], May 7 1949, Kenny Collection, Fryer Library.
177. Kenny to Dear Mary and Stuart [December 1947], Kenny Collection, Fryer Library; Kenny to Dear Friends [November 1947], Personal Correspondence and Related Papers 1942–1951, MHS-K; Kenny to Mr. President, Mrs. Webber and Gentlemen, May 24 1948; Karen Peterson Butterworth Mind over Muscle: Surviving Polio in New Zealand (Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 1994), 62; J.E. Caughey and D.S. Malcolm “Muscle Spasm in Poliomyelitis: A Study of a New Zealand Epidemic” Archives of Disease in Childhood (March 1950) 25: 15–17. For the intriguing suggestion that Bell began to “refine” Kenny’s methods over the years see Butterworth Mind over Muscle, 64. The hospital was endowed by Thomas Duncan, a wealthy farmer and philanthropist.
178. Kenny to Dear Sir Norman [Nook], April 25 1949, Wilson Collection; Kenny to Dear Sir [W. Moore], March 24 1952, Wilson Collection; [Cohn interview with] Valerie Harvey, March 19 1953, Cohn Papers, MHS-K; [Cohn interview with] Pete Gazzola [Director of Public Relations, KF Eastern Area], August 25 1953, Cohn Papers, MHS-K; [Cohn interview with] Will O’Neill, May 20 1955.
179. Kenny to Dear Friend [Alejandro del Carril], June 24 1949, Argentina, MHS-K; Kenny to My Dear Mary and Stuart, September 24 1946, Mary Stewart Kenny, 1942–1947 MHS-K; Kenny to Dear Mary and Stuart, May 18 1947, Kenny Collection, Fryer Library; Kenny to Dear Mary, January 31 [n.d.], Kenny Collection, Fryer Library.
FURTHER READING
On medical politics in the late 1940s, see James G. Burrow AMA: Voice of American Medicine (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1963); Frank D. Campion The AMA and U.S. Health Policy since 1940 (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1984); Jonathan Engel Doctors and Reformers: Discussion and Debate over Health Policy 1925–1950 (Charleston: University of South Carolina Press, 2002); Elizabeth Fee and Theodore M. Brown eds. Making Medical History: The Life and Times of Henry E. Sigerist (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997); Rickey Hendricks A Model for National Health Care: The History of Kaiser Permanente (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993); Robert D. Johnston ed. The Politics of Healing: Histories of Alternative Medicine in Twentieth-Century North America (New York: Routledge, 2004); Monte Poen Harry S. Truman versus the Medical Lobby: The Genesis of Medicare (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1979); Elton Rayak Professional Power and American Medicine: The Economics of the American Medical Association (Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1967); Naomi Rogers An Alternative Path: The Making and Remaking of Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital of Philadelphia (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998); Naomi Rogers “The Public Face of Homeopathy: Politics, the Public and Alternative Medicine in the United States 1900–1940” in Martin Dinges ed. Patients in the History of Homeopathy (Sheffield: European Association for the History of Medicine and Health Publications, 2002), 351–371; Paul Starr The Social Transformation of American Medicine (New York: Basic Books, 1982); Rosemary Stevens In Sickness and in Wealth: American Hospitals in the Twentieth Century (New York: Basic Books, 1989); Patricia Spain Ward “United States versus American Medical Association et al.: The Medical Anti-Trust Case of 1938–1943” American Studies (1989) 30: 123–153.
On medical science and research in the 1940s and 1950s see Toby A. Appel Shaping Biology: The National Science Foundation and American Biological Research, 1945–1975 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000); Angela N. H. Creager The Life of
a Virus: Tobacco Mosaic Virus as an Experimental Model, 1930–1965 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002); Roger L. Geiger Research and Relevant Knowledge: American Research Universities Since World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Bert Hansen Picturing Medical Progress from Pasteur to Polio: A History of Mass Media Images and Popular Attitudes in America (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009); Victoria A. Harden Inventing the NIH: Federal Biomedical Research Policy, 1887–1937 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986); Michael Kazin The Populist Persuasion: An American History (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995); Daniel J. Kevles “Foundations, Universities and Trends in Support of Physical and Biological Sciences, 1900–1992” Daedalus (1992) 121: 195–235; Gretchen Krueger Hope and Suffering: Children, Cancer, and the Paradox of Experimental Medicine (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008); Harry M. Marks “Cortisone, 1949: A Year in the Political Life of a Drug” Bulletin of the History of Medicine (1992) 66: 429–432; Harry M. Marks The Progress of Experiment: Science and Therapeutic Reform in the United States, 1900–1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); James T. Patterson The Dread Disease: Cancer and Modern American Culture (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989); Steven P. Strickland Politics, Science and Dread Disease: A Short History of United States Medical Research Policy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972); James Harvey Young The Medical Messiahs: A Social History of Health Quackery in Twentieth-Century America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967).
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