Stephen E. Mawdsley

Dancing on Eggs: Charles H. Bynum, Racial Politics, and the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, 1938–1954

In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his law partner Basil O’Connor formed the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP) to battle the viral disease poliomyelitis. Although the NFIP program was purported to be available for all Americans irrespective of “race, creed, or color,” officials encountered numerous difficulties upholding this pledge in a nation divided by race. In 1944, NFIP officials hired educator Charles H. Bynum to head a new department of “Negro Activities.” Between 1944 and 1954, Bynum negotiated the NFIP bureaucracy to educate officials and influence their national health policy. As part of the NFIP team, he helped increase interracial fund-raising in the March of Dimes, improve polio treatment for black Americans, and further the civil rights movement.

The Gamma Globulin for Polio Clinical Trials: Victims of Marketing Success

CMAJ | JULY 24, 2017 | VOLUME 189 | ISSUE 29 E967 D uring the early 1950s, American researchers enrolled more than 55 000 healthy children in a medical experiment to assess whether the blood fraction, gamma globulin, could be used as a means to prevent para lytic polio.1–6 Because a large, double-blind, placebo-controlled study had never been attempted on an open population before, publicity became an inextricable part of the design.7 Although marketing the experiment was successful and clinic attendance surpassed researchers’ expectations, the enthusiasm of parents and health professionals led to unforeseen consequences. Researchers struggled to maintain control of the experiment and subsequently suppressed the extent of the problems and did not acknowledge the implications for medical science. The successes and setbacks of this study later influenced the Salk vaccine trials in 1954, while also raising important questions about the conduct of one of the first “gold standard” clinical trials. Before a safe and effective polio vaccine was licensed in April 1955, Americans faced the constant threat of polio outbreaks. Caused by an oral-fecal virus, a polio infection could lead to paralysis of the limbs and respiratory muscles or, in extreme cases, death. Although anyone could contract the disease, children seemed the most susceptible, inspiring the term “infantile paralysis.”8,9 Desperate for a means to prevent polio disability, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (now known as the March of Dimes) backed University of Pittsburgh researcher Dr. William McD. Hammon to undertake a controlled study with gamma globulin. The blood fraction, rich in antibodies, was already used for the prevention of measles and hepatitis and was therefore considered safe. Hammon hoped that by randomly injecting 4 mL to 11 mL of either placebo solution or gamma globulin into the gluteus maximus of children and comparing the two groups, the value of the blood fraction for polio could be established. Hammon and foundation officials believed that a publicity program was necessary to encourage parents to volunteer their healthy children. The foundation drew on its vast marketing expertise and connections to develop a sophisticated campaign for Hammon’s experiment. Unlike the annual March of Dimes polio fundraising drive, which benefited from weeks of advance publicity, promotion of the gamma globulin trial would be limited to days, because it was difficult to predict an epidemic; and once identified, the epidemic would not last long. Moreover, parents would need to be educated to appreciate the value of controlled trial methodology, in which only half the cohort would receive the potentially protective substance. Hammon believed that any protection offered by gamma globulin would last only a few weeks, so it had to be administered at the early stages of an epidemic, when passive immunization HUMANITIES | MEDICINE AND SOCIETY

Tanya Hart, Health and the City: Race, Poverty, and the Negotiation of Women's Health in New York City, 1915–1930

Review of the text: Tanya Hart, Health and the City: Race, Poverty, and the Negotiation of Womens Health in New York City, 1915–1930 (New York: New York University Press, 2015,

‘Salk Hops’: Teen Health Activism and the Fight against Polio, 1955 – 1960

55.00). Pp. 336. isbn 978 1 4798 6799 8

Black Barbers and the Civil Rights Movement

Abstract In the late 1950s, a health charity, known as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (March of Dimes), organized American teens into volunteer divisions to fight polio, as well as tame adult anxieties surrounding juvenile delinquency. The alliance that developed permitted the NFIP to increase its influence and revenue, while granting teens an opportunity to assert their cultural power and challenge negative stereotypes. Although the NFIP nurtured and at times dominated the relationship, young volunteers joined for their own reasons and shaped the program to suit their own aspirations and interests.

Selling Science: Polio and the Promise of Gamma Globulin

Cutting Along the Color Line provides an insightful history of black barbering and its effect on American labor, civil rights, and black enterprise during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. With the exception of published memoirs, such as Craig Marbertty’s Cuttin’ Up: Wit and Wisdom from Black Barber Shops (2005), literature on black barbering has been sparse; historical scholarship has recently attempted to redress this void. Victoria Harris-Lacewell’s Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought (2006) revealed the complex role that black barber shops played and continue to play in shaping ideology and grassroots political debate. In turn, Douglas W. Bristol Jr.’s Knights of the Razor: Black Barbers in Slavery and Freedom (2009) explored black barbering from the American Revolution to the First World War, charting the course of race relations and the significance of black entrepreneurs. Cutting Along the Color Line builds on this scholarship by devoting additional attention to the tumultuous era between the First World War and the 1970s, while also providing a nuanced analysis of black barbers, the nature of their power, and the significance of their workplace. Cutting Along the Color Line is organized chronologically and each chapter is divided into thematic sections. Mills draws on an interdisciplinary approach informed by a range of academic interests, including social movements, financial security, and political activism. Through interviews, archival collections, and historic newspapers, Mills argues that black barbers enjoyed remarkable agency in a nation divided by race. They became savvy entrepreneurs and influential political actors who negotiated race relations to create a niche in a competitive marketplace. Even though the primary focus of this book concerns the development and transformation of black barbershops through the lens of barbers and their patrons, the book does much more. By exploring black entrepreneurship and its patronage network, Mills also shows the importance of black barbershops in shaping meanings of race, class, and identity. By op-