Women as Societies Change Agents During the 1950s Polio Epidemic Essa

The 1950's represented the cold war era, symbolized by the red scar, anti-communism, potential nuclear war, and McCarthyism. Patriotic loyalty was stressed, any citizen who spoke out against the US government policies was labeled a communist and was often black listed and put under surveillance. The sensationalized conviction and execution of the Rosenberg's for spying, jeopardized our countries' national security and reinforced anti-communism propaganda. Moreover, students practiced emergency ducking under their desk drills to prepare for a nuclear fallout and families purchased bomb shelter for protection. The hyper-vigilance, fear, paranoia, and post traumatic stress that permeated our country's landscape of being under siege, intensified with the polio epidemic. Verbally expressing the word â€Å"POLIO† brings forth anxiety, trepidation, and thoughts of mortality, crippled bodies, and iron lungs. Once the initial shock wears off that you-- in fact, have the disease than the fight for your life begins. This highly contagious illness was passed by close contact and through fecal matter, despite improved sanitation practices. Unfortunately, many poor and middle class families' contracted this viral disease, which rapidly destroyed motor-neurons to arms, legs, and diaphragm muscles. Ironically,improved sanitation practices were blamed for this delayed childhood disease. Younger breastfeeding children received maternal antibodies whereas older children did not have this similar immune advantage. Sadly, children under fifteen years old, experienced the highest rates of contracting this malady. Adults also experienced severe poliomyelitis complications rendering them total care or requiring the iron lung to perform their br... ...ine, restricting community activities, discouraging mingling among all socioeconomic classes at the pools, theaters, and camps, good hygiene, sanitation practices and effective handwashing techniques. Works Cited BIBLOGRAPHY 1. Naomi Rogers, Dirt and Disease: Polio before FDR (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1992). 2. Wilson, D.J. A Crippling Fear: Experiencing Polio in the Era of FDR Bulletin of the History of Medicine 72.3 (1998) 464-495. 3. Oshinsky, D. M. Polio: An American Story oxford university press (2005) 350 4. Foertsch, J. Bracing accounts, the literature and culture of polio in postwar america. Associated university press (2008) 223. 5. Bocker, A. and Brandt, V. Living in fear:northeast wisconsin's polio epidemics. Voyager Winter/Spring (2007) 10-25.