The two founders: President Franklin D. Roosevelt (left)
meeting with Basil O’Connor over a sack of dimes.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, an adult victim of polio, founded the
National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which he later
renamed the March of Dimes Foundation, on January 3, 1938.
A predominantly childhood disease in the early 20th century,
polio wreaked havoc among American children every summer.
Roosevelt managed to keep his disease out of the public eye,
yet his personal experience inspired in him an empathy with
the handicapped and prompted him to the found the March
of Dimes.
