1946

National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis names its first poster child, six-year-old Donald Anderson from a small-town in Oregon. Though depicted on the poster as “’a vibrant model of the ideal polio survivor . . . well-dressed, well-groomed, full of vitality,’” in actuality, he was far from fully recovered, with a memo of 1948 rating his condition as only ‘somewhat improved’.” The promotional use of the poster child followed the Foundation’s creation of a Women’s Division and March of Dimes Fashion Show in 1945 (Oshinsky II, 119-125).