A Battle of Silence: The Literature and Culture of Polio in Postwar America

FAIN: FT-52017-04

Jacqueline Foertsch
University of North Texas (Denton, TX 76203-5017)

This book considers fiction, nonfiction, and serial publications from the postwar/polio era in America, interpreting language and images that related directly to the crisis, while also listening for the meaning behind many moments of "silence" - trivializing of the subject in popular fiction, denial of negative outcomes in biographies and memoris of polio patients, avoidance of the topic in popular women's magazines. I will focus on gendered and generational conflicts related to polio, the ideology of children, the relationship between media and medicine, and the mobilization of the family against personal disaster in postwar/polio America.