Skip to main content

Voices in Crisis

News media have always held the role of informing the public of health workers’ essential work during pandemics. In this excerpt from the Southern Oral History Program, learn how hospitals in the South found an ally in the media.

Before Henry T. Clark served as the first Administrator of Health Affairs at the University of North Carolina, he worked at Vanderbilt Hospital creating the first polio ward in Tennessee.

One of ten in the United States at the time of its establishment in 1953, the ward housed its first 50 patients with no fatalities.

Local newspapers covered the opening and praised the brave staff. This media boosted morale in the hospital by letting the workers see “what they were doing was important not only inside the building, but outside.”

 

Find Clark’s entire account here.

Since 1973, the Southern Oral History Program has worked to capture the vivid personalities, poignant personal stories, and behind-the-scenes decision-making that bring history to life.

Photo courtesy of The Library of Congress.

 

 

Comments are closed.