Posted on Aug 10, 2019
Could FDR Actually Walk? Newly Discovered Film Shows He Could
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On August 10, 1921, FDR was stricken with polio at his summer home on the Canadian island of Campobello. From the article:
"Could FDR Actually Walk? Newly Discovered Film Shows He Could
Crippled by polio, FDR took great pains to manage public perception of his disability. But the Secret Service likely never saw the tourist in the crowd with a film camera.
Newly discovered film footage from 1935 offers a rare glimpse of President Franklin D. Roosevelt walking, in a show of extreme effort that he went to great lengths to hide from the public eye.
Fred Hill of New York was attending the annual Easter Egg Roll at the White House with his family on April 22, 1935, when he used his movie camera to capture the moment Roosevelt emerged from the White House onto the South Portico. In the short, silent film Hill shot that day, Roosevelt, who usually used a wheelchair after being stricken with polio some 14 years earlier, can be seen walking painstakingly along the portico with the assistance of his bodyguard, before stopping at the railing of the balcony to wave to the crowd.
The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York released the black-and-white 16-mm film footage this week after it was donated by Hill’s grandson, Richard Hill of Reno, Nevada. “I’ve kind of jealously guarded this stuff,” Richard Hill told the Washington Post. But now, he said, it “needs to go where it belongs . . . It’s an important part of history that almost got away.”
As a 39-year-old rising politician, Roosevelt first showed symptoms of infantile paralysis, or poliomyelitis, at his family’s beloved Campobello Island retreat in New Brunswick, Canada, in the summer of 1921. At the time, there was no known cure for polio, and it often led to full or partial paralysis. After his diagnosis, Roosevelt withdrew from public life for a time to rehabilitate at his home in Hyde Park, New York, and also traveled to work with physiotherapists at Warm Springs, Georgia. When the resort there was struggling financially, Roosevelt bought the place for $200,000 and turned it into a rehab facility for himself and other polio sufferers.
After Roosevelt resumed his political career, winning the governorship of New York in 1928 and the presidency for the first time in 1932, he took great pains to manage public perception of his disability. Strict White House rules prevented people from taking pictures of or filming him either in his wheelchair or being helped in and out of cars. Roosevelt also worked very hard to develop a way of walking by using heavy leg braces and a cane, and leaning on someone else’s arm—a struggle he also did not want to be preserved on film.
Geoffrey C. Ward, a Roosevelt biographer and trustee of the FDR Museum and Library, writes that before Fred Hill’s newly revealed footage, “only a handful of mostly private snapshots and a few feet of blurry amateur film” have been found to show Roosevelt walking. According to Ward, the Secret Service agents probably didn’t see Hill filming during the Easter Egg Roll because of the unusually large size of the crowd on the White House lawn. (A record 51,391 people entered the White House gates that day.) If they had, they would likely have taken the camera and confiscated the film before giving it back to him.
But the Secret Service didn’t spot Hill—and now we can see the moment he captured for ourselves."
"Could FDR Actually Walk? Newly Discovered Film Shows He Could
Crippled by polio, FDR took great pains to manage public perception of his disability. But the Secret Service likely never saw the tourist in the crowd with a film camera.
Newly discovered film footage from 1935 offers a rare glimpse of President Franklin D. Roosevelt walking, in a show of extreme effort that he went to great lengths to hide from the public eye.
Fred Hill of New York was attending the annual Easter Egg Roll at the White House with his family on April 22, 1935, when he used his movie camera to capture the moment Roosevelt emerged from the White House onto the South Portico. In the short, silent film Hill shot that day, Roosevelt, who usually used a wheelchair after being stricken with polio some 14 years earlier, can be seen walking painstakingly along the portico with the assistance of his bodyguard, before stopping at the railing of the balcony to wave to the crowd.
The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York released the black-and-white 16-mm film footage this week after it was donated by Hill’s grandson, Richard Hill of Reno, Nevada. “I’ve kind of jealously guarded this stuff,” Richard Hill told the Washington Post. But now, he said, it “needs to go where it belongs . . . It’s an important part of history that almost got away.”
As a 39-year-old rising politician, Roosevelt first showed symptoms of infantile paralysis, or poliomyelitis, at his family’s beloved Campobello Island retreat in New Brunswick, Canada, in the summer of 1921. At the time, there was no known cure for polio, and it often led to full or partial paralysis. After his diagnosis, Roosevelt withdrew from public life for a time to rehabilitate at his home in Hyde Park, New York, and also traveled to work with physiotherapists at Warm Springs, Georgia. When the resort there was struggling financially, Roosevelt bought the place for $200,000 and turned it into a rehab facility for himself and other polio sufferers.
After Roosevelt resumed his political career, winning the governorship of New York in 1928 and the presidency for the first time in 1932, he took great pains to manage public perception of his disability. Strict White House rules prevented people from taking pictures of or filming him either in his wheelchair or being helped in and out of cars. Roosevelt also worked very hard to develop a way of walking by using heavy leg braces and a cane, and leaning on someone else’s arm—a struggle he also did not want to be preserved on film.
Geoffrey C. Ward, a Roosevelt biographer and trustee of the FDR Museum and Library, writes that before Fred Hill’s newly revealed footage, “only a handful of mostly private snapshots and a few feet of blurry amateur film” have been found to show Roosevelt walking. According to Ward, the Secret Service agents probably didn’t see Hill filming during the Easter Egg Roll because of the unusually large size of the crowd on the White House lawn. (A record 51,391 people entered the White House gates that day.) If they had, they would likely have taken the camera and confiscated the film before giving it back to him.
But the Secret Service didn’t spot Hill—and now we can see the moment he captured for ourselves."
Could FDR Actually Walk? Newly Discovered Film Shows He Could
Posted from history.com
World History
American History
Military History
Office of the President (POTUS)
Posted >1 y ago
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Capt Daniel Goodman
The film I'd just sent in shows the scene where he's leaning on the arm of the same son who'd helped him on board the Brit ship from the USS Augusta, when the meeting at sea with the famous religious service was held, though that whole thing happened well after what's actually recounted in the movie itself, which covers the whole polio recovery treatment, as well as his having given the Democratic convention keynote speech before he actually ran for election later on....
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkD2Nihl_9Q
If you've never all seen this, you all definitely should; Kenneth Branagh, while not physically the same height as FDR, nevertheless gave a pretty decent performance as him about the whole story of Warm Springs, GA, and the polio facility there...my Dad once saw him in the Bronx, before he and my grandparents moved out to Long Island (LI)...FDR apparently was visiting, my Dad said seeing him in the motorcade, was, as he phrased it, "...like God coming down the street," word for word as he said it...there was a good deal to admire about FDR, some of which is illustrated well in this film, esp the scene of him being carried over the shoulder of another guy, on the way to give the Democratic convention keynote speech, when a reporter snapped a not-too-flattering shot of FDR being carried in the fashion, the camera was snatched by another reporter, the film was destroyed, and the other reporter apologized, which scene apparently really did happen, and was actually recreated fairly accurately...there was also a good deal about FDR that was far less admirable, esp what he did, that one of his daughters let him get away with, when he was lost at Warm Springs due to his stroke, and he'd been seeing Eleanor's best friend, who'd been his secretary, I'd gathered, and who had almost been the cause of he and Eleanor having gotten a divorce...that, of course, was not recounted in this film, I think, though it was recounted in another film I'd seen, as well as discussed in numerous books about both of them, so is well-known as having happened, Eleanor was apparently justly furious with her daughter for having allowed it, they'd long had a loveless marriage, which secret was also very carefully guarded...in another film, about a young minority girl who's mother had worked at the White House, that girl had apparently also was crippled, the Secret Service agents apparently wouldn't let her use the elevator, there was a story recounted in her book, and the film about her life, as she also worked in the White House later on as an adult, that FDR evidently also found out that the Secret Service apparently had actually told the staff to "Evaporate!" whenever FDR was due to appear...FDR saw the girl hiding, saw her limp, and found out that she'd been forbidden to use the elevator, he personally told the Secret Service agent with him to stop forbidding her, which she recounted in her book, and which was depicted quite vividly in the film about her life...I know all about the special limo platform for FDR in Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, with an entrance I'd seen discussed in a documentary that, even now, is kept pretty secret, as his actual personal train car, with space for his limo, as well as a special platform driveway, is apparently still in a sub-basement...there was apparently a very overweening over-protective attitude that pervaded his whole polio crippling, that much was apparent, so I'm by no means astonished that the film would most likely, as mentioned, have been confiscated, just as the picture showing Kenneth Branagh being carried taken in the film here, was also, as I'd said, actually destroyed, as you'd all see, on watching the movie...I just thought you might all care to know some of those sorts of details, as well as my Dad having actually seen him in a motorcade in the Bronx, as I'd mentioned, trust me, the film is most unusual, as well as quite well worth the time to watch, in addition to being quite accurate as to the whole Warm Springs part of the story, as you'd all immediately realize, I assure all of you, enjoy it, at any rate, OK?
If you've never all seen this, you all definitely should; Kenneth Branagh, while not physically the same height as FDR, nevertheless gave a pretty decent performance as him about the whole story of Warm Springs, GA, and the polio facility there...my Dad once saw him in the Bronx, before he and my grandparents moved out to Long Island (LI)...FDR apparently was visiting, my Dad said seeing him in the motorcade, was, as he phrased it, "...like God coming down the street," word for word as he said it...there was a good deal to admire about FDR, some of which is illustrated well in this film, esp the scene of him being carried over the shoulder of another guy, on the way to give the Democratic convention keynote speech, when a reporter snapped a not-too-flattering shot of FDR being carried in the fashion, the camera was snatched by another reporter, the film was destroyed, and the other reporter apologized, which scene apparently really did happen, and was actually recreated fairly accurately...there was also a good deal about FDR that was far less admirable, esp what he did, that one of his daughters let him get away with, when he was lost at Warm Springs due to his stroke, and he'd been seeing Eleanor's best friend, who'd been his secretary, I'd gathered, and who had almost been the cause of he and Eleanor having gotten a divorce...that, of course, was not recounted in this film, I think, though it was recounted in another film I'd seen, as well as discussed in numerous books about both of them, so is well-known as having happened, Eleanor was apparently justly furious with her daughter for having allowed it, they'd long had a loveless marriage, which secret was also very carefully guarded...in another film, about a young minority girl who's mother had worked at the White House, that girl had apparently also was crippled, the Secret Service agents apparently wouldn't let her use the elevator, there was a story recounted in her book, and the film about her life, as she also worked in the White House later on as an adult, that FDR evidently also found out that the Secret Service apparently had actually told the staff to "Evaporate!" whenever FDR was due to appear...FDR saw the girl hiding, saw her limp, and found out that she'd been forbidden to use the elevator, he personally told the Secret Service agent with him to stop forbidding her, which she recounted in her book, and which was depicted quite vividly in the film about her life...I know all about the special limo platform for FDR in Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, with an entrance I'd seen discussed in a documentary that, even now, is kept pretty secret, as his actual personal train car, with space for his limo, as well as a special platform driveway, is apparently still in a sub-basement...there was apparently a very overweening over-protective attitude that pervaded his whole polio crippling, that much was apparent, so I'm by no means astonished that the film would most likely, as mentioned, have been confiscated, just as the picture showing Kenneth Branagh being carried taken in the film here, was also, as I'd said, actually destroyed, as you'd all see, on watching the movie...I just thought you might all care to know some of those sorts of details, as well as my Dad having actually seen him in a motorcade in the Bronx, as I'd mentioned, trust me, the film is most unusual, as well as quite well worth the time to watch, in addition to being quite accurate as to the whole Warm Springs part of the story, as you'd all immediately realize, I assure all of you, enjoy it, at any rate, OK?
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CSM Charles Hayden
Capt Daniel Goodman Sounds interesting, just the thing for another quarantined afternoon on June 3, 2020. I will watch it on the big screen TV assisted by my Apple TV.
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