Great article with interesting history, perspectives, and contrasts to the last year. Since I turned 2 years old early in 1957, I have no living memory of the event and can’t even recall my parents making a big deal of it later when I was old enough to notice. I do have a strong memory of their concerns with the typical childhood diseases of the time that had not been addressed by vaccines by the time I got the actual diseases in the early 60s. I definitely have a strong memory of going to take the polio vaccine via a sugar cube one Sunday after church. Always interesting the stuff you remember as a child and when those memories start forming.
In 1957 we lined up in the hall and marched to the cafetorium for what my memory tells me was the first round of polio shots at that school.
‘Great article with interesting history, perspectives, and contrasts to the last year.’
indeed; I turned eight years old in 1957, and remember some media coverage, and some talk of it in the schools, and of course the shot distributions (done in doctor’s offices, if I remember correctly)...nobody I knew got sick, and nobody gave it much thought at all...