General Federation of Women’s Clubs &
March of Dimes
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| Beatrice Wright Fuerst and GFWC President Chloe Gifford |
March
of Dimes has enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with the General
Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC). GFWC was founded in 1890 as an
international organization to promote civic improvements through volunteer
service. It included over 3,000 individual women’s clubs across the nation. Our
first collaboration occurred during the height of World War II in 1943 when the
National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP) had established itself as the
leader in the fight against polio. Volunteers organized local March of Dimes
chapters across the nation as President Franklin Roosevelt named the actress
Mary Pickford, known to all as “America’s Sweetheart,” to recruit female
volunteers into the cause to prevent polio. Elaine Whitelaw (1914-1992) was
chosen to lead the NFIP Women’s Division and manage Miss Pickford’s hectic
itinerary. In this endeavor Whitelaw made contact with the GFWC; and its
President, Sarah Whitehurst, responded with great enthusiasm. Whitehurst
engaged all GFWC state presidents and board members to support the NFIP Women’s
Division in movie theater fund-raising sanctioned by Hollywood for March of
Dimes campaigns. In 1944, the incoming GFWC president Lucy Dickinson wrote to
Mary Pickford to ensure her of GFWC’s year-round support of the March of Dimes.
As
polio epidemics intensified, the NFIP and GFWC found common ground to empower
women as volunteers in local communities in order to stop the spread of polio. Together,
the two organizations united to educate the lay public and medical
professionals about polio prevention. In 1948, GFWC President Dorothea Buck
reaffirmed its endorsement of the March of Dimes following a 1947 epidemic in
Los Angeles that provoked an emergency proclamation by the California GFWC. The
distribution of literature about polio was paramount, and the GFWC distributed
to its state affiliates March of Dimes pamphlets about recognizing the symptoms
of polio. But that was not all. The two organizations worked together to
recruit Polio Emergency Volunteers (PEVs), to advance convalescent care, and to
create educational programs in schools and hospitals for disabled children.
Elaine Whitelaw, NFIP Director
of Women’s Activities, was the key liaison to the GFWC during the 1950s. A
nationally recognized leader of volunteers whose March of Dimes career spanned
five decades, she developed preparedness plans for polio epidemics such as the
PEVs and organized an annual fashion show at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City.
Whitelaw organized volunteers for the nationwide field trial of the Salk polio
vaccine in 1954 and served to bridge the transition from polio to birth defects
prevention after 1958. She actively managed a nationwide group of State
Advisors, holding an annual conference for these elite volunteers from 1945. She
also played a leading role in Mothers March, often partnering with actress Helen
Hayes in collaboration with the GFWC.
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| Beatrice Wright Fuerst and Elaine Whitelaw, 1953. |
Whitelaw cultivated contacts in every major market to recruit women for
leadership roles. One was Virginia Blood, assistant to Connecticut
Congresswoman Clare Booth Luce, whose husband Henry Luce published Time, Life, and Fortune
magazines. From 1953 to 1973, Whitelaw and Blood expanded the range of public
service programs by maintaining firm partnerships with the GFWC and PTA. Another
close associate was Beatrice Wright Fuerst, who had contracted polio in the
line of duty with the March of Dimes Wayne County chapter in Detroit. After a
year-long hospitalization, Fuerst used a wheelchair and crutches for six years
before she could resume walking unassisted. So influential was their workplace
reputation as the team that created an intricate, nationwide network of highly
motivated women volunteers that Blood, Whitelaw, and Fuerst were known by March
of Dimes staffers as “Blood, Sweat, and Tears.”
Citing
an explosive increase in polio cases and pushing relentlessly for a viable
polio vaccine, March of Dimes requested representation on the GFWC annual
convention program in 1952. Thanks to the rapport between Whitelaw and the GFWC
leadership, the objectives of the two organizations at this point were fully congruent
as both situated the empowerment of women as community leaders in the forefront
of the battle against paralytic polio. In 1953, the GFWC invited March of Dimes
President Basil O’Connor to its annual convention for an address “Americanism
through Voluntary Association,” emphasizing their community of interests and focus
on direct action. As the Salk polio
vaccine field trial unfolded through 1954, the GFWC expressed its unwavering
support for March of Dimes programs of patient care, research, and education. When
the Salk vaccine was announced as “safe, effective, and potent” on April 12,
1955 O’Connor directed a letter of thanks the very next day to GFWC President
Helen Chapman for the essential service that GFWC had given to March of
Dimes.
Basil
O’Connor’s message was not the final word on the vaccine or the GFWC. March of
Dimes addressed the GFWC convention in Philadelphia a month later to chart the
next steps to protect the American public from polio as the two organizations segued
into the project of promoting polio vaccination at local, state, and national
levels. The GFWC issued bulletins to its state leaders to appeal that all
children and adults become immunized. This work continued well into the 1960s.
In 1958, when March of Dimes changed its mission to birth defects prevention,
it engaged again with the GFWC to discuss the future of nursing and nursing
education. The GFWC publicized March of Dimes health scholarships in nursing,
medicine, physical therapy, medical social work, and occupational therapy. GFWC
President Chloe Gifford endorsed the new March of Dimes program in 1959, and
Bea Fuerst spoke at the GFWC convention in Los Angeles on volunteerism. Her
talk, “What the Voluntary Health Movement Means to America and to Clubwomen,”
stressed commitment to the values of community, identity, and education that
both organizations shared.
The
March of Dimes turn to birth defects led inevitably to considerations about
prenatal care and healthy pregnancy. These essential areas in women’s health
were readily embraced by the GFWC. Dr. Virginia Apgar’s article “Science’s War
on Birth Defects” appeared in Clubwoman
Magazine, and the GFWC began to educate its membership about the Salk
Institute for Biological Studies, a key March of Dimes project. In the 1960s, the
March of Dimes took steps to re-invigorate its educational program for youth,
changing the “Teens Against Polio” program to its “Teen-Age Program” against
birth defects. In alignment with this the GFWC initiated a national project for
junior members called “Operation – Healthy Babies.” The March of Dimes and GFWC
junior women’s clubs celebrated National Baby Week in 1966 and subsequent years
as education about prenatal care began to take precedence.
The GFWC
and the March of Dimes developed family health as a theme in 1972 as our work
expanded into the fields of perinatology and genetics. Local projects such as “Quest
for Healthy Babies,” a joint venture with Washington State junior women’s clubs,
sought to educate about health and drug education programs for teens as well as
prenatal care programs for impoverished women. The two organizations have continued
their collaboration through programs of mutual support and education into the
21st century. GFWC President Judy Lutz stated in 2004: “The General
Federation of Women’s Clubs has partnered with the March of Dimes for more than
five decades, working to eliminate polio, educating about the risk of teenage
pregnancy, and now striving to ensure healthy pregnancies. I urge all GFWC
members to support this most worthwhile organization.” March of Dimes has
always valued its relationship with the GFWC as a wonderful asset in the fight
to save babies. We are honored to partner with them and look forward to
continuing our relationship for a very long time to come.
July 25, 2019 / David
Rose / March of Dimes Archives
