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Symptoms

The polio virus thrives in the throat and intestines and spreads easily from person to person via oral or nasal secretions Most individuals that contract the disease show little or no symptoms. 1% may develop paralysis or even death.

There are four different types of polio: In apparent, abortive, non-paralytic and paralytic. In apparent is the mildest. Usually resulting in flue like symptoms. Abortive also has flu like symptoms with abdominal pain. Non-paralytic have the same symptoms as In apparent & abortive in addition to stiff necks and achy limbs. The most severe and the rarest is paralytic. With paralytic, the virus attacks and destroys the motor neurons. Theses cells are responsible for relaying message from the brain the muscles. Paralysis does not mean lack of feeling. While victims cannot move their legs they still retain all feeling (Peters, Stephanie True. Epidemic! The Battle Against Polio. New York: Benchmark Books, 2005 pgs. 2-7). Many peoples lungs were effected and without the help of an iron lung, death was certain. Polio touched every ones lives even my own family. My uncle succumbed to the virus and died at fifteen. Yet many children and young adults survived, but their bodies were never the same. polio as ‘torture time’ (qtd. in Peters, Epidemic!, pg. 41). Lengthy follow up treatements, followed by excuricating physcial theropy, and numberous fittings for braces and crutches. For those that were able to regain use of their legs, it was a long, slow recovery.

In 1937 the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP) was established to study and help those effected by polio. Despite generous donations, NFIP still couldn’t raise enough money. FDR made a plea to the general public. During one fund raiser, Eddie Cantor (a famous pop star of the day) joked to send dimes to the president. People answered the call and 2,680,000 dimes flooded the White House mail At FDR’s death in April of 1945, as a memorial to the President, the dime was later fitted with his likeness.

On April 12, 1955, people breathed a sigh of relief. Dr. Jonas Salk developed the first effective polio vaccine. Dr. Albert Sabin later developed an oral vaccine that met with controversy. It wasn’t until the Worth Health Organization (WHO) began using the oral vaccine (opposed to Salk’s injection form) in Russia, did popular sentiment toward Sabin’s oral vaccine change (Peters, Epidemic!, pg. 57). By 2000 the oral vaccine (OPV) is no longer the common form of vaccinations for polio. Instead the IPV (injection) form has once again become more popular. It’s given in four doses 2, 4, 6 & 18 months and later as a booster to 4-6 year olds. While the virus has been pretty much eradicated in the U.S., the disease has not disappeared completely in other parts of the world.

In my current novel, Comfortable in Alone, my main character is a female attorney in World War II, Iowa. I thought I’d share a little bit of my research concerning women’s struggles in the legal profession.

Law School:

The 19^th Amendment didn’t alter men’s minds. Out of the 127 law schools in the U.S., twenty-seven of them barred women (including Columbia & Harvard). Many women couldn’t afford the tuition of bigger name universities and turned to part-time schools.

Part-time law schools were small. They had inadequate libraries, and half the teachers only taught full-time. They used the Black Method (lecture) instead of the Socratic Method (question & answer) for teaching to save time and money. Many instructors avoided discussing violence on or toward women. Usually the women in the class were asked to leave or instructed to read the material on their own. When it came time to pass the bar in 1931, two-thirds failed. If a woman did pass the bar, she would have to struggle in the real world.

The Real World:

In 1909 there were only 205 women lawyers in the United States. By 1920 there were more than 1,171 working as practicing attorneys in the less than desirable fields (anti-trust, divorce, probate and taxes). Very few women were practicing alone. Usually they worked with family members.If she did join a law firm, her name was usually at the bottom of the letterhead or not put on it at all. Many women found that if they displayed skills as a stenographer, they weren’t allowed to do anything else. For women who made the difficult decision to venture into the courtroom, she was up to another set of challenges.

Once in the courtroom, women found themselves at the mercy of judges. Some resented women, others enjoyed the oddity. Depending on the state, judges made all attorney appointments in criminal trials. If a woman was on good terms with a judge, she got more appointments. But it was usually the opposing council that caused the most problems. The vast majority of men saw women attorneys as incompetent or beneath them. This often worked in the woman’s favor. Many arrogant men came ill prepared and lost their cases for underestimating their opponent. World War II brought a new opportunity. With all the men overseas, legal jobs within the government opened up with better advancement and better pay. But many women stayed put. They didn’t want to lose the clients they worked so hard to win over.

Sources:

Chester, Ronald.Unequal Access: Women Lawyers in a Changing America. South Hadley, Massachusetts: Bergin & Garvey Publishers, Inc., 1985.

Ritchey, Charles J. Drake University Through Seventy-Five Years, 1881-1956. Des Moines, Iowa: Drake University, 1956.

I’ve always used music to get me in the mood for writing. I plug in my ear buds and push everything out of my mind — except the scene in my head. Scenes with crater deep emotions, I tend to favor the romantics: Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, & Rachmaninoff. If you’re writing a historical novel, music can tell you how people felt about their rulers (Beethoven’s third symphony), or maybe even how a culture perceived death (Schubert’s “Death & the Maiden”). I use music not just as a mood enhancer, but also as a research tool. Listening to pop music of the 1920-1930s, tells you what was important and what wasn’t all infused in cultural slang. There are lots of places to get 1920s-1940s music. Flea markets. Record shops (78s are harder to come by though, since they’re so fragile). You can buy cds at your local music store or online. If you have an internet connection, a world of music is open to you. Youtube. Itunes. Rhapsody. Internet radio. Websites. When I first started writing Papa’s Bones, I bought a lot of cds. I listened to a lot of internet radio and visited a few websites, until I settled on Live365.com & Red Hot Jazz Archive. Live365.com has lots of stations you can choose from. I ended up going with Radio Dismuke, not only do you get original music, but you also get original radio commercials which is pretty cool! Red Hot Jazz Archive is another website that has jazz records from the early 1920s to the 1930s. You have to download RealPlayer to listen to the files, but the download is worth it.

I do listen to contemporary artists to get me in the writing mood too. Right now, I’m focusing on a scene where my heroine is confronting her dying villain. It involves a lot of tension and a bit of sadness. I always find artists like Christina Perri and Sarah McLaughlin a good fit for these types of scenes. Their haunting voices are always infused with a touches of melancholy.