American Experience: The Polio Crusade

Documentary filmmaker Sarah Colt draws on personal accounts of polio survivors to trace the story of the tireless crusader who rallied a nation against a little known virus that spread terror through the town of Wytheville, Virginia back in the summer of 1950. It was an epidemic the likes of which Wytheville had never seen: Parents kept their kids locked safely indoors as movie theaters went dark and baseball fields fell silent for fear that simply walking outdoors would be enough to get in...