Marching Against Polio with Perry Como

I was dismayed to read that the dreaded disease polio may be making a comeback. I vividly remember how scared I was about catching the disease as a young child, especially after one of my classmates was affected. 

Polio was a big deal in the 1940s and 1950s, even afflicting US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. His story inspired the creation of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (as the disease was then known), which eventually took on the identity of its grassroots fundraising arm, the March of Dimes.

Today's record promotes giving to the 1959 March of Dimes, featuring one of the most popular of 20th century vocalists, Perry Como, along with his frequent collaborators, bandleader Mitchell Ayres and the Ray Charles Chorus.

Perry Como

1959 ad

The Como record was aimed at the New York market, promoting a door-to-door solicitation on March 28, 1959. "When you open the door, be sure to open your heart," Perry advises, via the song penned by well-known writer Bernie Wayne.

The record was appropriately titled "Mothers' March" and even today the March of Dimes is focused on the health of mothers and their babies. By 1959, polio vaccines had been invented and distributed, the disease was in decline, and the March of Dimes' purpose had broadened to combat arthritis, birth defects and viral infections.

As with many such public service promos, this record is not particularly well recorded - but good enough for the AM radio stations that would play it, I suppose.

Early March of Dimes poster