While it is widely known today that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was unable to walk during his presidency after he contracted polio, his administration and the press agreed to keep that a secret from the American people. So footage of Roosevelt in a wheelchair is rare and that makes an Indiana professor’s recent discovery newsworthy.
The Associated Press reports that Franklin College journalism professor Ray Begovich discovered eight-second footage that shows Roosevelt being pushed in a wheelchair while doing research at the National Archives in Maryland.
According to USA Today, the footage is from July 1944 when Roosevelt visited a ship in Pearl Harbor during World War II. The wheelchair isn’t visible, blocked by a row of sailors. But it is clear that Roosevelt, who is wearing a hat, is being pushed.
“This raw film clip may be the first motion picture images of the president in his wheelchair, and it was never meant to be shown to the world,” Begovich told the AP.
Laura Diachenko of the National Archives added, “With respect to whether or not this is the earliest or only existing footage of FDR in a wheelchair, we cannot state that this is definitively the case, although such footage is certainly rare.”
Roosevelt could not walk without leg braces or assistance after he contracted polio in 1921. While he did use a wheelchair during his four terms as president, photographers and the Secret Service agreed to not show him in a wheelchair publicly. Any photographer who didn’t agree to this would be blocked from taking photos of the president.
“To me, the importance of this clip as historic media imagery is that it reminds all of us that this president fought the Great Depression and World War II from a wheelchair,” Begovich said in a statement to the AP. “I think it's a tragedy that we haven't had many candidates for national office who use a wheelchair or guide dog or sign language.”
image: AP Video