Friends and Partners

David W. Rose is Archivist of the March of Dimes at the foundation’s national office in White Plains, NY. He is a certified archivist of the Academy of Certified Archivists, and he oversees the preservation and organization of the documents, photographs, and audiovisual materials of the March of Dimes Archives. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and Philosophy from Case Western Reserve University and a Master’s degree in Anthropology from the New School for Social Research. David is author of the first photographic history of the March of Dimes in the Images of America series published by Arcadia. He is an active member of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC) and Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York and serves as an advisor to the Jonas Salk Legacy Foundation. David is a writer and amateur mycologist, past president of the Connecticut-Westchester Mycological Association, and contributing editor to Fungi Magazine. He has been consulting archivist to the New York State Museum and to the North American Mycological Association. His writings on the history of mycology have covered a range of topics including mushrooms in cinema, science fiction, ethnopoetics, and popular culture; the history of amateur mycology in the United States; and biographical portraits of musical composer John Cage, Johns Hopkins surgeon Howard Atwood Kelly, and molecular biologist Max Delbruck.

Foreword by David Oshinsky

1. Introduction: The March of Dimes and Historiography2. Behind the White Carnation: The Leadership of Basil O’Connor3. O’Connor and Roosevelt at Warm Springs 4. The Brain Trust and its Legacy5. The March of Dimes in World War II6. Hollywood and the Publicity Machine7. Basil O’Connor and the American Red Cross8. The March of Dimes after FDR Letter from Franklin Roosevelt to Basil O’Connor, November 10, 1942