Gripping an aide's arm to walk to his seat at a baseball game, rare film footage helps dispel the myth that President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to hide his disability from the world, the Associated Press reported.
FDR, who was paralyzed from the waist down by polio in 1921, is seen showing great courage as he grasps a rail with one hand while being supported on the other side by an assistant. Since he could only walk with braces on his legs and use the support of a cane, FDR mostly took the help of a wheelchair, experts said Friday.
"Here is FDR going to a stadium full of people," said Bob Clark, deputy director of FDR's Presidential Library and Museum. "Even the simple act of going to a baseball game required a great deal of logistics and preparation."
Shot in 1937 at the All-Star game in Washington, the clip was captured by Former Major League Baseball player Jimmie DeShong.
On Thursday, the Pennsylvania State Archives in Harrisburg announced it had acquired the clip from the family of DeShong, a native of the state's capital city.
The footage was allowed by relatives to be used in an exhibit at the FDR library in Hyde Park, New York, where it has been on view for about a year as part of a montage, Clark said.
Filmmaker Ken Burns calls the footage "one of the very best pieces of film that so clearly shows what a brave struggle it was for FDR to move."
"The footage is rare in part because not many people had personal movie cameras in those days," the AP reported. "The press generally did not film FDR struggling to move under his own power, as the Secret Service did not want to publicize the president's vulnerability, experts said."
"While the lack of historical imagery gives the impression that Roosevelt actively concealed his paralysis, in reality he tried simply to minimize it to make the public more comfortable, said Clark."
