The Warm Springs Story: Legacy and Legend by F. Martin Harmon (review)

In The Warm Springs Story: Legacy and Legend, F. Martin Harmon, the retired public relations director at Roosevelt Warm Springs, provides a sympathetic history of his former institution, interwoven with family narratives and local lore. While David M. Burke and Odie A. Burke’s earlier work Warm Springs (Charleston, S.C., 2005) provided a visual account of the institution, Harmon’s work is a much more conventional history that contributes to existing literature on polio in America. Drawing on archived institutional records and oral history interviews, Harmon argues that Warm Springs was important not only as the site of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s legacy in polio treatment and fund-raising but also as a place of pioneering education, rehabilitation, and disability activism that inspired generations of leaders.

The Warm Springs Story has eighteen chapters written in a relaxed, chatty tone. Harmon begins with a poignant case study, outlining recent political and economic challenges that faced Roosevelt Warm Springs and how it narrowly survived closure. From the contemporary, Harmon moves back in time to explore the first European settlers in Meriwether County, Georgia, and their discovery of the warm spring waters near Pine Mountain. He reveals the influence of local families and how a series of owners developed the region. The author then considers Roosevelt’s vision for the Warm Springs property after he purchased it in 1926. While exploring the architecture, ambitious resort plans, and people involved, Harmon also analyzes the polio treatment program, the development of the Warm Springs Foundation, and Roosevelt’s return to politics. Voices from the past are accentuated in biographies and interviews, which highlight the significance of the physical therapists and patients at Warm Springs. Through this intimate foray, the author interweaves compelling stories of love affairs, ghost sightings, potential espionage, and disabled models. In the last chapters Harmon expresses some disappointment at the missed opportunities to maintain, expand, and reorient Warm Springs after the conclusion of the polio crusade. However, in light of recent developments, he remains optimistic about the future of Warm Springs as a tourist destination and a historical center.

The book has many strong points, especially its extensive narrative history of the institution and the rare glimpse into the lives of former employees and patients it provides. Despite its strengths, the tight focus on the institution and the author’s selection of buoyant patient narratives do not permit a nuanced analysis or larger historical connections. Indeed, while Warm Springs contributed to the development of polio therapies, the treatment innovations introduced by nurse-activist Sister Elizabeth Kenny in the 1940s reached more people and had a greater impact. Moreover, Harmon might have explored in more detail the fight to open up the institution to black patients in the context of racial segregation in the South and the complex relationship that developed between Warm Springs and Tuskegee Institute.

The Warm Springs Story is an enjoyable monograph that will appeal to a broad audience, including former patients and staff, historians, and biographers. It is ultimately successful in bringing attention to an important place in an accessible manner.