ESSL 290: Health Care in America (Milestone Course)

Although the threat of polio ended with the Salk vaccine in 1954, many polio survivors are now experiencing the onset of post-polio syndrome (PPS), a complication with new but related symptoms such as chronic fatigue and joint pain.

The image of the famale caregiver holding a midnight vigil at the bedside of a sick relative is so firmly rooted in our collective imagination we might assume that such caregiving would have attracted the scrutiny of numerous historians. As Emily Abel demonstrates in this study of caregiving in America across class and ethnic divides and over the course of ninety years, this has hardly been the case.