Steve Mitchell polio vaccine photograph

Dated March 4, 1957, a young Steve Mitchell receives the polio vaccine at Mercy Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Polio, a virus that causes paralysis, especially in young children, was a major public health concern in the United States and globally from the early 1900s through the 1950s. In 1952, Jonas Salk at University of Pittsburgh developed the first effective polio vaccine, which was given to hundreds of thousands of children across the country