How Elvis Presley helped Americans conquer polio

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WAVE/WMC) - When health officials needed to convince Americans to take the polio vaccine in the 1950s, they turned to the king of rock and roll, Elvis Presley.

Tennessee station WMC went inside the vault at Graceland, finding evidence of how Elvis helped America defeat polio.

Polio was a viral disease that surged in the US during the 1940s, killing thousands of children and leaving tens of thousands paralyzed, according to reports by the CDC.

Public health officials imposed quarantines as outbreaks appeared, parents were urged to keep their children home, travel between cities was curtailed.

Health experts planned the polio public relations campaign for Elvis.

Archives from the vault in Graceland show that in October of 1956, Elvis got the polio vaccine backstage just before his performance on the Ed Sullivan show. Americans watched it on television.

The target audience was teenagers and young adults who thought they weren’t at risk for the deadly disease. Angie Marchese, Graceland Vice President of Archives, said Elvis was heavily involved with the March of Dimes, so he didn’t think twice about getting the polio vaccine.

“The pictures of Elvis getting his vaccine were seen in newspapers around the country the next day, and the percentage of teenagers that actually got the polio vaccination after this promotion went from .6% to almost 80% in six months,” Marchese said.

Celebrity leadership and activism can be overrated, but there are moments in which famous and trusted people can sway mass opinion in ways vital to the public good.

To get to a post-COVID world will require not only overcoming significant logistical complications, but just persuading a skeptical and worried public to take the shot.

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