A new book offers readers an inside look into the rich regional history of the Roosevelt Warm Springs rehabilitation facility, founded by Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the polio era. The book titled The Warm Springs Story: Legacy & Legend aims to provide readers a complete 200-year history of the historic facility. F. Martin Harmon who served for 13 years as public relations director at the Warm Springs, Ga, authored the book.

In the book, Harmon explores a variety of topics in the facility’s past from Native American legends to the resort’s beginnings, which range from involvement by the elite families of West Georgia to FDR’s 41 visits to his “adopted state,” to the eradication of polio, the facility’s near closure and rebirth, as well as other major milestones.

The book also showcases Warm Springs’ past and its ties to the modern history of rehabilitation. These include an independent movement inspired by FDR’s own efforts to overcome disability, the development of a healing community of polio survivors and medical experts in the Georgia backwoods, as well as the realities of healthcare in the South prior to, during, and after the Civil War.

Source: Mercer University Press