Presidential Health Secrets: Reclaiming History's
PRESIDENTIAL HEALTH SECRETS: RECLAIMING HISTORY’S MEDICAL UNKNOWNS by Joyce E. Latham A thesis Presented to the faculty of Towson University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in Humanities Towson University Towson, Maryland 21252 December 2016 © 2016 by Joyce E. Latham All Rights Reserved ii iii Acknowledgments Parts of this document appeared in the Journal of Historical Studies, Spring 2014, vol. 11, pp. 7-31, published by Towson University’s honorary history society (Theta Beta Chapter, Phi Theta Alpha). That article “White House Health Secrets: How Historians View the Hidden Maladies of FDR and JFK,” by Joyce Latham, focused only on those two presidents. Personal Acknowledgments Many thanks to Thesis Committee members for reviews, contributions, and/or oversight: Dr. Marlana Portolano, Committee Chair; Dr. Karl Larew, Dr. Allaire Stallsmith, and Dr. Paul Miers, all of Towson University, and to Mr. Max Rose for help with fact checking. Special thanks to Dr. Portolano for giving her sabbatical time to coordinating this effort. iv Abstract Presidential Health Secrets: Reclaiming History’s Medical Unknowns Joyce E. Latham This thesis analyzes the role of illness in the administrations of three twentieth-century presidents—Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), and John F. Kennedy (JFK)—who had serious health problems unknown to the mass media and the public in their respective eras. Some of that hidden information has been uncovered by historians and others. Wilson, for example, had a devastating stroke in October 1919, after which his wife and physician hid him in the White House, with the former functioning as an unofficial acting or co-president for many months.
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