The game Candy Land is a historical artifact!
What does Candy Land have to do with being quarantined?
Believe it or not, we have been through a similar situation we find ourselves in today. The polio epidemic that mostly impacted children was the perfect time to create a game !
Polio epidemic (lasted 40+ years before we had a vaccine!)
People and especially children were quarantined (told to stay in their homes)
Children had to learn from home (except there were NO COMPUTERS)
This week:
You will learn about the difference between an epidemic and a pandemic
You will learn about the polio epidemic and
Compare the history of the polio epidemic to our lives today
complete pages 6-10 of our Spring of 2020 journals
What is the difference between a Pandemic (like COVID 19) and an Epidemic (like Polio)?
But, here’s a handy rule of thumb for using the prefixes of these two words: epi- and pan-. The prefix epi- is Greek and variously means “on, upon, near, at,” while pan-, also a Greek prefix, means “all.”
Knowing this, think of an epidemic as the start of something—whether a disease or a trend—spreading rapidly within a community or region, whereas a pandemic is what an epidemic becomes once it reaches a far wider swath of people, especially across continents or the entire world.
If something is spreading like wildfire, it’s an epidemic. If something has already spread like wildfire and is currently massive in its reach and impact, it’s a pandemic.
Step 1: Watch the video to learn the history!
Did you know?
In the early 1900's there was an Epidemic. It was called the Polio Epidemic.
And did you know?
The game Candy Land is an artifact of that epidemic? (yes, the game you may all know and love!)
The COVID 19 Pandemic isn't the first time citizens had to stay "Safer at Home" in Greendale.
Read the newspaper article about one way the police got involved in helping kids through the polio epidemic in 1944.
Police set up PA system to entertain quarantined children.
From the Children in Urban America ProjectMilwaukee Journal, September 3, 1944
9/3/1944
Greendale police had new duties Friday and Saturday and the kids loved it.
To entertain polio quarantined children, village authorities installed a public address system in a car, and the officers manned it to broadcast nursery rhymes, child stories, and music to the shutins.
Officer Arthur Krueger, a father of three quarantined children himself, started the ball rolling Friday by spinning yarns for the kids, making them up as he went along after he had run out of "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Little Red Riding Hood." By Saturday, however, parents had come to his rescue with loaned albums of children's recordings. Officer Harold Burett was operating the car and PA system then.
The officers drove up and down streets, parking usually in the middle of each block. The loudspeaker's range was about one block, and children crowded yard fences to listen raptly.
The entertainment will be continued for the duration of the polio quarantine.
Polio epidemic comes to Greendale:
Greendale's 'Polio Romeo' Becomes Local Legend
From: (Patch.com)"History records and explains past events, while folklore preserves what people widly remember.
Arthur Krueger rose to fame after the Greendale, WI, Board of Health established its polio quarantine on Aug. 30, 1944—and required all children to stay at home in their own yards. Krueger sprung into action, patrolling Greendale ensuring the mandate was followed.
But Krueger didn't stop there, he sang songs and stories over the loud speaker on his patrol car, entertaining children and earning the title, "Polio Romeo."
His nickname arose from a town contest—the winning entry was made by one Bess Kendellen, who won two tickets to the theatre for her efforts.
Town folk who were children during the time said it was a long summer. They longed to go outside their yards and play. Although the quarantine lasted until September 22 the same year—some 24 days—Kathleen Hart (Kendellen) said, "It seemed a lot longer than that."
Krueger and his wife, Leona, first applied to be residents in Greendale in March of 1938. They were denied because Krueger's income was $10 over the maximum allowed. But they were finally accepted in April, when Leona was pregnant with their daughter, Sally. Art and Leona eventually had eight children.
Referring back to the polio quarantine, Leona told a story of the time her four daughters needed their tonsils removed but could not go to the hospital because of the quarantine. So a Dr. Brown came to the house and performed the operations on their dining room table. Talk about out-patient surgery."
Step 2: Read or watch the video about the articles on polio and make connections to where we are today with the COVID 19 pandemic.
And this is not the first time kids had to learn "remotely".
In Chicago, schools closed during a 1937 polio epidemic and kids learned from home — over the radio
From The Washington PostIn the fall of 1937, an outbreak of poliomyelitis, or polio, a highly infectious diseae that cn lead to paralysis and death and is especially dangerous to young children, swept through the Chicago area. It forced schools to delay the opening of the academic year and prompted widespread alarm about lost instructional time and students left to their own devices.
Determined to continue instruction for the district’s nearly 325,000 elementary age students, then-Superintendent William H. Johnson and then-Assistant Superintendent Minnie Fallon initiated a massive experiment that brought school lessons directly into the homes of students through the coordinated efforts of public schools, major radio stations, daily newspapers and local libraries.
Although some of the area’s more well-heeled schools had already begun using radio inside the classroom, the technology itself was still fairly new and largely untested in education in the 1930s, and the idea of school-by-radio was highly innovative, prompting excitement and comment from educators around the country.