FDR thanks film producer Edward L. Alperson

"for his help in the fight against infantile paralysis"

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1882–1945.  32nd President of the United States, 1933–1945.  Framed 11" x 14" engraving inscribed and signed, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

This magnificent signed engraving of President Roosevelt is inscribed in calligraphy to film producer Edward L. Alperson.  Roosevelt has boldly signed it in brown ink with a 3½" signature.

The inscription thanks Alperson "for his help in the fight against infantile paralysis."  Evidence suggests that Roosevelt signed this piece in early 1944.  In February 1943, motion picture theaters organized a drive to raise funds for the March of Dimes.  On his birthday in 1944, January 30, Roosevelt signed inscribed lithographs such as this one in order to thank those whose work helped to make the drive successful.  Our search of auction results shows that Roosevelt presented an engraving like this one to Frank Meyer, an executive at Paramount Pictures Corporation.  Accompanying Meyerʼs engraving when it was sold was a copy of a book entitled So They May Walk Again . . . A Book of Good Deeds  /  Report of Collections by Motion Picture Theatres  /  March of Dimes  /  February 18 to 24, 1943  /  In Co-Operation with National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis.

Roosevelt was stricken with paralysis, at the time assumed to be caused by poliomyelitis, also known as “infantile paralysis,” in 1921.  He apparently contracted the virus on a trip with prominent supporters of the Boy Scout Foundation to visit the summer camp at Bear Mountain on July 28.  He felt continually more tired each day after the trip.  On August 9, while vacationing at Campobello Island, New Brunswick, he began to experience pain and loss of function in his legs.  Despite his courageous efforts to overcome the crippling illness, he never really regained use of his atrophied legs.  Despite the loss of his legs, Roosevelt persevered to become Governor of New York in 1929 and, four years later, President of the United States at the depths of the Great Depression.

Roosevelt became deeply involved with promoting the treatment of paralysis when he first went to Warm Springs, Georgia, in 1924.  One of his friends, banker George Foster Peabody, who was an owner of The Meriwether Inn in Warm Springs, wrote him about the substantial improvement of a local polio victim who swam daily in the warm water.  By early 1927, Roosevelt and his law partner, Basil O'Connor, were busy organizing the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation, which became one of the premier rehabilitation facilities dedicated to eradicating polio.

On his first birthday in the White House, January 30, 1934, Roosevelt celebrated with fund raisers for polio—then known as infantile paralysis.  That year some $1 million was raised in 600 separate birthday balls across the country.  Subsequent annual balls did not, however, raise enough money to support the organizationʼs efforts.  In 1938, Roosevelt founded the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, the reconstituted Georgia Warm Springs Foundation.  During the week before his birthday in 1938, stage and film star Eddie Cantor asked Americans to send money to Roosevelt in “a march of dimes to reach all the way to the White House."  The White House was inundated with mail containing millions of dimes—thus leading to the foundationʼs subsequent adoption of the official name “March of Dimes."  In 1946, after Rooseveltʼs death the year before, Rooseveltʼs image was appropriately placed on the dime, and it has been there ever since.

Edward L. Alperson (1895–1969), to whom FDR presented this engraving, joined the film distribution section of Warner Bros. in 1924.  Ten years later, he formed Grand National Distributors in order to distribute independent producersʼ films and British films that were to be released in the United States.  In 1942, he became the general manager of RKO Picturesʼ theater circuit, and it was likely his work with the March of Dimes fund raiser in that position that garnered him this signed engraving from Roosevelt. 

This is a beautiful embossed paneled engraving.  The embossing line appears in both the scan of the engraving and the photograph of the framed piece below.  Since the engraving is too large for the scanner, though, the scan does not convey the 1½" width of the large outside white border, which is visible in the photograph of the framed piece.  The scan accurately conveys the true color of the engraving.

Roosevelt has signed this engraving with a bold, 3½" brown fountain pen signature.  The engraving has a few scattered small spots, but nevertheless it is in such beautiful condition that we grade it very fine.  It is conservation framed in a classic burgundy and black wood frame.

14" x 17".