University of Pittsburgh Library System

The University of Pittsburgh’s Archive and Special Collections department recently acquired a large collection of Jonas Salk papers, dating from 1943 to 1995. This assortment of personal effects from the creator of the Polio vaccine himself, allowed for the question of “How have vaccines historically been received by the public?” to be explored. This question quickly evolved into a comparative analysis between the reception of the 1955 invention of the Polio vaccine with the more recent invention of the COVID-19 vaccine. By gathering newspaper clippings for the opinions on the Polio vaccine, and Twitter data for the opinions on the COVD-19 vaccine, comparative word maps and conclusions were made on the general public's opinion regarding the necessity of vaccines, how vaccines should be produced, and who should be getting them. Though less than 100 years separate these two major medical milestones, the public’s perception of them vary greatly. The Polio portion of this project is accompanied with an ArcGIS StoryMap, where viewers have an accessible and interactive layout of how vaccine trials were held and how the public was reacting to them. The COVID-19 portion consists of datasets from the National Library of Medicine and word maps that express public opinion. Together, the viewpoints on vaccine creation can be better understood.