We are second year MA in History/Museum Studies students at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. We undertook this project in the fall of 2017 to mark the 70th anniversary of the opening of the Central Carolina Convalescent Hospital. With sparse information about the site known as “the old polio hospital,” we began our research, delving deep into the forgotten history of the hospital which elicited memories of both pride and pain.

Overall, our goals for Pride and Pain: Remembering the Polio Hospital Site are threefold: to preserve, commemorate, and educate the community about the diverse history of the Central Carolina Convalescent Hospital. First, we are preserving the history of the old polio hospital through our archival research and oral histories with those closely connected to the site. Second, we have tried to commemorate the polio hospital site and educate the public through the creation traveling exhibit and a series of public programs, one of which highlighted the 70th anniversary of the hospital’s opening in November of 2018.

These events promoted our work to put a North Carolina Highway Historical Marker on the land, which will permanently mark the site so that the public will remember this complicated past and acknowledge the people affected by polio and involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Our primary goal is the combination of preservation, commemoration, and education of the historic polio hospital in order to help the region find peace with a history that often evokes mixed feelings among its residents. This website serves as a culmination of our research, where the public can continue to engage with the history of this place.