The story of a forgotten health education film, Challenge: Science
Against Cancer (1950), and what it tells us about mid-twentieth century
North American cancer research, medical filmmaking, and health education
campaigns.
In 1949 the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Canadian
Department of National Health and Welfare (DNHW) commissioned a film,
eventually called Challenge. Science Against Cancer, as part of a major
effort to recruit young scientists into cancer research. Both
organizations feared that poor recruitment would stifle the development
of the field at a time when funding for research was growing
dramatically. The fear was that there would not be enough new young
scientists to meet the demand, and that the shortfall would undermine
cancer research and the hopes invested in it. Challenge aimed to
persuade young scientists to think of cancer research as a career.
This book is the story of that forgotten film and what it tells us about
mid-twentieth century American and Canadian cancer research, educational
filmmaking, and health education campaigns. It explores why Canadian and
American health agencies turned to film to address the problem of
scientist recruitment; how filmmakers turned such recruitment concerns
into something they thought would work as a film; and how information
officers at the NCI and DNHW sought to shape the impact of Challenge by
embedding it in a broader educational and propaganda program. It is, in
short, an account of the important, but hitherto undocumented, roles of
filmmakers and information officers in the promotion of post-Second
World War cancer research.
This book is openly available in digital formats thanks to a generous
grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
