for a fledgling nonprofit foundation, few would have given his dream much chance of success. President Truman was launching the Marshall Plan.


age of 40, had other interests that year. He stuttered. And he was determined to explore and eval- uate ways of help- ing others who are affected by this speech disorder that today includes some three million Americans. Sixty-five years


65 Years: Foundation Celebrates Milestone W


hen Malcolm Fraser went to his Memphis bank in late December 1947 and made an initial deposit of $2,500 into a new account


Ronald Colman and Loretta Young were winning Oscars. Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life premiered on radio. And the Yankees had just won the World Series. But Malcolm Fraser, a self-made business success by the


now are able to train speech-language pathologists in the specifics of stuttering therapy in seminars and work- shops that fill a critical need.” “The Foundation has co-sponsored professional


training for speech therapists with Northwestern University, University of Iowa, Boston University, the University of Washington, St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, and the University of Memphis, to name just a few. The exciting new partnership with the Michael Palin Centre in London is one more step in broaden- ing our global outreach,” contin- ues Jane Fraser. “All this repre- sents my father’s vision of 65 years ago as well.” Today,


embraced a breadth of programs in the past six and a half decades that are, indeed, Malcolm Fraser’s proudest achievement. The Foundation: • publishes and distributes more than 800,000 books


Foundation America


has


later, Fraser’s dream has long since become a reality and the cornerstone of activities that assist those who stutter worldwide. The Stuttering of


Foundation contin- ues to expand its universe of educa- tion, research and self-help. From one of its earliest volumes—written by the founder and still an excellent introduction for all those who stutter and


the


become more flu- ent in their speech — the Foundation has expanded. It publishes books, DVDs,


hope to


SFA’s 1957 conference, bringing together some of the leading authorities in the field of stuttering. Back row: Henry Freund, M.D.; Harold Luper, Ph.D.; Wendell Johnson, Ph.D.; Joseph Sheehan, Ph.D.; Charles Van Riper, Ph.D. Front row: Dean Williams, Ph.D.; Malcolm Fraser, Founder of SFA; Stanley Ainsworth, Ph.D.; Robert West, Ph.D.


and brochures on stuttering therapy each year, including to readers in all 50 states and some 136 nations; • responds annually to more than 50,000 e-mails


and telephone calls to its toll-free helplines from those who stutter, their families, and speech-lan- guage pathologists; • has placed DVDs and books in more than 8,700


cy he was passing on,” says Jane Fraser. “It is because of his vision and considerable financial sacrifice that we


ily and, in recent years, by Malcolm’s daughter, Jane. Now President of the Stuttering Foundation, she has taken her support staff and the Board of Directors in new directions, but has never forgotten the positive, self-help philosophy that inspired her late father. “I think my father had a sense of the continuing lega-


TV public service advertisements on stuttering and how people can find help. This prodigious work has been led by the Fraser fam-


public libraries that provide help to adults, teens, and children who stutter and their parents on how to make effective changes in their speech; • generates over a million dollars in print, radio, and


some of the world’s leading authorities on stuttering. “There has been a remarkable explosion in demand for information on stuttering,” notes Jane Fraser. “Especially when one considers that my mother was still personally shipping all the Foundation’s books as recently as 1968.” The Foundation’s Web sites, www.StutteringHelp.org


expenditures of over $1.6 million annually. It provides yearly awards to journalists and broadcasters who pro- vide outstanding stories on the causes and treatment of stuttering. The SFA provides support to exciting new research in genetic and neurological research that in the future will help those who stutter. In 1997, the first annual award was given to an out-


and www.tartamudez.org, receive more than 1.5 million hits per month! Sixty-five years later, his nonprofit Foundation has


standing individual in the field of stuttering therapy. Fittingly, it was known to professionals everywhere as the Malcolm Fraser Award. And yes, that ini t ial $2,500 deposi t in the


Memphis bank by Malcolm Fraser has grown. Generous contributions in all sizes attest to its con- tinuing public support.


brochures that are distributed below cost and contain the observations and suggestions of


and


3


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