Dr. Pearl Kendrick, born 1890 and died in 1980, and Dr. Grace Eldering, born 1900 and died in 1988, developed the first successful whooping cough vaccine in 1938.

The two doctors began working on a whooping cough vaccine in the early 1930’s.

Kendrick was a native of Grand Rapids and chief of the Michigan Department of Health’s Western Branch Laboratory. Eldering worked at the Michigan Department of Health in Lansing.

Working together, they conducted lab experiments and field tests, centering their research on the Grand Rapids area. Eventually, they felt they had learned enough to begin inoculating area children. They were successful and in 1940 the State of Michigan began producing and distributing the new vaccine. In the previous ten years, whooping cough had caused annual death averaging 6,000 and most of them were small children. Their vaccine eliminated all fatalities. Later, the two improved what they had done by creating the DPT shot which combines diphtheria, whooping cough (pertussis) and tetanus in a single shot.

They were both inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame.

NOTE: For further information, Dr. Grace Eldering’s forty-year manuscript collection is housed at the State of Michigan Archives.