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EARNING A LIVING WITHOUT BENEFIT OF SIGHT

The history of planned and organized work to provide employment for the adult blind belongs in the twentieth century. Although Dr. Irwin's training had been mainly that of an educator's, his years as Executive Director of the American Foundation for the Blind brought him in close touch with all movements aimed at increasing the vocational opportunities of the blind. Foremost among these movements were the efforts made by friends of the blind to obtain legislation which would provide vocational training and also would create new possibilities for employment. Dr. Irwin took an active part in all such efforts. His experiences with the lawmakers in Washington were arduous, long and exhausting, sometimes hilarious, but always exciting.

FROM some standpoints, modern work for the adult blind in the United States began the day the Dennison Manufacturing Company employed a blind box corner-cutter. Doubtless individual blind people before had obtained jobs for themselves in regular factories, performing processes for which the factory management was accustomed to hiring seeing people, but as far as the author knows this was the first job of its kind obtained by a representative of an organization for the blind.

Scattered instances of this kind do not make the beginning of a movement, but when that movement uses this particular job or particular incident as a precedent upon which it builds future developments, then it may be said that the work stemmed from that event.

Mr. Charles F. F. Campbell had in mind when he persuaded the Dennison Manufacturing Company to hire this blind box corner-cutter not only finding men a chance to earn a living in a normal way, but he also considered this experiment a demonstration of what could be done for the blind with the cooperation of understanding employers. Photographs were taken and lantern slides made and shown all over the state of Massachusetts. As a matter of fact, they were shown all over the country as a part of an educational program designed to familiarize the public with the idea that blind people could fill useful places in the industrial life of any community.

This form of employment of the blind, however, did not become popular until the demands upon the labor supply of the country during the first world war made employers willing to consider blind people as potential sources of labor. The management of the Crocker Wheeler Company of Newark, New Jersey became enthusiastic over the idea and not only offered to employ blind workmen but set up a regular department for facilitating this experiment. This department was known as the "Double-Duty Finger Guild." At one time over one hundred blind employees were at work in the factory. The management was so enthusiastic over the results that the officials lost no opportunity to discuss the subject publicly at meetings where the management of various other companies was represented.

However, after the war was over and the shortage of labor ceased to exist and it became necessary for the company to reduce its force, blind people were gradually dropped along with others. This was accentuated when Mr. Wheeler died. The company has always employed a few blind people since that time, though the number has dwindled to less than a half dozen.

Other concerns which were conspicuous for employing blind people were the Ford Motor Company and the National Cash Register Company. Henry Ford was especially proud of his employment of blind and partially blind people. He paid them the regular minimum wage that he paid the rank and file of seeing people. In 1944 he was awarded the Migel Medal for Outstanding Service to the Blind not only because of the number of blind people he had employed, but because of the example he had set other employers.

Many other companies, too numerous to mention, have employed blind people more or less regularly. However, placement agents have questioned the wisdom of locating more than two or three blind employees in any one factory. If the number is kept small, adjustments can be readily made when processes change or when the demand for labor fluctuates. After the second world war the Radio Corporation of America adopted the policy of employing one blind person for each thousand of its employees. Another manufacturing concern which acquired some local reputation for employing blind people was the Upson Nut Company, of Cleveland, Ohio. In this plant certain processes were set aside to be done by blind people when they were available. One of these processes was testing the threads in nuts and bolts. The testing process consisted of screwing a nut onto a bolt and packing them in boxes.

In most instances, blind people were seldom employed by any company except upon the intercession, or at least the guidance, of a placement agent in the employment of an organization for the blind. However, the Upson Nut Company became so well known as an employer of the blind that blind people arriving in town and wanting a job would often head directly for the company, line up in the employment office, and get a job without any intercession by a social worker. This ability to find a job without having to apply to a philanthropic concern was a source of great gratification to many independently-minded sightless men.