Sunday, July 24, 2022

A New Deal for the Blind


Above: From The Cushing Daily Citizen (Cushing, Oklahoma), January 2, 1938. Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.


Above: Joseph Clunk (1895-1975) was the first blind civil servant in the federal government. He was appointed in 1937 and his duties were to "administer the Randolph-Sheppard Act and [serve] on the U.S. Office of Education, Vocational Service Board as 'special agent for the blind'" (Smithsonian Institution Archives). The Randolph-Sheppard Act was "originally signed into law by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936 [and] requires that blind individuals receive priority for the operation of vending facilities on federal property" (EveryCRSReport). Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives.


Above: From an article in The Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma), April 5, 1940. The article explains that this National Youth Administration (NYA) resident project would engage blind youth (both men and women) in several Braille-related projects, and also in the production of goods, e.g., "door mats, brooms and brushes... rugs and wearing apparel" for state institutions and also for private citizens in need of assistance. Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.


Above: The description for this photograph--taken in Savannah, Georgia, 1936--reads: "Blind person using the Braille writer under supervision of WPA teacher." Photo courtesy of the National Archives.


Above: This photograph was taken in Indianapolis between 1935 and 1943. The description for it reads: "WPA workers at the Indiana State School for the Blind at work on a garden which will have Braille labels for the use of the students of the school." Photo courtesy of the National Archives.


Above: From The Fresno Bee (Fresno, California), July 15, 1938. Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.


Above: WPA workers building talking books for the blind, New York City, ca. 1935-1940. The WPA also had projects to transcribe various types of literature into Braille hard-copy books. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.


Above: The description for this photograph, taken in Seattle, Washington, 1938, reads: "WPA library project - extension service to the blind. This blind man is listening to one of the 'talking book' records, in his home. It was selected and mailed by WPA library project worker." Interestingly, a talking book "not only talks and reads, but can present complete dramas with full Broadway casts, chirrup the bird songs and calls of wildlife, and in other ways take full advantage of the fact that it is written in sound" ("Talking Books for the Blind," The Belleville News-Democrat (Belleville, Illinois), January 26, 1940, p. 4). Photo courtesy of the National Archives.


Above: WPA Braille map-making project in Columbus, Ohio, December 1939. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.


Above: The description for this photograph reads: "Sensitive fingertips lightly trace a geographic course over this WPA Braille map. Perkins Institute for the Blind, Watertown, Mass., July 22, 1936." Photo courtesy of the National Archives.


Above: The New Deal built schools for the blind. This one is in Jacksonville, Illinois, and was funded by the Public Works Administration (PWA), ca. 1933-1941. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.


Above: The desire for knowledge and information is universal, despite disability, as this WPA photo shows. The description for it reads: "Learning to read and write Braille is literally 'eaten up' by members of this group of blind adults in and around Atlanta." Photo courtesy of the National Archives.


Above: In New Deal-funded projects, the blind made baskets, brooms, rugs, brushes, and more; some of these products were distributed to low-income Americans. This is a WPA project at the Home for the Blind in Seattle. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

"It is a privilege to have a part in aiding the betterment of conditions for those who have been handicapped by lack of vision and, when I say lack of vision, I mean it in the purely physical sense because people who are blind certainly have a splendid vision in every other way."

--President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Greetings by Telephone to the American Foundation for the Blind, December 5, 1935

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for this and for all your New Deal posts. Inspired by Helen Keller and FDR, my (sighted) mother bought a Braille typewriter, learned to use it, and transcribed E.B. White's essays and books for grateful blind readers in New England.

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    1. Thanks for your comment! It's great that your mother created reading material for the blind.

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