Disabled Defense Workers on the World War II Home Front

During World War II, the jobs left by drafted and enlisted servicemen had to be filled. The War Manpower Commission's U.S. Employment Service turned to adults who were exempt from, or judged "unfit" for, military service: women, men over 45, and people with a wide range of physical impairments. A few companies, such as Ford Motor Company and Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, had long hired disabled workers, especially veterans. For many other employers, the war was the first time they did.

Getting hired: tests and training

Federal-state vocational rehabilitation (VR) programs did much of the recruiting, placing and training. Before an employer would consider them, candidates went through interviews and tests that could be invasive and were often arbitrary. Some checked job readiness; others took a medical approach — physical exams, mental tests — that focused on the person's condition rather than on the workplaces and attitudes that shut them out. Many people with disabilities were eager to serve anyway.

The Institute for the Crippled and Disabled in New York, for example, used guidance tests to steer clients into courses such as mechanics, welding, one-hand typing and secretarial work.

Being turned away from the military, and having others decide what they could do, frustrated many. Eric Malzkuhn, who was deaf, later recalled wanting to enlist and being refused — while hearing men who did not want to go were drafted, and deaf men who would gladly have taken their places were not allowed. He even wrote to the Army proposing a special division for deaf soldiers. Nothing came of it, but he and other disabled civilians found other ways to contribute.

Changing employers' minds

The government had to fight the belief — mistaken, as one reporter put it — that impaired workers were less efficient. The War Department produced promotional materials, including films. Employing Disabled Workers in Industry showed people with amputated or deformed limbs working as milling machine operators, roller bearing machinists, carpenters and welders, many using an artificial hand or devices they had made themselves; others, such as a sewing machine operator and a secretary, did precise, skilled work without assistive technology. The film also showed the hand-eye coordination, dexterity and pattern-assembly tests candidates had to pass.

By May 1942, the New York Times estimated that 3 million disabled people — including blind, deaf and physically impaired workers and people with heart disease or tuberculosis — were working in war industries.

How they performed

State VR staff followed up with employers. In 1943, the Vocational Rehabilitation Division of the U.S. Office of Education asked more than 100 companies to compare disabled and non-disabled workers on production rate, absenteeism, turnover and accidents. Employers reported disabled workers doing as well or better in every category.

• In Springfield, Massachusetts, managers at the Springfield Ordnance District and the Indian Motorcycle Company praised the state VR department's placements; Indian's employment manager, Clifford E. Davis, wrote that these workers compared very well with able-bodied men on the same jobs and were, as a rule, very conscientious.
• Some employers even saw impairments as an advantage. A U.S. Employment Service district manager in Kenosha, Wisconsin, said deaf workers were better because they were not easily distracted. At the Lighthouse of the New York Association for the Blind, employers claimed that Braille had sharpened blind workers' touch, making them quicker at sorting rivets of eight sizes and shapes. Others found disabled workers more careful and less often hurt on the job.

After the war

However satisfied employers were, they expected wartime hires to make way for returning servicemen. But the war had shown what reasonable workplace accommodations could achieve across the country — and that one of the biggest barriers to inclusive hiring was employers' bias. Vocational rehabilitation stayed important, especially as disabled veterans returned to civilian life.

Background: public rehabilitation programs began after World War I, mainly for veterans; the Soldiers Rehabilitation Act of 1918 created the first federal VR program. The Barden-LaFollette Act of 1943 widened eligibility, services and funding, and for the first time made blind people and people with intellectual disabilities eligible.

Sources

Based on "Disabled Defense Workers on the World War II Home Front," by Jade Ryerson, consulting historian with the Cultural Resources Office of Interpretation and Education, funded through the National Council on Public History's cooperative agreement with the National Park Service, part of the series Disability and the World War II Home Front; rewritten in hubnx's own words. Its photographs, from the International Center for the Disabled Records at UMass Amherst Libraries, are not federal works and are not reproduced.