Library Collections: Document: Full Text

Analysis of Labor, Manufacturing and Selling Expenses.

V. INDUSTRIAL DEPARTMENT, MASSACHUSETTS COMMISSION FOR THE BLIND. -- FINANCIAL CONDITION NOV. 30, 1907.

Assets.

Liabilities.

In undertaking to occupy a comparatively new and untried field, much of our work has been of the preliminary sort. We have endeavored: (1) both to acquire and impart information concerning the agencies already existing in the State that may be availed of to promote the educational and industrial interests of the blind; (2) to establish close and friendly relations with such agencies, for the sake of co-operation, and particularly that we may be promptly notified of all new cases of blindness, especially when the afflicted person is an adult, under sixty and a wage-earner; (3) to discover and test new forms of employment in which the blind may be encouraged to engage; (4) to convince employers of seeing labor that blindness is not nearly so often a sufficient reason for refusing employment as is taken for granted; (5) to reorganize and strengthen the Cambridge and Pittsfield shops as centers of instruction and production; (6) to develop a wider and surer market for the products of our shops; (7) to organize and aid groups of blind workmen to secure occupation and wages in lines of industry that are already open to them, e.g., basket making, broom making, reseating chairs, repairing mattresses and tuning musical instruments, as well as to aid workmen who have made a beginning to increase their business; (8) to aid blind men and women engaged in home industries, however slight or simple, in improving the character of their wares and in finding purchasers for them; and (9) to disseminate information as to the most efficacious means of preventing blindness in infants and children.

We are aware that the profitable and economical cultivation of our field of endeavor demands a larger body of precise and intimate knowledge of the personal history, physical condition, mental characteristics and industrial capabilities of the blind who seek employment, advice and instruction. We shall put forth our best efforts to acquire and apply such knowledge, to the end that the needs of the most healthy, capable and industrious among the blind may be met, and in order that the funds entrusted to the commission by the State may not be wasted upon those who are below par in respect to capacity or character. The chief object of the commission is to aid the blind to help themselves, and to convince the public that the blind can help themselves.

Respectfully submitted,

Dr. EDWARD M. HARTWELL, Chairman,
HELEN KELLER,
ANNETTE P. ROGERS,
DR. J. H. A. MATTE,
JAMES P. MUNROE,
Commission for the Blind.