The Adrian Scheltes collection contains photographs either taken by or collected by Scheltes while he was the Supervisor of Counsel and Guidance for the Blind from the Illinois Division of Vocational Rehabilitation in the late 1940s and early 1950s. After his own experience losing his sight at age 21, Scheltes wanted to be of use to the community and assisted blind people with learning professional skills to enter the workforce. Scheltes also advocated for Black blind people in his work and for eliminating discrimination of handicapped people generally. The photographs are of blind people working in a variety of jobs and learning skills.
All images from the Adrian Scheltes collection have been digitized. A small amount of correspondence, generally from supervisors who hired people Scheltes assisted, was not digitized. Duplicate photographs also were not digitized. The collection’s finding aid can be viewed here [permalink: https://n2t.net/ark:/81984/c89m19]
Pepsodent assembly line worker, SCHE21_00_0001_0027_01.tif