Vocational Adjustment Bureau, 1919-1951

The Vocational Adjustment Bureau, commonly known as the Vocational Adjustment Bureau for Girls or VAB, began operating in 1922 under the direction of Blanche (Mrs. Henry) Ittleson (1875-1975).

Earlier, in 1919, believing that social adjustment was not possible without industrial adjustment, BI had started the Committee on Vocational Guidance and Employment as part of the Jewish Big Sisters. By 1922 the demand for guidance and placement services had grown so much that the committee was reorganized into VAB, a city-wide, non-sectarian organization. It was incorporated in 1925 as the New York Vocational Adjustment Bureau, Inc. The records date the beginning of VAB to 1919, although it was not a separate agency until 1922.

The purposes of VAB as stated in the 1925 incorporation papers were: "to conduct investigations into vocational opportunities for sub-normal and maladjusted girls; to conduct a placement bureau for them; to make constructive suggestions for such changes in their education as will give this special type an equipment to fit them for a place in industry; to act as a clearing house for and cooperate with existing organizations dealing with scholarship, school, placement bureau or other civic bodies should they need such special service."

To these ends VAB provided training workshops, direct employment opportunities in its own workshops, and placement services, and it conducted psychological and vocational tests for all its clients. VAB conducted studies itself, involved graduate students in studies, worked with the Board of Education to provide mental hygiene classes in kindergarten and elementary grades, and worked with and advised various agencies, hospitals, and schools on testing and placement of mentally handicapped women, in the hope of making them productive members of society.

Beginning in 1923 VAB organized and ran workshops to test, study, and train young women and eventually place them in suitable jobs. Studies based on the sheltered workshops were written by staff and by graduate students from Barnard, Columbia, and other schools.

By the late 20s or early 30s VAB had a full-time psychologist as director, a director for the workshops, and an active president (BI). Merchandise produced in the workshops was being sold in New York City department stores. Clients were referred from schools, social service agencies, and hospitals; about half these clients were Jewish, 40 percent Protestant, and 10 percent Catholic. In 1934 Edna W. Unger, staff psychologist, surveyed industries to determine their needs for VAB clients, and therefore what training VAB should continue to provide. In 1936 VAB began developing a proposal for an experiment "to educate teachers in mental hygiene practices in the hope that early discovery and treatment of potential problems will eliminate greater and more destructive forces later in life." This included a demonstration project, "Mental Hygiene at the Kindergarten Level," at P.S. 33, 1942-49. VAB was represented in the exhibit on mental hygiene at the 1939 World's Fair.

By 1941 the workshops had closed and the major work of VAB "was mental hygiene and social service." After nearly closing its doors, VAB changed course: by the fall of 1942 it was no longer working with female clients but concentrated on vocational rehabilitation for men, specifically those "rejected by and discharged from the armed forces because of mental and nervous disabilities."

The Mental Health Project continued under the supervision of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene (NCMH); rehabilitation of veterans was transferred to other agencies by the fall of 1944. By the end of 1945, except for staff working at P.S. 33, VAB existed only as a legal entity. Correspondence of December 1945 discusses the transfer of client files to the Community Service Society of New York. Joint minutes of VAB and NCMH continue through 1949; according to a note in #4, the last meeting of VAB was held in January 1951.

From the guide to the Records, 1919-1951, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)