Sheltered workshops offer people with disabilities training opportunities and paid work. Starting around 1950, the Boeing Company began contracting with sheltered workshops to make some of its aircraft parts. These might range from simple clips to complex machine parts. Employees had 40-hour work weeks.

In 1975, the United Cerebral Palsy Association ran one of the six workshops doing work for Boeing. Here, Paul Koyne sits in his wheelchair at a drill press making small brackets for a jetliner. Koyne, born with a neuromuscular disorder, told the reporter that he valued being able to support himself and be independent.

Caption information source: “Spastic Asks Job With Hands”, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 26, 1949, page 13.
Caption information source: “Handicapped Turning Out Parts for Boeing”, by Al Watts, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, October 22, 1975, page B4.