NEW YORK TIMES
By Douglas Martin
April 16, 2004
Henry Viscardi Jr., who became a leader in integrating disabled people — like himself — into America’s work force, died on Tuesday in Roslyn, N.Y. He was 91.
His death, at Roslyn Hospital, was announced by his wife, Lucile. He lived in Great Neck, N.Y.
Starting in World War II, Mr. Viscardi was prominently associated with or personally started some of the most important programs to emphasize that ”the disabled” were in fact people with abilities. His efforts ran from helping amputees in the military to running Just One Break and starting Abilities Inc. and his umbrella organization, the National Center for Disability Services.
Mr. Viscardi, who managed for years on the withered stumps of legs he was born with and held good jobs in private industry before his advocacy career began, worked with Eleanor Roosevelt and Bernard Baruch to establish programs to place other disabled people in regular jobs, many in the defense industry.
”No donations, no charity, just a chance to compete on the open market,” he kept repeating, and, over time, major employers like Grumman, General Electric, IBM and the Department of Defense responded by hiring hundreds of his clients.
The organizations he founded to employ, study and teach the disabled were eventually combined in the National Center for Disability Services in Albertson, N.Y. His influence on issues affecting the disabled included advising every president from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Jimmy Carter; giving four or more speeches a week; and writing eight books and many articles on the subject.
His persistent message was that disabled people should not be ghettoized, and he was particularly opposed to sheltered workshops where disabled people work methodically on very simple tasks.
In his book ”Give Us The Tools” (Eriksson-Taplinger, 1959), Mr. Viscardi propounded a credo for the disabled: ”I seek opportunity, not security. I will not trade my dignity for a handout. It is my heritage to think and act for myself.”
Mr. Viscardi, the son of a barber, was born on May 10, 1912, in Manhattan. He was able to more than get around on his two short stumps, which were encased in padded boots. He completed primary school and high school in eight years, was manager of the high school basketball team, reported on school sports for The New York Times and earned money by refereeing basketball games.
Mr. Viscardi paid his own way through Fordham University and St. John’s Law School by keeping books, running a switchboard and waiting on tables, among other jobs. In 1935, he joined the federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation as a tax clerk.
In 1938, at the age of 26, his stumps were swollen and wearing out, and Dr. Robert R. Yanover, the family doctor, told him he probably had just six more months to walk. Most makers of prostheses had long since declared his case hopeless, but Dr. Yanover then found Mr. Viscardi’s first set of artificial legs. He refused thanks or money.
”No bill at all,” Dr. Yanover said. ”Just bring to others what I brought to you and I’ll be well repaid.”
When Mr. Viscardi came home, he stood 5 feet 8 inches with his new legs, compared with 3 feet 8 inches before.
In 1940, Mr. Viscardi was appointed chief of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation’s tax division in New York. After Pearl Harbor, he tried to join the armed forces, and after being rejected by all of them, was accepted by the Red Cross as a field service officer.
He took regular G.I. basic training at Fort Dix, achieving some fame as the ”legless man at Fort Dix.” So instead of being shipped overseas as originally planned, he was assigned to Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington to work with war amputees. He was also sent to war plants and civic groups to explain that what was then called a cripple, if properly rehabilitated, could work effectively.
After the war, Mr. Viscardi was assistant director for special events and sports for the Mutual Broadcasting System and director of personnel at the Burlington Mills Corporation. He was earning $15,000 a year, good money then, and expected to be making $20,000 soon.
But in August 1949, Mr. Viscardi was invited to lunch by Dr. Howard Rusk, head of New York University-Bellevue Medical Center’s Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and Orin Lehman, who had lost a leg and had the other shot up in battle. They asked Mr. Viscardi to take over JOB, an acronym for Just One Break, their program to integrate the disabled into regular jobs.
Mr. Viscardi accepted. He used the military buildup then going on as a strong argument for employing the disabled. He noted that 7.5 million defense workers were needed.
”Where are they going to come from?” he asked. ”The only untapped reservoir of manpower are two million disabled persons who can and want to work.”
In 1952, at Mrs. Roosevelt’s urging, Mr. Viscardi started Abilities Inc., a nonprofit enterprise to find private jobs for the disabled. He began with $8,000 in borrowed money and four physically handicapped employees — who among them had five good arms and one good leg — at a plant in West Hempstead, N.Y.
In the early 1960’s, he added a Human Resources Center to study issues concerning disabled workers and found, among other things, that cardiac patients do much better work than anticipated. He later started a training institute and a school for disabled children. In 1991 it was renamed the National Center for Disability Services.
Mr. Viscardi is survived by his wife, Lucile; his daughters, Nina Ochoa of Niantic, Conn.; Donna Viscardi of Vienna, Va.; Lydia Viscardi of New City, N.Y.; and Lucienne Viscardi Hosford of Nazareth, Pa.; his sister, Rose Rosalie of Seaford, N.Y.; nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
He was known to many as Dr. Viscardi because of his more than two dozen honorary doctorates, One of the many honors Mr. Viscardi received was being named Boss of the Year by the National Secretaries Association in 1960. His own secretary then, Florence Fiedelman, who had lost a leg because of illness, said in an interview with United Press International that she thought that ”Hank should be named Boss of the Century.”
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