Danielle Gemperline
In 1913, the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded officially opened its doors.[1] Located in Amherst County near the town of Lynchburg, this facility sought to provide institutional care for disabled citizens under the direction of Superintendent Dr. Albert S. Priddy.[2] Answering a colleague’s inquiry into the Colony’s operation, Priddy described his institution as an orderly place where patients could attend school, learn farm work and domestic chores, as well as acquire vocational skills such as basket weaving and sewing.[3] However, despite its potential to benefit patients’ lives, the Virginia Colony would soon play a pivotal role in a dark chapter of American history.
Priddy, along with many of his contemporaries, adhered to a branch of science known as eugenics. During the early twentieth century, the eugenics movement gained considerable traction in the United States resulting in the establishment of many sterilization programs across the nation. As a part of the Progressive Era, the eugenics movement sought to improve society through two primary avenues: encouraging the reproduction of those considered fit and limiting the number of individuals perceived as “undesirable” in order to save the country from moral and intellectual decay.[4] Therefore, forced sterilization of the disabled, a group considered to include a disproportionate number of women, racial and ethnic minorities, and the poor, served as an economical and effective solution for preventing the rapid reproduction of the “unfit” whom advocates viewed as a threat to the stability of American society.
Guided by the principles of eugenics, Priddy started performing sterilizations on patients diagnosed with “feeblemindedness.”[5] However, with no official state legislation permitting this eugenics-based practice, the Colony’s superintendent soon faced a legal battle from a disgruntled family.[6] In late 1916, Dr. Priddy received an angry letter. The sender, George Mallory, a citizen of Richmond, Virginia, began his correspondence:
Dear sir, one more time I am go to write you to ask about my child. I cannot here from her bye no means. I want to know when I can get my child home again my family has been broked up on false pretenses same as white slavery. Doctor what business did you have operating on my wife and daughter without my consent?[7]
That fall, police officers had detained George Mallory’s wife, Willie, without a warrant and placed the family’s children under the care of the Children’s Home Society.[8] An impoverished family, the Mallorys had developed an unsavory reputation at the State Board of Charities for begging and relying on public assistance.[9] As a result, the courts sent Willie Mallory along with two of her teenage daughters, Jessie and Nannie, to the Virginia Colony.[10] At this institution, doctors diagnosed Willie and Jessie Mallory with “feeblemindedness,” thus marking them as ideal candidates for sterilization.[11]
Upon learning of the decision, the Mallory family opposed this procedure. For instance, one of the Mallory daughters, nineteen-year-old Irene, urged Priddy not to sterilize her mother out of concern that surgery would exacerbate Willie’s ill health.[12] Despite the family’s resistance, Priddy sterilized Willie and Jessie Mallory before both women eventually left the institution.
Although released into the custody of Bessie and Henry Walls, her eldest daughter and son-in-law, Willie experienced “great mental and physical suffering” due to her sterilization and forced separation from her children.[13] This traumatic experience combined with the family’s desire to secure the release of fourteen-year-old Nannie led George and Willie Mallory to file a lawsuit requesting $5,000 in damages from Dr. Priddy.[14] While the courts released Nannie, the lawsuit failed to provide any monetary compensation.[15]
Reacting to this legal dispute, Priddy and his colleagues formulated a plan to create sterilization legislation for Virginia and to initiate a federal court case that would provide definitive legal protection for eugenicists as they sterilized individuals deemed “unfit” to reproduce. Even though Priddy passed away in the early 1920s, his successor Dr. John Bell continued his vision through pursuing the Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell, which ultimately provided national legitimacy for compulsory sterilization programs.[16]
Eugenics-based sterilization programs constitute a relatively new field of study for historians, who have largely focused on the origins of eugenic sterilization, the geographical range of eugenics-based programs, the characteristics of compulsory sterilization victims, and the agency of historical figures. However, the Mallory family’s tragic story demonstrates the significance of analyzing these policies from the perspective of their victims, which scholars have yet to address. The discovery of these overlooked voices documents that, despite eugenicists’ adamant claims that forced sterilizations benefited society, these operations actually traumatized and humiliated those considered “unfit.”
One of the most prominent themes in the historiography involves the process by which eugenics was officially instituted into the American legal doctrine through mandatory sterilization laws. In Better for all the World, Harry Bruinius traces the development of eugenics through the perspective of scientists, prominent organizations, and influential, elite activists.[17] Molly Ladd-Taylor, however, challenges the narrative of eugenics as a predominantly elitist phenomenon. As a historian, she argues that Minnesota’s sterilization policy emerged from the state’s social welfare policy, focused on addressing problems related to poverty and the state budget. Ladd-Taylor strengthens her argument when mentioning, “Minnesota’s rural economy and tradition of populist activism also challenges the simplistic notion that eugenic policies were supported mostly by urban elites.” [18] To support this characterization, Ladd-Taylor explains that these surgical procedures technically required patients’ consent and existed within a “progressive child welfare system.” [19]
Similarly, the scholarship of Johanna Schoen distances the origins of North Carolina’s sterilization program from the realm of elite advocacy. Schoen demonstrates how compulsory sterilization in this state arose as a vehicle of social and public health policy during the Great Depression as concerns of welfare dependency grew. In fact, the majority of sterilizations in North Carolina occurred as these concerns proliferated after 1945. Schoen also describes how proponents of sterilization often included the families of the sterilized who supported the program due to a naïve belief that the surgery would protect their loved ones from rape or “cure” the individual’s disability.[20]
Karin Zipf further directs attention away from elite eugenics advocates in her interpretation of how North Carolina’s sterilization program developed. Zipf focuses on the arson case in which several girls housed at the Samarcand Manor reformatory near Eagle Springs destroyed much of this facility. Zipf argues that this case, which lasted from 1931 to 1933, marked a crucial turning point that led to the state’s adoption of involuntary sterilization. Before this trial, reformatories such as Samarcand Manor originally intended to mold white girls perceived as society’s victims into proper Southern ladies. However, the Samarcand Manor trial coupled with the defense lawyer’s insistence that her clients had broken the law due to “feeblemindedness” contributed to a change in public perception. Policy, as a result, would now consider girls who deviated from social norms as incapable of reform due to an inherent and genetic defect—a characteristic highlighting these individuals as prime candidates for sterilization.[21]
Regardless of the individuals who propelled eugenics-based sterilization to national prominence, scholars agree that the 1927 Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell served an influential role in ensuring this social movement’s success because it endowed eugenic theories with constitutional legitimacy. In their studies of primary sources relating to Buck v. Bell, historian Paul Lombardo and journalist Adam Cohen both conclude that this legal battle was designed by eugenicists who wanted to see Virginia’s sterilization law upheld before state institutions began implementing this policy. These accounts portray the young woman at the center of this case, Carrie Buck, as a victim who was not actually “feebleminded,” but had been institutionalized due to her illegitimate pregnancy, which resulted from rape. Overall, in their analysis of the Supreme Court case, Lombardo and Cohen reveal that Buck did not receive a fair trial since the defense actively conspired with the prosecution and failed to provide a proper argument.[22]
Historians have also addressed the broad geographical scope of American sterilization policies. For instance, publications that examine the 1927 Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell, including Lombardo’s and Cohen’s books, discuss Virginia’s sterilization law.[23] Schoen and Zipf, on the other hand, have conducted research into the nature of compulsory sterilization in North Carolina, while Gregory Dorr draws readers’ attention to Alabama.[24] Shifting the scholarly discussion to the Midwest, Jason Lanzter and Ladd-Taylor have studied the states of Indiana and Minnesota.[25] Alexandra Stern and Mark Largent have further analyzed sterilization policies along the West Coast in their scholarship addressing California and Oregon.[26] By examining the individual eugenics-based sterilization policies that emerged throughout the United States, historians have contributed to a continually developing and overall complex understanding of this topic.
Another important theme frequently discussed in the historiography involves the characteristics of those forcibly sterilized. Because scientists considered the “degenerate” condition of “feeblemindedness” as genetically inherited, eugenicists sought to enforce mandatory sterilization policies to quell its proliferation and to prevent the population’s further moral and intellectual decay.[27] The inherited traits that could contribute to a diagnosis of “feeblemindedness” included race, ethnicity, gender, and socio-economic class.
As argued by Allison Carey and Anna Stubblefield, the main concern and purpose of eugenics revolved around the ideology of white supremacy. Therefore, eugenics advocates sought to prevent the reproduction of individuals seen as threatening the white race’s quality and prosperity.[28] Due to the perceived threat to white Americans, racial and ethnic minorities such as Latino, Native, and African Americans constituted a disproportionate number of those affected by state sterilization programs.[29]
In addition to race and ethnicity, gender served as an important contributing factor as indicated by Molly Ladd-Taylor, Wendy Kline, and Alexandra Stern, whose scholarship presents the disproportionate number of females sterilized.[30] Kline argues that historians studying eugenics should always consider gender because shifting feminine gender roles coupled with anxieties about young women’s socially improper behavior and sexual deviancy served as an integral part of this complex movement.[31]
A low socio-economic class also constituted a prominent trait among those sterilized. In her essay exploring eugenic sterilization in North Carolina, Schoen claims that those considered “feebleminded” commonly hailed from impoverished, countryside populations.[32] Inconsistent employment and struggles to achieve financial security were traits scientists frequently attributed to “feeblemindedness,” thus, identifying poor, working-class families as targets for compulsory sterilization.[33] Through analyzing race, ethnicity, gender, and class, historians have developed an understanding of the characteristics frequently present in the forcibly sterilized population.
Finally, various historians emphasize the agency demonstrated by women and their families when faced with compulsory sterilization programs. In the history discipline, agency refers to an individual’s ability to make independent decisions in order to influence their situation. Researchers have discovered that, faced with the prospect of forced sterilization, many women attempted to manipulate the system to ensure that their fertility remained intact. For instance, Zipf writes that North Carolinian girls, starting in the 1930s, could manipulate the state’s criminal justice system to ensure they received prison sentences to avoid sterilization in a mental institution.[34] Similarly, Schoen demonstrates how individuals and their families could challenge the sterilization decision and sometimes delay or prevent the operation, while other women willingly sought sterilization through North Carolina’s Eugenics Board as a means of birth control.[35]
Despite the diverse range of topics addressed, a considerable gap still exists within the historiography since researchers have generally failed to address the perspective of the disabled individuals forcibly sterilized. While various historians have contemplated this subject, the history field has not yet focused specifically on victims’ experiences during the height of forced sterilizations—the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Thus, studying this neglected topic will benefit the existing scholarship through examining eugenics-based sterilization from a previously overlooked, innovative perspective.
Before embarking on this study, it is important to note that this research entails a definition of the term “mental disability” that differs considerably from our modern understanding. While many individuals labeled “feebleminded” were likely mentally handicapped and/or mentally ill by modern perceptions, this intentionally broad concept permitted a larger percentage of the population to qualify for eugenics programs such as compulsory sterilization. Many qualities associated with “feeblemindedness,” including alleged sexual promiscuity, low socio-economic classes, and specific races and ethnicities, are no longer considered direct, integral aspects of mental disorders. This crucial difference indicates that many victims of forced sterilization would not actually qualify as mentally disadvantaged by current medical standards. Therefore, a researcher must conscientiously avoid imposing twenty-first century definitions on the past.[36]
A thorough examination of court records, newspaper articles, scientific publications, and personal accounts relating to compulsory sterilization yields two starkly contrasting narratives. One perspective, which the author has termed “the official narrative” due to its prominence among scientists and medical professionals, portrays eugenics-based sterilization as benefiting a patient’s life. However, further investigation and analysis reveals an alternative interpretation that thoroughly delegitimizes the official version. Instead, ample evidence suggests that these involuntary surgeries resulted in traumatizing, humiliating, and emotionally painful experiences.
In order to understand how the experiences of sterilization victims differed from the official narrative, one must first examine how scientists interpreted the effects of these procedures, which most commonly consisted of vasectomies and salpingectomies.[37] From the early years of the eugenics movement, advocates portrayed sterilization as a positive measure that would benefit society as well as individual patients. Along with decreasing the alleged burden of the “feebleminded,” compulsory sterilization programs were understood to cause no physical harm, to improve one’s psychological state, and to enhance a disabled person’s ability to experience a normal, fulfilling life.
First, professional consensus maintained that surgical sterilization did not adversely affect an individual’s physical health. Representing this viewpoint, Dr. Priddy wrote in the Virginia Colony’s 1923 biennial report, “[Sterilization,] when carefully performed by a skillful operator, is as free from danger to life as any minor surgical operation can be.”[38] Doctors based the relative safety of surgical sterilization on low fatality rates. In 1933, the New York Daily News reported that approximately 0.05% of patients sterilized before 1928 died shortly after the procedure.[39] A few years later, eugenicists examining a sample of 765 sterilized patients determined a fatality rate of about 2.2%.[40] As a result, the high probability of survival served as evidence that these procedures did not inflict any harm on the vast majority of the population.
Medical professionals further indicated the safety of sterilization by emphasizing the lack of associated physiological changes. Eugenics leader Harry H. Laughlin reported that these surgeries did not cause a regression in the growth and physical changes associated with puberty.[41] This medical practice also did not interfere with an individual’s ability to pursue sexual intimacy.[42] As a result, eugenicists determined that these procedures did not harm a person’s physiology.
In addition, the official narrative dictated that compulsory sterilization benefited a patient’s psychological state. One source states that over half (approximately 56.9%) of the sterilized population “improved mentally” upon recovery.[43] This group allegedly demonstrated “a more sunny disposition” and higher intellectual abilities after the operation.[44] Moreover, sterilization sometimes served as a therapeutic treatment for schizophrenic men as well as women who suffered considerable emotional distress at the prospect of pregnancy.[45]
Eugenicists also dismissed the notion that sterilization served as a traumatic experience. The influential Human Betterment Foundation, for instance, claimed that the loss of fertility carried “no stigma or humiliation.” [46] Purportedly, six out of seven sterilized individuals expressed satisfaction regarding this surgical procedure.[47] Further emphasizing this perspective, Laughlin noted, “In but few cases reviewed did the patients complain of a sense of shame or regret.”[48] Based on this evidence, professional consensus did not consider the potentially harmful effects of forced sterilization on a person’s mental health.
On the contrary, eugenicists supported sterilization programs based on the assertion that these operations improved a disabled person’s ability to experience a normal, fulfilling life. California’s Sonoma State Hospital reported that a majority of sterilized patients released on parole (72.89% of males and 65.35% of females) successfully transitioned to life outside the institutional setting.[49] This high success rate allowed many individuals to remain with their families.[50]
According to the official narrative, compulsory sterilization also assisted the disabled population in living fulfilling lives by facilitating marriages. A study concerning sterilization in California proclaimed that a majority of these marriages were successful.[51] Since eugenics advocates remarked that legal restrictions should prevent the disabled population from marrying due to the risk of a child inheriting the parent’s condition, sterilization allowed for these unions and freed married couples from the burden of raising children whom they could not support.[52]
Despite the official narrative’s widespread circulation, the presence of bias undeniably challenges a historian’s ability to trust this interpretation. When reading a document describing eugenic sterilization as beneficial, one must acknowledge how the author’s preexisting bias may have influenced their findings. For example, researchers might have disregarded patients who claimed that the operation negatively affected their lives. The following quote from the Human Betterment Foundation provides evidence of this dismissive attitude:
The exceptions [those who viewed their sterilization as a negative experience] were any such as would be expected in a group of persons who had gone through severe mental illness.[53]
Even if the author’s bias did not influence a study’s outcome, the research providing the basis for the official narrative possesses a major flaw. The failure of the researchers to consider how a sterilized individual might view their infertility over time significantly impedes a source’s reliability. While a young adult reported as content with this operation might not have desired children, this opinion could change later in life. Therefore, the official narrative does not present a nuanced perspective of eugenic sterilization’s impact on the disabled.
While the official narrative regarding the effects of forced sterilization does not serve as a reliable historical interpretation, evidence indicates a radically different reality experienced by victims of these policies. Court records related to the Mallory family’s 1917 lawsuit against Dr. A. S. Priddy provide an early indication of this trend. The complaint submitted to the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond states:
[Priddy] caused her [Willie Mallory] great mental and physical suffering by keeping her in dread of said operation [sterilization], and has also caused her great pain in being healed… [Priddy] also thereby inflicted upon her great pain and discomfort of body, and worry of mind, and deprived her of the comfort of her family…[54]
This document clearly reveals the suffering Willie Mallory endured because of surgical sterilization, and further sources demonstrate that her perspective was not an anomaly.
Although contemporary media typically endorsed the official narrative, opposition did emerge in the public dialogue. One of these dissenting voices belonged to Dr. Stewart McCormick, a physician from Madison, Wisconsin.[55] In 1937, McCormick, who previously served as the acting director of the Wisconsin Board of Control’s psychiatric field service, argued for an end to the state’s sterilization program.[56] Eugenic sterilization, McCormick argued, constituted a “crime against people” because these involuntary operations traumatized patients and contributed to severe mental health problems.[57] Reflecting on his personal experience, this medical professional reported:
I have seen other unfortunates afterwards [after sterilization] going from doctor to doctor pleading for an operation which would make it possible for them to have a child. Physicians know that it is difficult for a normal individual to adjust themselves to life without prospects of children, and in these poorly equipped people it is impossible.[58]
By detracting from his profession’s conventional position, McCormick’s testimony reveals the emotional turmoil suffered by the victims of forced sterilization.
Contemporary sources also provide rare personal insight into a victim’s experience in the immediate aftermath of an involuntary sterilization. On August 18, 1934, twenty-one-year-old Ann Cooper Hewitt was sterilized without her knowledge or consent at the Dante Sanatorium in San Francisco, California.[59] As the daughter of a famous inventor, this young woman did not match the typical profile of a sterilization victim due to her wealthy, privileged background.[60] However, this case still warrants attention because Cooper Hewitt’s position granted her the unusual opportunity to speak out against the injustice she suffered.
In January 1936, Ann Cooper Hewitt’s story attracted substantial media attention after this young woman filed a $500,000 lawsuit against her mother as well as the two doctors who allegedly conspired to diagnose Cooper Hewitt with “feeblemindedness” and to sterilize her during an appendectomy.[61] Described as “self-possessed” and “fluent-talking,” Cooper Hewitt revealed the true nature of involuntary sterilization when sharing her experience.[62] Although Cooper Hewitt expressed reluctance to revisit this injustice, the personal turmoil associated with this event compelled her to discuss her dilemma publicly.[63] Thus, this victim filed a lawsuit against the individuals who subjected her to an operation that, in her words, “cut me off forever from a chance at a normal life.”[64] Cooper Hewitt provides further insight when stating:
A few months of peace have made me feel better about things, much more able to face the future. I’m not so troubled anymore. At least I know where I’m going. I know I don’t have to hurt.[65]
This quote, while not providing specific details, hints at the psychological pain Ann Cooper Hewitt endured. [66]
In addition to contemporary sources, most of the evidence refuting the official narrative exists within survivor testimonies relayed decades after these life-changing procedures. [67] Despite the passage of time, the dehumanizing trauma these individuals endured remains clear through their stories. Two cases representative of this plight involved Carrie Buck Detamore, the young woman at the center of the Buck v. Bell trial, and her sister Doris Buck Figgins. In the summer of 1979, Figgins contacted the Virginia Colony, then known as the Lynchburg Training School and Hospital, to retrieve documentation certifying her birthdate.[68] Upon speaking with Dr. K. Ray Nelson, the institution’s director, Figgins learned of her sterilization in 1928 at the age of sixteen.[69] For years, Figgins, who longed to experience motherhood, had blamed herself for failing to have children.[70] Thus, upon learning of her sterilization, this elderly woman experienced intense emotional pain due to this revelation.[71]
Through Doris Figgins and her husband, Nelson located Carrie Buck Detamore.[72] Now, decades later, the young woman at the center of a landmark Supreme Court case could finally tell her story. Echoing her sister’s sentiments, Detamore regretted that she never experienced motherhood.[73] Several weeks before her death in January 1983, this survivor met with historian Paul Lombardo.[74] In his book Three Generations, No Imbeciles, Lombardo recalls their visit:
Because she [Carrie Buck Detamore] was not well, our conversation was brief. By then she was clearly aware of her role in the infamous Supreme Court case and still somewhat embarrassed about it. She didn’t want to go into detail about what had happened to her… She showed no anger, but she did convey feelings that she had been treated unfairly.[75]
Overall, Detamore’s unwillingness to provide a detailed account, her lingering shame, and her belief that she had suffered an injustice indicate that the eugenics movement negatively affected her life.
Jesse Meadows, another former patient of the Virginia Colony, underwent an involuntary sterilization in 1940 at the age of seventeen.[76] Reflecting on his infertility, Meadows stated, “It’s been terrible. I might have wanted some children when I got older. Pretty hard life.”[77] At the age of eighty, Meadows received an official apology from the state of Virginia, and he later attended the commemoration of a historical marker dedicated to the victims of eugenics.[78] Responding to these events, Meadows told reporters, “It felt pretty good to be here, even though it was so late… but it’s hard to forget that somebody ruined your life like that.”[79] Therefore, this sentiment reveals that Meadows viewed his eugenic sterilization in an extremely negative light.
A veteran who served in the Marines during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, Lewis Reynolds also unwillingly lost his ability to bear children at the Virginia Colony.[80] As a child, Reynolds suffered from epileptic seizures.[81] This medical condition resulted in this young man’s commitment to the Colony. [82] The institution’s doctors sterilized thirteen-year-old Reynolds in 1941.[83]
Upon learning of his infertility during a military medical examination, Reynolds recalled, “I cried about it because I couldn’t have no children.”[84] Expressing an unwillingness to adopt, Reynold’s first wife filed for divorce, citing her desire to have a family.[85] And, although Reynolds longed to experience fatherhood, his second wife refused to adopt children as well.[86]
In 2012, Reynolds detailed the negative effects of the sterilization on his psyche when stating, “Sometimes I cry when I see a pregnant lady… I always wanted children and could never have them… Sometimes I get off by myself and cry…”[87] Due to this considerable emotional trauma, Reynolds further expressed, “I just feel they took my life away from me.[88]
Although the state of Colorado never enacted a eugenic sterilization law, at least one facility, the Colorado State Hospital at Pueblo, elected to perform these surgeries on patients deemed “unfit” to reproduce.[89] As these operations occurred without legal authorization, the hospital’s actions resulted in a 1955 lawsuit filed against four of its doctors.[90] Involuntarily sterilized at the age of seventeen in 1941, Lucille Schreiber demanded $250,000 to compensate for the “great mental anguish and humiliation” she suffered.[91] Despite the institution’s admission that its doctors sterilized Schreiber along with other patients, the court ultimately did not convict the defendants due to the expiration of the state’s statute of limitations.[92]
Plagued with a poor self-image, Schreiber angrily described how the eugenics-based procedure altered her life:
What they did to me was sexual murder. I’m just like a female spayed animal. They made me half a woman. They took my heart and left a stone, you hear me?[93]
Deeply ashamed of her infertility, Schreiber hid this knowledge in fear that her secret would attract negative attention from the community.[94] Schreiber’s experience as a victim of the eugenics movement also compelled her to avoid romantic relationships, as she believed that her inability to reproduce would dissuade any man from marrying her.[95]
In 2001, Raymond Hudlow shared his traumatic experience.[96] At the age of sixteen, Hudlow arrived at the Virginia Colony after several unsuccessful attempts to run away from his abusive father.[97] Then, in 1942, the Colony’s medical staff strapped Hudlow to an operating table before rendering him infertile.[98] Recalling this horrific event, Hudlow revealed,
They [the doctors] didn’t wait for it [the anesthetic] to work. They went on in there. I was hollering and crying. They treated us just like hogs—like we had no feelings. [99]
Later in life, this World War II veteran would experience more flashbacks of this involuntary procedure than of his time in battle and the seven months he spent as a prisoner of war in German camps.[100] Adding to Hudlow’s torment, his infertility caused further distress as his siblings started families of their own.[101]
Moreover, the state of North Carolina ordered the sterilization of fourteen-year-old orphan Virginia Brooks in 1942.[102] Brooks initially believed the operation that rendered her infertile was an appendectomy; however, she later learned the devastating truth.[103] Although Brooks married and adopted a daughter, she still suffered emotional turmoil because of her infertility.[104] This survivor told reporters, “I would have loved to have a baby. I looked at other people. Why couldn’t I be like that?”[105] Due to her experience with eugenic sterilization, Brooks ultimately summarized her life as “miserable.”[106]
Further demonstrating the horrors of eugenics, fourteen-year-old Charlie Follett lost his reproductive ability in 1945 while institutionalized in California’s Sonoma State Hospital.[107] Admitted to this facility due to his alcoholic parents’ inability to care for their children, this young man understood the nature of the procedure because other patients had warned him about the intense pain associated with the surgery.[108]
As an adult, Follett experienced heartbreak as several girlfriends abandoned him upon learning of his infertility.[109] Fearing further rejection, Follett never informed his wife of the reason the couple could not have children.[110] When Follett spoke publicly about his experience after his wife’s death, this survivor expressed anger regarding the injustice he suffered under California’s eugenics-based policies.[111] He commented, “What really ticks me off is it [the sterilization] kills my last name… If I should die tomorrow, everything’s died.”[112] As a result, Follett clearly demonstrates the negative influence of compulsory sterilization on an individual’s life.
And yet, Mary Corbin Donald provided substantial insight into a sterilization victim’s experience. In 1947, the Virginia Colony ordered the sterilization of Donald, who was only eleven years old.[113] The operation almost ended this young girl’s life, and she remained comatose in the hospital for two weeks afterwards.[114] At the Colony, Donald recalled witnessing other girls undergo extreme emotional and physical pain due to compulsory sterilization procedures. Hesitantly, Donald relayed the following account of a fellow patient’s surgery:
And one girl… She was pregnant, and they didn’t examine her to see if she was pregnant or not, and they went on and done the operation… And when they operated, they killed a little baby.[115]
This chilling anecdote clearly demonstrates that Donald was not alone in her suffering.
The effects of eugenic sterilization continued to haunt Mary Donald later in life. Before their wedding, Donald’s husband assured her that he loved her regardless of her infertility.[116] However, the marriage did not last—a failure Donald attributed to her inability to have children:
We was married about ten years. And then he decided that he wanted to get divorced. And I figure me being sterilized… was the cause of our marriage being broke up like that ‘cause he loves children… And I used to lay in my bed and cry because I couldn’t give him what he wanted. I wanted to give him a son to bear his name…[117]
In sharing her trauma, Mary Corbin Donald along with other former patients drew public awareness to their plight. The testimony provided by these survivors compelled the Virginia state government to acknowledge and to apologize for its crucial role in the eugenics movement. Donald passed away in 2015 just before Virginia delivered monetary compensation for the injustice she suffered.[118]
To conclude, during the nine months Willie Mallory spent at the Virginia Colony, she repeatedly searched for opportunities to escape. Alarmed by the ill treatment of the institutionalized population and desperate to reunite with her family, this mother successfully fled after disguising herself as a man. However, officials quickly discovered her location and returned her to the Colony where she was sterilized. For Willie Mallory and countless other individuals subject to forced sterilization, there was simply no escape from this traumatic experience.[119]
By the end of American eugenics-based sterilization programs in the 1970s, thousands of lives were irrevocably changed by this medical practice.[120] As many survivors never publicly discussed their unique experiences, we will never know the true extent of the pain and suffering inflicted on these men and women. Even when historians can access first-hand accounts, the limited sample size indicates that insufficient data exists to compile a truly representative historical account. Despite the field’s inability to develop a truly holistic understanding, the strikingly similar themes that connect the survivors’ accounts indicate that this painful experience was not limited to only a few individuals.
Overall, when analyzing available documentation, one recognizes a discrepancy between two narratives claiming to represent the impact of compulsory sterilization from the 1920s through the 1940s. Popular among contemporary scientists and medical professionals, the first portrayal of eugenic sterilization maintains that these programs improved a disabled individual’s life. However, this depiction’s inherent bias and narrow perspective leads one to discard it in favor of the second conclusion. Based on survivor testimonies, this compelling narrative characterizes involuntary sterilization as an experience associated with significant trauma, humiliation, and emotional pain.
Bibliography
Secondary Sources
Bruinius, Harry. Better for all the World: The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and America’s Quest for Racial Purity. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.
Buckley, Nick. “How John Harvey Kellogg was Wrong on Race.” Battle Creek Enquirer. March 21, 2019. Accessed January 9, 2020. https://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/story/news/2019/03/21/john-harvey-kellogg-battle-creek-michigan-eugenics-race-nazis/3202628002/.
Carey, Allison C. “The Feebleminded Versus the Nation: 1900-1930s.” In On the Margins of Citizenship: Intellectual Disability and Civil Rights in Twentieth Century America, 52-82. Philadelphia: Temple UniversityPress, 2009. Accessed September 22, 2018. http://jstor.org/stable/j.ctt14bs8th.7.
Cohen, Adam. Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck. New York: Penguin Press, 2016.
Kline, Wendy. Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001.
Kluchin, Rebecca M. Fit to be Tied: Sterilization and Reproductive Rights in America, 1950-1980. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2009.
Ladd-Taylor, Molly. Fixing the Poor: Eugenic Sterilization and Child Welfare in the Twentieth Century. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2017.
Largent, Mark A. “‘The Greatest Curse of the Race’: Eugenic Sterilization in Oregon, 1909-1983.” Oregon Historical Quarterly, vol. 100, no. 2 (2002): 188-209. Accessed September 24, 2018. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20615229.
Lombardo, Paul A., ed. A Century of Eugenics in America: From the Indiana Experiment to the Human Genome Era. Bloomington and Indianapolis: University of Indiana Press, 2011.
Lombardo, Paul A. Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2008.
Schoen, Johanna. Choice & Coercion: Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.
Stern, Alexandra Minna. Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
Stern, Alexandra Minna. “Eugenics, Sterilization, and Historical Memory in the United States.” História, Ciências, Saúde–Manguinhos, vol. 23 (2016): 195-212. Accessed September 29, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0104-597020160500500011.
Stubblefield, Anna. “‘Beyond the Pale’: Tainted Whiteness, Cognitive Disability, and Eugenic Sterilization.” Hypatia, vol. 22, no. 2, “The Reproduction of Whiteness: Race and the Regulation of the Gendered Body” (Spring 2007): 162-181. Accessed September 22, 2018. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4640067.
Zipf, Karin. Bad Girls at Samarcand: Sexuality and Sterilization in a Southern Juvenile Reformatory. Baton Rouge: University of Louisiana Press, 2016.
Primary Sources
Brooks, Virginia. Interview by Marina Portnaya. RT. December 11, 2012. Accessed March 1, 2020. https://www.rt.com/usa/eugenics-sterilization-victims-us-806/.
Buck v. Bell Documents. Georgia State University College of Law Reading Room. Accessed January and February 2020. https://readingroom.law.gsu.edu/buckvbell/.
Cohen, Elizabeth and John Bonfield. “California’s Dark Legacy of Forced Sterilizations.” CNN. Last modified March 15, 2012. Accessed April 7, 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2012/03/15/health/california-forced-sterilizations/index.html.
Craver, Richard. “Final Payment Goes out to 220 Eugenics Victims.” Greensboro News & Record. Last modified February 9, 2018. Accessed April 8, 2020. https://www.greensboro.com/news/state/final-payment-goes-out-to-eugenics-victims/article_845880e6-9a34-5483-8b15-3f91dad62ff0.html.
“Earnest Lewis Reynolds.” Tharp Funeral Home and Crematory. Accessed April 7, 2020.
Follett, Charlie. Interview by Elizabeth Cohen. Anderson Cooper 360. YouTube Video. Uploaded March 8, 2012. Accessed March 1, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3_c9pZ4SKc.
Householder, Mike. “Sterilization Suit Dismissed.” Associated Press. March 10, 2000. Accessed January 9, 2020. https://apnews.com/e3ae0c98811cde7f5cbabef9c4e22ae7.
Laughlin, Harry H. Eugenical Sterilization in the United States. Chicago: Psychopathic Laboratory of the Municipal Court of Chicago, 1922. Accessed January 3, 2020. http://hauntedfiles.org/location?location=Library#.
Madison Eagle. June 18, 2015. Accessed April 6, 2020. https://www.dailyprogress.com/madisonnews/obituaries/donald-mary-francis-corbin/article_adae2057-81c4-5dde-aec0-84f99ea87466.html.
“Milestones, Feb. 20, 1956.” Time. February 20, 1956. Accessed January 8, 2020. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,808211,00.html.
Newport News Daily Press. 2000-2001. Accessed July 24, 2019. newspapers.com.
Newport News Daily Press. 2013. Accessed April 7, 2020. newspapers.com.
New York Daily News. December 26, 1933. Accessed July 24, 2019. newspapers.com.
Oakland Tribune, June 10, 1936. Accessed July 24, 2019. newspapers.com.
Popenoe, Paul, ed. Collected Papers on Eugenic Sterilization in California: A Critical Study of 6,000 Cases. Pasadena, CA: Human Betterment Foundation, 1930.
Records of the Central Virginia Training Center, c. 1990s-2000s. Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.
“Robeson Woman was Victim of NC’s Eugenics Program.” WRAL-TV. Last modified June 15, 2012. Accessed April 8, 2020. https://www.wral.com/news/local/video/11214545/.
The Boston Globe. March 17, 2003. Accessed April 7, 2020. newspapers.com.
The Galveston Daily News. February 27, 1980. Accessed March 1, 2020. newspapers.com.
The Indianapolis Star. December 30, 1955. Accessed April 7, 2020. newspapers.com.
“The Life Penalty: Sterilizing California.” CBS13 Sacramento. Last modified November 10, 2011. Accessed April 8, 2020. https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2011/11/10/the-life-penalty-sterilizing-california/.
The Lynchburg Story: Eugenic Sterilization in America. Directed by Stephen Trombley. Worldview Pictures. 1993. YouTube video. Posted May 1, 2018. Accessed March 1, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51nRsof66Z0.
The Madison Capital Times. 1937. Accessed July 24, 2019. newspapers.com.
The Montana Standard. August 17, 1936. Accessed July 24, 2019. newspapers.com.
The Orlando Sentinel. February 3, 2013. Accessed April 7, 2020. newspapers.com.
The San Francisco Examiner. 1936. Accessed July 24, 2019. newspapers.com.
The Spokane Spokesman-Review. March 18, 1980. Accessed March 1, 2020. newspapers.com.
The State of Eugenics: The Story of Americans Sterilized Against Their Will. Directed by Dawn Sinclair Shapiro. Brown Doggy Pictures. 2017. Accessed April 8, 2020. https://www.kanopy.com/product/state-eugenics.
The Staunton News Leader. 2012 and 2014. Accessed April 7, 2020. newspapers.com.
The Waco News-Tribune. December 30, 1955. Accessed April 7, 2020. newspapers.com.
Topic: Eugenics Goals and Education. Eugenics Archive. Accessed January 22, 2020. http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/.
Topic: Sterilization Laws. Eugenics Archive. Accessed January and April 2020. http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/.
[1] A. S. Priddy to C. Banks McNairy, August 26, 1915, Records of the Central Virginia Training Center, c. 1990s-2000s, Library of Virginia, 50941 b09. Over the years, the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded has changed names several times. Therefore, the institution’s records stored in the Library of Virginia are catalogued under its most recent name, the Central Virginia Training Center. For simplicity’s sake, the author has decided to refer to this institution as the Virginia Colony.
[2] Second Biennial Report of the Board of Directors & Superintendent of the State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded, for the Biennium Ending September 30, 1923 (Richmond: Davis Bottom, Superintendent of Public Printing, 1923), 5, Records of the Central Virginia Training Center, c. 1990s-2000s, Library of Virginia, 50941 b07.
[3] Priddy to McNairy, August 26, 1915.
[4] Wendy Kline, Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001), 3-4.; Molly Ladd-Taylor, Fixing the Poor: Eugenic Sterilization and Child Welfare in the Twentieth Century (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2017), 4-5.
[5] The author would like to note that, in order to provide the most comprehensive evaluation of eugenics possible, this paper utilizes terminology now considered out of date and/or offensive. Acknowledging the cultural shift, the writer has decided to demonstrate respect by including these terms within quotation marks.
[6] W. I. Prichard, “Lynchburg Training School and Hospital,” Mental Health in Virginia, Summer 1960, 40-46, Records of the Central Virginia Training Center, c. 1990s-2000s, Library of Virginia, 50941 b09.
[7] George W. Mallory to A. S. Priddy, 1916, Buck v. Bell Documents, Paper 86, Georgia State University College of Law Reading Room, accessed January 9, 2020, https://readingroom.law.gsu.
edu/buckvbell/86.
[8] “Willie Mallory Complaint,” November 1917, Buck v. Bell Documents, Paper 80, Georgia State University College of Law Reading Room, accessed January 9, 2020, https://readingroom.law.gsu.
edu/buckvbell/80.; Paul A. Lombardo, Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2008), 65-67. Detailed first-hand accounts of these events can be found in “Mallory Depositions,” December 11, 1917, Buck v. Bell Documents, Paper 15, Georgia State University College of Law Reading Room, accessed January 10, 2020, https://readingroom.law.gsu.edu/buckvbell/15.
[9] “Interrogators and Papers of Commitment for a Feeble-Minded Person to the Virginia Colony for the Feeble-Minded, at Madison Heights VA—Willie Mallory,” October 14, 1916, Buck v. Bell Documents, Paper 25, Georgia State University College of Law Reading Room, accessed February 16, 2020, https://readingroom.law.gsu.edu/buckvbell/25.; Albert S. Priddy, “A. S. Priddy Grounds of Defense,” Buck v. Bell Documents, Paper 16, Georgia State University College of Law Reading Room, accessed January 9, 2020, https://readingroom.law.gsu.edu/buckvbell/16.; “Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus for Nannie Mallory,” November 24, 1917, Buck v. Bell Documents, Paper 13, Georgia State University College of Law Reading Room, accessed January 9, 2020, https://reading room.law.gsu.edu/buckvbell/13.; Lombardo, Three Generations, No Imbeciles, 64-65.
[10] “Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus for Nannie Mallory.”; “Interrogators and Papers of Commitment for a Feeble-Minded Person to the Virginia Colony for the Feeble-Minded, at Madison Heights VA—Willie Mallory.”; “Interrogators and Papers of Commitment for a Feeble-Minded Person to the Virginia Colony for the Feeble-Minded, at Madison Heights VA—Jessie Mallory,” October 14, 1916, Buck v. Bell Documents, Paper 78, Georgia State University College of Law Reading Room, accessed February 16, 2020, https://readingroom.law.gsu.edu/buckvbell/78.
[11] According to Lombardo, Three Generations, No Imbeciles, 71, Priddy did not consider Nannie a candidate for sterilization.
[12] Lombardo, Three Generations, No Imbeciles, 68 and 73.
[13] “Willie Mallory Complaint.”; “Mallory Depositions,” 88.
[14] “Willie Mallory Complaint.”
[15] Prichard, “Lynchburg Training School and Hospital,” 46.; Lombardo, Three Generations No Imbeciles, 76.
[16] Prichard, “Lynchburg Training School and Hospital,” 46. For in-depth investigations into Buck v. Bell, see Lombardo, Three Generations No Imbeciles and Adam Cohen, Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck (New York: Penguin Press, 2016), 6-7.
[17] Harry Bruinius, Better for all the World: The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and America’s Quest for Racial Purity (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006).
[18] Ladd-Taylor, Fixing the Poor, 16.
[19] Ladd-Taylor, Fixing the Poor, 1-4 and 16.
[20] Johanna Schoen, Choice & Coercion: Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 3-4, 14-15, 76-84, 98-103, and 106.
[21] Karin Zipf, Bad Girls at Samarcand: Sexuality and Sterilization in a Southern Juvenile Reformatory (Baton Rouge: University of Louisiana Press, 2016), 1-7, 63, and 105-161.
[22] Cohen, Imbeciles, 6-7.; Lombardo, Three Generations, No Imbeciles, x-xiii and 1-6.
[23] Cohen, Imbeciles.; Lombardo, Three Generations, No Imbeciles.
[24] Schoen, Choice & Coercion, 75-138.; Johanna Schoen, “Reassessing Eugenic Sterilization: The Case of North Carolina,” in A Century of Eugenics in America: From the Indiana Experiment to the Human Genome Era, Paul A. Lombardo, ed. (Bloomington and Indianapolis: University of Indiana Press, 2011), 141-160.; Zipf, Bad Girls at Samarcand, 1-6 and 131-184.
[25] Jason S. Lantzer, “The Indiana Way of Eugenics,” in A Century of Eugenics in America, Lombardo, ed., 25-41.; Ladd-Taylor, Fixing the Poor, 15-19.; Gregory Michael Dorr, “Protection or Control?: Women’s Health, Sterilization Abuse, and Relf v. Weinberger,” in A Century of Eugenics in America, Lombardo, ed., 162-163.
[26] Alexandra Minna Stern, Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 5-7.; Alexandra Minna Stern, “Eugenics, Sterilization, and Historical Memory in the United States,” História, Ciências, Saúde–Manguinhos, vol. 23 (2016), accessed September 29, 2018, http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0104-59702016000500011, 197-204.; Mark A. Largent, “‘The Greatest Curse of the Race’: Eugenic Sterilization in Oregon, 1909-1983,” Oregon Historical Quarterly, vol. 100, no. 2 (2002), accessed September 24, 2018, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20615229, 188-209.
[27] Allison C. Carey, “The Feebleminded Versus the Nation: 1900-1930s,” in On the Margins of Citizenship: Intellectual Disability and Civil Rights in Twentieth Century America (Philadelphia: Temple UniversityPress, 2009), accessed September 22, 2018, http://jstor.org/stable/j.ctt14bs8th.7, 54-57.; Kline, Building a Better Race, 1 and 3.; Stern, Eugenic Nation, 7-8 and 93.
[28] Carey, “The Feebleminded Versus the Nation,” 52-57 and 60-64.; Anna Stubblefield, “‘Beyond the Pale’: Tainted Whiteness, Cognitive Disability, and Eugenic Sterilization,” Hypatia, vol. 22, no. 2 (Spring 2007), accessed September 22, 2018, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4640067, 162-164 and 169-176.
[29] Kline, Building a Better Race, 2 and 11.; Ladd-Taylor, Fixing the Poor, 3 and 5.; Stern, “Eugenics, Sterilization, and Historical Memory in the United States,” 196-199.
[30] For a detailed discussion of gender’s role in eugenic sterilization, see Carey, “The Feebleminded Versus the Nation.”; Kline, Building a Better Race.; Ladd-Taylor, Fixing the Poor.; Stern, Eugenic Nation.; Stern, “Eugenics, Sterilization, and Historical Memory in the United States,” 196-198.; Stubblefield, “‘Beyond the Pale,’” 163 and 176-179.; Rebecca M. Kluchin, Fit to be Tied: Sterilization and Reproductive Rights in America, 1950-1980 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2009), 17-18.
[31] Kline, Building a Better Race, 1-5, 11, 26, and 29.
[32] Schoen, “Reassessing Eugenic Sterilization,” 142, 144-145, and 147.
[33] Kline, Building a Better Race, 1.; Schoen, “Reassessing Eugenic Sterilization,” 142, 144-145, and 147.
[34] Zipf, Bad Girls at Samarcand,4.
[35] Schoen, Choice & Coercion, 5, 13-15, 19, 76-79, 81-98, and 112-138. For further discussion of women’s agency in regards to sterilization programs, see Kluchin, Fit to be Tied, 114-183.
[36] In accordance with this principle, the author has decided to avoid speculation on whether any individual victim would be considered disabled by medical professionals in the year 2020.
[37] “Long Time Physical and Mental Changes in 765 Subjects of Eugenical Sterilization,” c. 1935, Topic: Sterilization Laws, #947, Eugenics Archive, accessed January 22, 2020, http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/view_image.pl?id=947.
[38] Second Biennial Report of the Board of Directors & Superintendent of the State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded, for the Biennium Ending September 30, 1923.
[39] New York Daily News, December 26, 1933, accessed July 24, 2019, newspapers.com. These deaths were either attributed to complications related to anesthesia or to a patient’s “carelessness”—indicating the possible lack of adherence to post-operative care guidelines.
[40] “Long Time Physical and Mental Changes in 765 Subjects of Eugenical Sterilization.” A fatality rate of approximately 2% is also corroborated by an opponent of eugenics, Dr. Stewart McCormick, in The Madison Capital Times, June 24, 1937, accessed July 24, 2019, newspapers.com.
[41] Harry H. Laughlin, Eugenical Sterilization in the United States (Chicago: Psychopathic Laboratory of the Municipal Court of Chicago, 1922), 426-429, accessed January 3, 2020, http:// hauntedfiles.org/location?location=Library#. Laughlin’s claim is backed up in H. H. Rubin, Eugenics and Sex Harmony: The Sexes, Their Relations, and Problems (New York: Pioneer Publications, Inc., 1938), 280-281,Topic: Eugenics Goals and Education, #659, Eugenics Archive, accessed January 22, 2020, http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/view_image.pl?id=659.
[42] Laughlin, Eugenical Sterilization in the United States, 436.; Rubin, Eugenics and Sex Harmony, 281.
[43] “Long Time Physical and Mental Changes in 765 Subjects of Eugenical Sterilization.”
[44] Rubin, Eugenics and Sex Harmony, 280.
[45] Paul Popenoe, “The Insane,” Journal of Social Hygiene 13, no. 5 (1927): 257-268, in Paul Popenoe, ed., Collected Papers on Eugenic Sterilization in California: A Critical Study of 6,000 Cases (Pasadena, CA: Human Betterment Foundation, 1930), 265-268. Popenoe refers to schizophrenia by the antiquated term “dementia praecox.”
[46] Human Betterment Foundation, “Effects of Eugenic Sterilization as Practiced in California,” 1934, Topic: Sterilization Laws, #1761, Eugenics Archive, accessed January 22, 2020, http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/view_image.pl?id=1761.
[47] Human Betterment Foundation, “Human Sterilization,” 1934, Topic: Eugenics Goals and Education, #1754, Eugenics Archive, accessed January 22, 2020, http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/image_header.pl?id=1753&printable=1&detailed=0.
[48] Laughlin, Eugenical Sterilization in the United States, 436. On page 352, Laughlin further comments that no one had ever sought legal action against a doctor or institution who subjected a patient to eugenics-based sterilization. Given the aforementioned Mallory case, which predated Laughlin’s 1922 book, this claim is clearly incorrect.
[49] Paul Popenoe, “Success on Parole After Sterilization,” Journal of Psycho-asthenics 32 (1927): 86-103, in Popenoe, ed., Collected Papers on Eugenic Sterilization in California, 86-88. Popenoe reported a margin of error of 4.29% for male patients and a margin of error of 2.3% for female patients. He also described the characteristics that led Sonoma State Hospital to consider a patient on parole (living outside the institution, but not officially discharged) successful as “well-behaved, self-supporting, or supported from a legitimate source, and apparently happy.”
[50] Human Betterment Foundation, “Human Sterilization,” 3 and 6.; Human Betterment Foundation, “Effects of Eugenic Sterilization as Practiced in California.”; Paul Popenoe, “Marriage after Eugenic Sterilization,” The Proceedings of the Fifty-Second Annual Session of the American Association for the Study of the Feeble-Minded, held at Atlantic City, N.J. May 31-June 2, 1928, in Popenoe, ed., Collected Papers on Eugenic Sterilization in California, 9 and 11.
[51] Popenoe, “Marriage after Eugenic Sterilization,” 9 and 11. For further discussion of marriages among the sterilized, see Human Betterment Foundation, “Human Sterilization,” 3.
[52] Human Betterment Foundation, “Effects of Eugenic Sterilization as Practiced in California.”; Popenoe, “Marriage after Eugenic Sterilization,” 9 and 11.
[53] Human Betterment Foundation, “Human Sterilization,” 2.
[54] “Willie Mallory Complaint.”
[55] The Madison Capital Times, February 16, 1937, accessed July 24, 2019, newspapers.com. See also, The Madison Capital Times, June 24, 1937.
[56] The Madison Capital Times, February 16, 1937.
[57] The Madison Capital Times, February 16, 1937.
[58] The Madison Capital Times, February 16, 1937.
[59] The San Francisco Examiner, January 8, 1936, accessed July 24, 2019, newspapers.com.
[60] The San Francisco Examiner, January 7, 1936, accessed July 24, 2019, newspapers.com.; The San Francisco Examiner, January 8, 1936.
[61] The San Francisco Examiner, January 8, 1936.; The San Francisco Examiner, August 15, 1936, accessed July 24, 2019, newspapers.com.; Oakland Tribune, June 10, 1936, accessed July 24, 2019, newspapers.com.; “Milestones, Feb. 20, 1956,” Time, February 20, 1956, accessed January 8, 2020, http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,808211,00.html.
[62] The Montana Standard, August 17, 1936, accessed July 24, 2019, newspapers.com.
[63] The San Francisco Examiner, January 13, 1936, accessed July 24, 2019, newspapers.com.
[64] The San Francisco Examiner, January 13, 1936.
[65] The San Francisco Examiner, January 14, 1936, accessed July 24, 2019, newspapers.com.
[66] “Milestones, Feb. 20, 1956.” The lawsuit filed by Ann Cooper Hewitt was ultimately dismissed after her mother’s death. Ann Cooper Hewitt passed away in 1956 at the age of 41.
[67] The author would like to acknowledge that the stories represented in this paper do not necessarily represent sterilization victims as a whole. For instance, the only narrative from a person of color discovered was that of Fred Aslin who, according to Nick Buckley, “How John Harvey Kellogg was Wrong on Race,” Battle Creek Enquirer, March 21, 2019, accessed January 9, 2020, https://www. battlecreekenquirer.com/story/news/2019/03/21/john-harvey-kellogg-battle-creek-michigan-eugenics-race-nazis/3202628002/, was Native American. While the author did access testimonies from women of minority racial and ethnic groups, these accounts did not coincide with the timeline of this research project.
[68] The Spokane Spokesman-Review, March 18, 1980, accessed March 1, 2020, newspapers.com.; Lombardo, Three Generations, No Imbeciles, 251.
[69] The Spokane Spokesman-Review, March 18, 1980.
[70] The Spokane Spokesman-Review, March 18, 1980.; Lombardo, Three Generations, No Imbeciles, 251.
[71] The Spokane Spokesman-Review, March 18, 1980. According to Lombardo, Three Generations, No Imbeciles, 251, Doris Buck Figgins passed away in 1982.
[72] The Spokane Spokesman-Review, March 18, 1980.
[73] Galveston Daily News, February 27, 1980, accessed February 7, 2020, newspapers.com.
[74] Lombardo, Three Generations, No Imbeciles, 254-255.
[75] Lombardo, Three Generations, No Imbeciles, 254-255.
[76] Newport News Daily Press, March 20, 2000, accessed July 24, 2019, newspapers.com.; The Lynchburg Story: Eugenic Sterilization in America, directed by Stephen Trombley, Worldview Pictures, 1993, YouTube video, posted May 1, 2018, accessed March 1, 2020.; The Boston Globe, March 17, 2003, accessed April 7, 2020, newspapers.com.
[77] The Lynchburg Story.
[78] The Boston Globe, March 17, 2003.
[79] The Boston Globe, March 17, 2003.
[80] Newport News Daily Press, December 10, 2013, accessed April 7, 2020, newspapers.com.; The Staunton News Leader, March 23, 2014, accessed April 7, 2020, newspapers.com.; The Staunton News Leader, October 7, 2012, accessed April 7, 2020, newspapers.com.
[81] Newport News Daily Press, December 10, 2013.; The Staunton News Leader, March 23, 2014.; The Orlando Sentinel, February 3, 2013, accessed April 7, 2020, newspapers.com.; The Staunton News Leader, October 7, 2012.
[82] The Staunton News Leader, March 23, 2014.
[83] The Staunton News Leader, March 23, 2014.
[84] The Staunton News Leader, March 23, 2014.
[85] The Staunton News Leader, March 23, 2014.; The Staunton News Leader, October 7, 2012.; The Orlando Sentinel, February 3, 2013.
[86] The Staunton News Leader, March 23, 2014.; The Staunton News Leader, October 7, 2012.; The Orlando Sentinel, February 3, 2013.
[87] The Staunton News Leader, October 7, 2012.
[88] The Orlando Sentinel, February 3, 2013. According to “Earnest Lewis Reynolds,” Tharp Funeral Home and Crematory, accessed April 7, 2020, https://tharpfuneralhome.com/funeralpress/earnest-lewis-reynolds/2493/, Lewis Reynolds passed away in 2018 at the age of 90. Therefore, Reynolds lived long enough to receive monetary compensation from Virginia in 2015.
[89] Bruinius, Better for all the World, 324 and 354-355.; The Indianapolis Star, December 30, 1955, accessed April 7, 2020, newspapers.com.; The Waco News-Tribune, December 30, 1955, accessed April 7, 2020, newspapers.com.
[90] Bruinius, Better for all the World, 324 and 354-355.; The Indianapolis Star, December 30, 1955. The author would like to acknowledge potential concerns that, since many of these survivors expressed their pain through lawsuits, greed could have manipulated their perspectives. Since the general narrative remains consistent through all examples studied, the author has reasoned that this is not the case.
[91] The Indianapolis Star, December 30, 1955.
[92] Bruinius, Better for all the World, 354.; The Waco News-Tribune, December 30, 1955.
[93] Bruinius, Better for all the World, 324.
[94] Bruinius, Better for all the World, 324.
[95] Bruinius, Better for all the World, 355.
[96] Newport News Daily Press, February 6, 2001, accessed July 24, 2019, newspapers.com.
[97] Newport News Daily Press, February 6, 2001.
[98] Newport News Daily Press, February 6, 2001.
[99] Newport News Daily Press, February 6, 2001. Other former patients of the Virginia Colony have described the sterilization program in similar dehumanizing language. For instance, Lombardo, Three Generations, No Imbeciles, 251 states that one former patient compared it to an “assembly line.”
[100] Newport News Daily Press, February 6, 2001.
[101] Newport News Daily Press, February 6, 2001.
[102] Virginia Brooks, interview by Marina Portnaya, RT, December 11, 2012, accessed March 1, 2020, https://www.rt.com/usa/eugenics-sterilization-victims-us-806/.; “Robeson Woman was Victim of NC’s Eugenics Program,” WRAL-TV, last modified June 15, 2012, accessed April 8, 2020, https://
www.wral.com/news/local/video/11214545/.
[103] Virginia Brooks, interview by Marina Portnaya.; “Robeson Woman was Victim of NC’s Eugenics Program.”
[104] Virginia Brooks, interview by Marina Portnaya.; “Robeson Woman was Victim of NC’s Eugenics Program.”
[105] Virginia Brooks, interview by Marina Portnaya.
[106] “Robeson Woman was Victim of NC’s Eugenics Program.”
[107] Charlie Follett, interview by Elizabeth Cohen, Anderson Cooper 360, YouTube Video, uploaded March 8, 2012, accessed March 1, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3_c9pZ4SKc.; Elizabeth Cohen and John Bonfield,“California’s Dark Legacy of Forced Sterilizations,” CNN, last modified March 15, 2012, accessed April 7, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2012/03/15/health/
california-forced-sterilizations/ index.html.
[108] Charlie Follett, interview by Elizabeth Cohen.
[109] “The Life Penalty: Sterilizing California,” CBS13 Sacramento, last modified November 10, 2011, accessed April 8, 2020, https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2011/11/10/the-life-penalty-sterilizing-california/.
[110] “The Life Penalty.”
[111] “The Life Penalty.”
[112] “The Life Penalty.”
[113] Newport News Daily Press, March 20, 2000.; The Lynchburg Story.
[114] The Lynchburg Story.
[115] The Lynchburg Story.
[116] The Lynchburg Story.
[117] The Lynchburg Story.
[118] Madison Eagle, June 18, 2015, accessed April 6, 2020, https://www.dailyprogress.com/madison
news/obituaries/donald-mary-francis-corbin/article_adae2057-81c4-5dde-aec084f99ea87466.html.
[119] “Mallory Despositions,” 33-36.
[120] It should be noted that, after the end of World War II and the revelation of the Nazi regime’s eugenics-inspired atrocities, American eugenicists altered their language once eugenics was discredited as a legitimate science. Thus, compulsory sterilization continued for decades. For detailed discussions of this trend, see Lombardo, Three Generations, No Imbeciles, xiii, 232, 234, and 237-238.; Kline, Building a Better Race, 6.; Stern, Eugenic Nation, 3-4 and 9-10.; Kluchin, Fit to be Tied, 10 and 20-49.