State-sanctioned sterilizations reached their peak in the 1930s and 1940s but continued and, in some states, rose during the 1950s and 1960s. Indiana passed the world’s first sterilization law in 1907. By 1913, many states had or were on their way to having eugenic sterilization laws. Anyone who did not fit this mold of racial perfection, which included most immigrants, Blacks, Indigenous people, poor whites and people with disabilities, became targets of eugenics programs.
White elites with strong biases about who was “fit” and “unfit” embraced eugenics, believing American society would be improved by increased breeding of Anglo Saxons and Nordics, whom they assumed had high IQs. More than 60,000 people were sterilized in 32 states during the 20th century based on the bogus “science” of eugenics, a term coined by Francis Galton in 1883.Įugenicists applied emerging theories of biology and genetics to human breeding. So far, we have captured historical records from North Carolina, California, Iowa and Michigan. Our interdisciplinary team explores the history of eugenics and sterilization in the U.S. North Carolina State Documents Collection/State Library of North Carolinaīertha’s story is one of the 35,000 sterilization stories we are reconstructing at the Sterilization and Social Justice Lab. A pamphlet extolling the benefit of selective sterilization published by the Human Betterment League of North Carolina, 1950. Without her input, Bertha’s guardian signed the sterilization form. Instead the board recommended the “protection of sterilization” for Bertha, because she was “feebleminded” and deemed unable to “assume responsibility for herself” or her child. Likely because of her “low IQ score,” the board determined she was not capable of rehabilitation. According to the North Carolina Eugenics Board, Bertha had an IQ of 62 and exhibited “aggressive behavior and sexual promiscuity.” She had been orphaned as a child and had a limited education. She was a single mother with one child who lived at the segregated O'Berry Center for African American adults with intellectual disabilities in Goldsboro. Because her name was redacted from the records, we call her Bertha. In August 1964, the North Carolina Eugenics Board met to decide if a 20-year-old Black woman should be sterilized. Library of CongressĪlexandra Minna Stern, University of Michigan
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