Eugenic Practices in California, Iowa, and North Carolina
California was the third state in the nation to pass eugenic sterilization laws (Indiana and Connecticut were first and second respectively) and 20,000 sterilizations are known to have been approved - that's 1/3 of all the known legal eugenic sterilizations in the United States. General Superintendent of California State Hospitals and Secretary of the State Commission in Lunacy, F.W. Hatch was a driving force in the passing of eugenic law in California; he drafted the original legislation and lobbied extensively on its behalf. The California laws "granted the medical superintendents of asylums and prisons the authority to “asexualize” a patient or inmate if such action would improve his or her 'physical, mental, or moral condition.'"(footnote)
In the same year that California performed its first eugenic sterilization, 1911, Iowa passed its first eugenic law focusing on sterilization as a way to limit the reproductive ability of people described as “habitual criminals, idiots, feeble-minded, and imbeciles.” By the time Iowa launched its State Board of Eugenics in 1929, the law had expanded to include people seen as “feeble-minded, insane, syphilitic, habitual criminals, moral degenerates, or sexual perverts...who are a menace to society.” Sterilization and Social Justice Lab co-Dirctor, Dr. Nicole Novak and her team have determined that 1,782 Iowans were sterilized under this law.
Meanwhile, in 1919 North Carolina had passed its first eugenic law, "An Act to Benefit the Moral, Mental, or Physical Conditions of Inmates of Penal and Charitable Institutions" and it too created a State Board of Eugenics, at least on paper. Its mandate left unfunded by the state, however, and this board was never seated and no sterilizations took place. This changed with the passage of "An Act to Provide For the Sterilization of the Mentally Defective and Feeble-Minded Inmates of Charitable and Penal Institutions of the State of North Carolina" in 1929, which empowered superintendents and other institutional heads to approve sterilizations to improve "the mental, moral or physical condition of any inmate, or for the public good." We know that 49 sterilizations were performed under this law before it was struck down by the state supreme court as unconstitutional because it did not provide for due process or appeal of recommendations. In response, the North Carolina General Assembly passed House Bill 1013, which formed the state Eugenics Board and established a process by which sterilization requests were adjudicated. Under this and the previous law we know of roughly 7,600 North Carolinians who were forcibly sterilized.
All told, our initial three states account for 29,382 of the approximately 60,000 known legal eugenic sterilizations in the United States, nearly half of the national total. They also span our entire nation from east to west coasts and represent different state-specific practices; California placed significant power in the hands of institutional leaders with minimal oversight, while Iowa and North Carolina both established State Boards. North Carolina notably empowered community social workers to recommend people for sterilization - vastly expanding the reach of its efforts.
Dr. Alexandra Minna Stern, uncovered the records of the California sterilization recommendations and these formed the initial basis of this project. Stern's Sterilization and Social Justice Lab has supported the work of numerous students and scholars, including Novak, whose team at the University of Iowa has led the work on Iowa's eugenic sterilization practices. We also partnered with well-known reproductive historian, Dr. Joanna Schoen, whose groundbreaking work on eugenics in North Carolina helped spur the successful call for reparations in that state. Schoen's work focused on North Carolina and her extensive archival research enabled us to access otherwise inaccessible records for North Carolina.
Stern, AM, (2004) Sterilized in the Name of Public Health, American Journal of Public Health 95, 1128_1138, https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2004.041608