Heredity in Eugenics
Authorities’ extensive interest in families stemmed from their belief in the hereditary nature of mental illness and deficiency. North Carolina Eugenic Board members explained to sterilization candidates and their families that mental illness and deficiency were passed on from one generation to the next and warned that mental conditions, if ignored, would lead to a progressive deterioration of the hereditary quality of coming generations. As one board member cautioned: “The further it goes, the worse it gets.” Sterilization promised to provide a solution to this problem. Following the lead of eugenic scientists, health and welfare professionals as well as Eugenics Board members focused on the hereditary history of the families of sterilization candidates, and petitions often noted if relatives of sterilization candidates suffered from mental afflictions. As the case of the Bodwin family illustrates, once authorities had identified a family with mental disease and deficiency, they frequently sought to sterilize more than one family member.
Unimpressed with the scientific framework of these arguments for sterilization, family members and their attorneys often questioned the very diagnosis of mental illness or deficiency. “She was not feebleminded when she left home,” objected one mother to the diagnosis of her seventeen-year-old daughter, who had been committed to Samarcand Training School. “When they found she was feebleminded, why didn’t they tell me then? I was down there every visiting day. I didn’t see anything different about her then than at home.” Family members and attorneys puzzled over the invisibility of mental disease and deficiency and argued that candidates for sterilization looked intelligent and attractive. Many believed that feeblemindedness and mental illness should have visible symptoms similar to other diseases. Some objected that feeblemindedness and mental disease could only be passed on if a parent showed acute symptoms during the period of the child’s conception, pregnancy or delivery. One father explained, for instance, that while his younger daughter was feebleminded, his older daughter was not, because only the younger girl had been born after his wife “went bad.” Such beliefs indicated clients’ lingering perception that embryos could be “marked” if the other experience a particularly traumatic event during conception or pregnancy. They also reflected clients’ attempts to understand a mysterious affliction by comparing it to diseases more familiar to them.
Even if they accepted a diagnosis, family members of candidates for sterilization frequently objected to board members’ claim that the diagnosed condition was hereditary. They pointed to their personal family histories to prove their point. “She hasn’t had any children that were illiterate or feebleminded – all in good health, “ explained Mr. Greene’s representative at the sterilization hearing of Mrs. Greene, a mother of eleven. Others suggested that the success of some family members indicated the hereditary potential in their family lines: “While there is some that is mentally diseased on her mother’s side, she has some intelligent people on her side too, attorney’s, etc.,” one witness declared of a sterilization candidate. Board members conceded that a mental condition might skip a generation or two, raising the possibility that any epileptic, mentally ill, or feebleminded parent might give birth to a child “perfectly strong and perfectly able to take care of itself.” They warned, however, that this was unlikely.
Refusing to accept eugenic explanations for patients’ mental troubles, family members often pointed to environmental factors instead. Mothers argued that their daughters had been under bad influence. “Her mind was all right,” explained one mother about her daughter, but “she got to running with bad girls.” Relatives and their attorney’s protested that clients were not feebleminded, but that they lacked formal education. Others held that overwork, deprivation, and unsuitable living conditions had led to patients’ mental problems. The sister of a sterilization candidate argued that her family’s insanity was rooted in deprivation and dysfunctional family structures. “Our family insanity don’t run in the brains,” she explained. “My aunts had children too fast. That had effect. My mother and sister yonder all come from abusation [sic] in the family which I won’t go into here which brought on all this.” Searching for an explanation for her sister’s mental condition, she asked the Eugenics Board members, “Don’t you think that it is an evil spirit and heart as much as anything that causes insanity?