TIMELINE: EUGENICS IN INDIANA
|
| 1876 | Indianapolis begins to study "pauperism" in hopes of decreasing the number of "pauper" families. |
| 1882 | Richmond
Indiana resident Dr. Joseph Iutzi publishes "Heredity
and Its Relations to Disease," which argues that insanity,
tuberculosis, and syphilis, among other diseases, are predominantly
inherited. |
| 1883 | Francis Galton coins the term "Eugenics" (although its concepts were not new, having been discussed in the mid 1830s), defining it as the betterment of the human race through the selection of marriage. |
| 1891 | Dr. Gonzalva C. Smythe links insanity, alcoholism, and criminality to inheritance—and to the depletion of state funds—in his 1891 Presidential Address to the Indiana Medical Society. |
| 1899 | Without legal warrant, Dr. Harry Sharp begins sterilizing inmates of the Indiana State Reformatory in Jeffersonville. By the time Indiana's sterilization statute is passed, Sharp will have performed vasectomies on almost 225 men. |
| 1902 | Convinced of the positive physical and psychological benefits of sterilization, Sharp publishes "The Severing of the Vasa Deferentia and Its Relation to the Neuropsychopathic Constitution" in the New York Medical Journal. |
| 1903 | Agricultural breeders and university biologists form the American Breeders Association, the first organization associated with the eugenics movement. Secretary Charles Davenport advises caution in the selection of marriage partners, a ban on racial mixings, and restrictions on the immigration of "undesirables." |
| 1905 | A eugenic sterilization law is proposed to the Indiana legislature, but never makes it to a vote. |
| 1907 | Governor Frank Hanley signs the Compulsory Sterilization Law of Indiana, which mandates the sterilization of "confirmed" criminals, rapists, "imbeciles," and "idiots." |
| 1909 | Indiana Governor Thomas Marshall declares a moratorium on the sterilization statue while investigations into its constitutionality are undertaken. |
| 1913 | The American Breeder's Association is renamed the American Genetics Association, and its journal is renamed the Journal of Heredity. |
| 1921 | Indiana's sterilization law is declared unconstitutional. |
| 1927 | Indiana's sterilization law is reinstated, and now applies to, "inmates of state institutions who are insane, idiotic, imbecile, feebleminded, and epileptic, and who by the laws of heredity are the probable potential parents of socially inadequate offspring likewise afflicted." The law states that the procedure should be carried out only "without detriment to the inmate's general health, and if the welfare of the inmate and society would be promoted by such sterilization." |
| 1974 | The second sterilization law is finally repealed by the Indiana General Assembly. |
eugenics in indiana
Last Modified: June 16, 2003
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(Kyle Robbins), 2003