Eugenics in California is a notable part of
eugenics in America. As an early leading force in the field of
eugenics
Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...
, California became the third state in the United States to enact a
sterilization law. By 1921, California had accounted for 80% of sterilizations nationwide. This continued until the
Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
, when widespread critiques against society's "
total institution
A total institution is a place of work and residence where a great number of similarly situated people, cut off from the wider community for a considerable time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life. Privacy is limited in ...
s" dismantled popular acceptance for the state's forced sterilizations.
There were an estimated 20,000 forced sterilizations in California between 1909 and 1979; however, that number may be an underestimation.
In 2021, California enacted a reparations program to compensate the hundreds of still living victims from its eugenics program.
General forms of eugenics
In California, "
ugenicswas always linked to the use of land: to agriculture and
plant hybridization".
Many of the powerful
social worker
Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social work ...
s, doctors, psychiatrists, and biologists, sought to hurt many of California's Mexican, Indian, and Asian populations through the exclusionary laws that those scientists proposed. In addition to the conquest to hurt the "undesirables" in the state, the California Eugenics plan also was a way to save the state money so they could eliminate the money the state spends on
welfare
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specificall ...
and other programs that help the less fortunate.
Eugenics takes three forms in California:
# limiting the number of children for whom a woman on welfare can get state support,
#coercing women of color who need a
caesarean section
Caesarean section, also known as C-section or caesarean delivery, is the surgical procedure by which one or more babies are delivered through an incision in the mother's abdomen, often performed because vaginal delivery would put the baby or mo ...
, and women dependent on illicit drugs, to surrender reproductive capacities and
#requiring contraception use as a term of probation.
In previous years, California had focused on applying eugenics indirectly to humans as a form of "societal benefit". Now, the eugenicists of the state only focus their resources to save the state money.
California is thought of by some as a Eugenics trailblazer in the time before the Nazis, used it as an excuse to commit mass murder.
Historians have estimated from 1909 to 1963, some 20,000 people were sterilized in California asylums and hospitals. In 1933 alone, at least 1,278 coercive sterilizations were conducted, out of which 700 were women. In 1933, the state's top two sterilization facilities were
Sonoma State Home (388 operations) and
Patton State Hospital
Patton State Hospital is a forensic psychiatric hospital in San Bernardino, California, United States. Though the hospital has a Patton, California address, it lies entirely within the San Bernardino city limits. Operated by the California Depar ...
(363 operations). Other state hospitals with sterilization centers included
Agnews State Hospital
Agnews Developmental Center was a psychiatric and medical care facility, located in Santa Clara, California.
In 1885, the center, originally known as "The Great Asylum for the Insane", was established as a facility for the care of the mentally ill ...
,
Mendocino State Hospital
Mendocino State Hospital, formally known as Mendocino State Asylum for the Insane, was a psychiatric hospital in Talmage near Ukiah, California, was established in 1889 and in operation from July 1893 to 1972. The hospital programs included the ...
,
Napa State Hospital
Napa State Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in Napa, California, founded in 1875. It is located along California State Route 221, the Napa- Vallejo Highway, and is one of California's five state hospitals. Napa State Hospital holds civil and for ...
,
Metropolitan State Hospital,
Stockton State Hospital
Stockton State Hospital or the Stockton Developmental Center was California's first psychiatric hospital. The hospital opened in 1851 in Stockton, California and closed 1995–1996. The site is currently used as the Stockton campus of California St ...
, and
Pacific Colony.
In the 1930s and 1940s, three more hospitals for the mentally unstable were constructed (
Camarillo State Hospital
Camarillo State Mental Hospital, also known as Camarillo State Hospital, was a public psychiatric hospital for patients with both developmental disabilities and mental illness in Camarillo, California. The hospital was in operation from 1936 to 1 ...
,
DeWitt State Hospital
DeWitt General Hospital was a World War II US Army Hospital in Auburn, California in Placer County at the corner of C Avenue and First Street. The hospital was built in 1944 to care for troops returning home from overseas service and troops that s ...
, and
Modesto State Hospital), resulting in a total of nine hospitals for the mentally insane in California to nine by the end of the sterilization period.
California prisons
In 1909 a eugenics law was passed in California allowing for state institutions to sterilize those deemed "unfit" or "feeble-minded".
The Asexualization Act authorized the involuntary sterilization of certain groups of people, including inmates of state hospitals, certain institutionalized people, life-sentenced prisoners, repeat offenders of certain sexual offenses, or simply repeat offenders.
As one of the leading states in forced sterilization victims, California's sterilization procedures primarily took place in state mental hospitals. Dr.
Leo Stanley was one of the first people to bring the eugenics movement to California's prisons.
Stanley was
San Quentin penitentiary
San Quentin Rehabilitation Center (SQ), formerly known as San Quentin State Prison, is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in M ...
's chief surgeon and was particularly interested in eliminating those deemed "unfit" for society.
His avid eugenic-based surgeries were the first of its kind to be seen in a prison. Taking place between 1913 and 1941, the peak of the eugenics movement, Stanley's surgeries were driven by the idea of purifying criminals.
Through testicular surgeries, he believed he could cultivate socially 'fit' individuals by replacing a prisoner's testicles with those of a deceased male previously deemed socially 'fit'. His practices spawned early ideologies of "white manhood", which stemmed from his belief that he could "help a new, ideal man emerge".
Use of human and even animal testicles made Stanley's procedures highly unsuccessful and all around bizarre. His desire to restore social morality, along with his fascination with the endocrine system, fueled his research. Throughout the time of his procedures, criminals were believed to have something anatomically off that drove them to commit crimes. This belief inspired Stanley to explore the endocrine system's role in the criminology of a person. By persuading inmates that his testicular surgeries would produce favorable results in their sex lives he sterilized more than 600 prisoners by the end of his career.
Stanley's prison work concluded upon the start of World War II where he served overseas, only to retire as a eugenic pioneer.
Human Betterment Foundation
The
Human Betterment Foundation
The Human Betterment Foundation (HBF) was an American eugenics organization established in Pasadena, California in 1928 by E.S. Gosney and Rufus B. von KleinSmid with the aim "to foster and aid constructive and educational forces for the protection ...
(HBF) was established in Pasadena, California, in 1928. Led by E.S. Gosney, the HBF sought to dispel the critics of sterilization by publishing authoritative, scientific reports demonstrating the benefits of sexual surgery for mental patients, their families, and society, as well as to encourage the wider application of eugenic sterilization laws at the state, national, and international levels.
In 1929 E.S. Gosney set up the HBF and gathered 25 of the leading scientists, philanthropists, and community leaders to carry out research on the effects of sterilization for thirteen years (Valone).
Gosney also used the HBF to distribute the product of his research, "Sterilization for Human Betterment", which attracted attention from the nearby university, the
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...
(Caltech).
Robert A. Millikan
Robert Andrews Millikan (March 22, 1868 – December 19, 1953) was an American experimental physicist honored with the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1923 for the measurement of the elementary electric charge and for his work on the photoelectric e ...
, a leading faculty member and proponent of Caltech, was looking for potential donors to the university and shared many of Gosney's views in his work decided to join the HBF board.The HBF asserted that sterilization was neither mutilation nor punishment, and it sought to dispel the widely held view that sterilization inhibited or increased sexual promiscuity. It was revealed that nearly 10 million Americans had "eugenically undesirable children", and that it would take a single generation of vigorous sterilization to reduce the incidences of "mental abnormalities" by nearly 40%.
Lois Gosney Castle and the board of trustees eventually liquidated the foundation and turned the proceeds over to Caltech.
Thirteen years after publishing the 1929 report entitled "Sterilization for Human Betterment", the HBF continued to carry out research on the effects of sterilization and undertook widespread distribution of the report to individuals, public libraries, and schools. After the liquidation, files were found in 1968, but since they contained personal medical information, they were legally closed to researchers.
Following Gosney's death in 1942, the Trustees of the Human Betterment Foundation agreed that transferring the Foundation's activities to the California Institute of Technology would be in the best interests of the Foundation.
''Madrigal v. Quilligan''
Dolores Madrigal entered the
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...
's medical center on October 12, 1973, in order to give birth to her second child. During her time in labor, she was given a consent form and coerced by doctors into having a
tubal ligation
Tubal ligation (commonly known as having one's "tubes tied") is a surgical procedure for female sterilization in which the fallopian tubes are permanently blocked, clipped or removed. This prevents the fertilization of eggs by sperm and thus th ...
, effectively sterilizing her. Madrigal insisted that "No one at the medical center informed me that a tubal ligation operation was going to be performed on me. No one at the medical center informed me of what a tubal ligation operation consists nor of its permanent effects" (Enoch, 5). Rebecca M. Kluchin found while researching the case that "Physicians preferred to perform cesarean sections and tubal ligations in tandem to minimize risks associated with infection and anesthesia, as well as to reduce medical costs. It appears that at this hospital physicians who performed emergency cesarean sections sometimes used the opportunity to persuade a woman to accept permanent contraception".
In July 1976, Madrigal sued the University of Southern California medical center, accompanied by Guadalupe Acosta, Estela Benavides, Consuelo Hermosillo, Georgina Hernandez, Maria Hurtado, Maria Figueroa, Rebecca Figueroa, Jovita Rivera, and Helena Orozco. Each of the nine other women who joined the class action lawsuit complained of similar proceedings. Together, these 10
chicanas
Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States. The label ''Chicano'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Mexican American'', although the terms have different meanings. While Mexican-American ident ...
decided to sue the USC medical center, contending that they had never given their informed consent to have the tubal ligation procedure performed. Karen Benker testified concerning discussions with then head of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Dr. Edward James Quilligan, in which he asserted that "poor minority women in L.A. County were having too many babies; that it was a strain on society; and that it was good that they be sterilized".
Despite Benker's testimony and other corroborating evidence, Judge Jesse Curtis ruled in favor of the defendants, stating that there had been nothing more than "a breakdown in communication between the patients and the doctors" (Stern 1135). He went on to say that it was appropriate for an obstetrician to believe that a tubal ligation could help diminish overpopulation as long as they did not attempt to "overpower the will of his patients".
Californian eugenicists
*
David Starr Jordan
David Starr Jordan (January 19, 1851 – September 19, 1931) was the founding president of Stanford University, serving from 1891 to 1913. He was an ichthyologist during his research career. Prior to serving as president of Stanford Univer ...
: Founding president of Stanford University and chairman of the American Eugenics Commission, vice-president of the American Society for Social Hygiene, and vice-president of the Eugenics Education Society of London.
*
Charles Goethe
Charles Matthias Goethe (March 28, 1875 – July 10, 1966) was an American eugenicist, entrepreneur, land developer, philanthropist, conservationist, founder of the Eugenics Society of Northern California, and a native and lifelong resident of ...
: First chairman of the board of trustees for California State University, Sacramento and founder of the Eugenics Society of Northern California.
*
Ulysses Sigel Webb: Attorney General of California for 37 years, and enthusiastic promoter of the Californian forced sterilization laws.
*
Frederick Winslow Hatch Frederick Winslow Hatch (August 1, 1789 – January 14, 1860) was an Episcopal clergyman who served as Chaplain of the Senate of the United States.
Early years
Frederick Winslow Hatch was born August 1, 1789, in Blandford, Massachusetts ...
: Secretary of the State Lunacy Commission in California, and later became the General Superintendent of State Hospitals.
*
Ezra Seymour Gosney: Philanthropist to the first California council of the Boy Scouts of America and donated $12,500 to Polytechnic School. He founded the Human Betterment Foundation and under its name authored numerous publications promoting eugenics including, "Sterilization for Human Betterment: A Summary of Results of 6,000 Operations in California, 1909–1929".
*
Lewis Terman
Lewis Madison Terman (January 15, 1877 – December 21, 1956) was an American psychologist and author. He was noted as a pioneer in educational psychology in the early 20th century at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. He is best known f ...
: Creator of the IQ test, and member of the eugenic group, the Human Betterment Foundation. A middle school in Palo Alto California, Terman Middle School was named after him until it was renamed in 2018.
*
Robert Andrews Millikan
Robert Andrews Millikan (March 22, 1868 – December 19, 1953) was an American experimental physicist honored with the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1923 for the measurement of the elementary electric charge and for his work on the photoelectric e ...
: Director of the Norman Bridge Laboratory of Physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics, and member of the Human Betterment Foundation.
State records
Records of eugenics practices in California are held at the following agencies and institutions. Some records are still protected for
confidentiality
Confidentiality involves a set of rules or a promise usually executed through confidentiality agreements that limits the access or places restrictions on certain types of information.
Legal confidentiality
By law, lawyers are often required ...
reasons.
*
California State Archives, Sacramento
** Sonoma State Hospital Records
** Mendocino State Hospital Records
** Modesto State Hospital Records
** Stockton State Hospital Records
** Modesto State Hospital Records
** California Youth Authority/Whittier State Home Records
** Department of Mental Hygiene Records (incomplete)
** Legislative Histories (microfilm)
*
Patton State Hospital
Patton State Hospital is a forensic psychiatric hospital in San Bernardino, California, United States. Though the hospital has a Patton, California address, it lies entirely within the San Bernardino city limits. Operated by the California Depar ...
** Patton State Hospital Records
*
Napa State Hospital
Napa State Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in Napa, California, founded in 1875. It is located along California State Route 221, the Napa- Vallejo Highway, and is one of California's five state hospitals. Napa State Hospital holds civil and for ...
** Napa (Fairview) State Hospital Records
*
CSU Channel Islands,
John Spoor Broome Library
** Dewitt State Hospital Record
** Camarillo State Hospital Records
See also
*
Nancy Hernandez, sentenced to sterilization in 1966
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
{{refend
Eugenics in the United States
Reproductive rights in the United States
History of California