Sterilization and the State

Post contributed by Jessica Brabble, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, College of William & Mary . Jessica was a recipient of an Elon Clark History of Medicine Travel Grant.

A pamphlet, published by the Human Betterment Foundation, explaining why human sterilization is “needed”. Found in the John S. Bradway Papers.

Shortly after the end of World War II, some of North Carolina’s most powerful businessmen and physicians felt the state was facing a major problem. The state’s young men faced a high rate of rejection by Selective Service during the War for physical disabilities or “mental causes,” leading to worries that Carolinian men were inferior (Herbert Clarence Bradshaw Papers). In response, Winston-Salem native James G. Hanes and Procter & Gamble heir, Clarence Gamble, joined forces to create the Human Betterment League of North Carolina.

Thanks to the very generous History of Medicine travel grant, I recently traveled to Durham to consult collections on eugenics and public health at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library for my dissertation, “’Her Best Crop’: Eugenics, Agricultural Programming, and Child Welfare in North Carolina, 1900-1964.” My research analyzes the connection between agriculture and eugenics in the first half of the twentieth century. I’m particularly interested in how organizations like the Better Babies Bureau and 4-H integrated ideas about eugenics into programming offered to rural youth. Many of the individuals in charge of such programming were involved in the Human Betterment League, leading me to these documents in the Rubenstein Library.

Founded in 1947, The Human Betterment League of North Carolina was created to address the “concern for disturbing conditions already prevalent [among North Carolina’s men] but brought to public knowledge and attention” by World War II. The organization quickly got to work in studying North Carolina’s population to determine why men were being rejected from the draft at such high rates. According to their studies, there was a “disturbing incidence of mental disabilities” among North Carolina’s children, leading the League to throw their full support behind North Carolina’s sterilization laws (Herbert Clarence Bradshaw Papers). These laws, first passed in 1929 and updated in 1937, allowed the state to sterilize individuals considered “defective” or a “burden” on the state. This intentionally broad definition meant that a wide array of people—including non-white, poor, or disabled people—were targeted.

The Human Betterment League went on to publish a wide variety of pamphlets and advertisements that attempted to positively spin sterilization as a way to prevent “unwanted” children and improve the lives of “defective” patients. One pamphlet touted that “families of the sterilized patients likewise approve almost universally of the operation…many of the feebleminded girls have married after sterilization and these marriages have been reasonably successful” (John S. Bradway Papers). By 1957, more than 575,000 pieces of literature had been distributed by the League.

Map of North Carolina Depicting Infant Mortality Rates by County from 1951-1955

Ironically, North Carolina seemed to be facing an infant mortality crisis at the same time as the Human Betterment League was promoting sterilization practices. The above image, found in Elizabeth Roberts Papers, shows us that infant mortality was devastatingly high in the state. Over half of all counties experiencing 30 or more infant deaths per 1,000 live births between 1951-1955, yet the Human Betterment League persisted in campaigning for sterilization well into the 1970s. By 1988, the League had disbanded, but its history is well preserved thanks to places like the Rubenstein Library.