Home (link to Eugenic Sterilizations in the United States)

Lutz Kaelber, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Vermont and students in HCOL195 Contact: lutz.kaelber@uvm.edu Last updated: 10/21/2012

Eugenics/Sexual Sterilizations in

(eugenics; sexual sterilization)

Number of Victims

Over 8,000 sterilizations were approved by the Eugenics Board of North Carolina. The total number of victims actually sterilized is estimated to have been over 7,600 (Winston-Salem, Lifting the Curtain on a Shameful Era). Of this number, females represented approx. 85% of those sterilized (State Library, Statistics, p. 1). By the late 1960s, the sterilization of men was virtually halted, as women made up 99% of those sterilized (Sinderbrand, p. 1). African Americans represent 39% of those sterilized overall; by the later 1960s, they made up 60% of those sterilized, even though they made up only a quarter of the population (Sinderbrand, p. 1). Of those sterilized up to 1963, 25% were considered mentally ill and 70% were considered mentally deficient. In each of these categories, females account for over 75% of the sterilizations. North Carolina ranked third in the United States for the total number of people sterilized.

Period During Which Sterilization Occurred

Sterilizations started in 1929 with the passage of the sterilization law and continued through 1973, when the last recorded sterilization is known to have been reported.

Temporal Pattern of Sterilization

Go here to read the rest:

Eugenics in North Carolina