Illinois

Number of victims

 

The only known victim of sterilization was a prisoner who in 1916 was given the choice of going to prison for the crime that he was convicted of or being sterilized. Eugenicist Harry Laughlin simply put it this way: “The prisoner was a pervert and a degenerate, and he decided to get sterilized” (quoted in Paul, p. 577). According to Julius Paul (p. 577), this is the only reported sterilization case in Illinois.

 

Period during which sterilizations occurred

 

There were no sterilizations except for the above case in 1916.

 

Temporal pattern of sterilizations and rate of sterilization

 

Illinois neither authorized nor legalized eugenic sterilizations (Paul, p. 577.)

 

Passage of law(s)

 

No sterilization laws were passed in Illinois. However, in December 1915 a bill for the Commitment and Care for the Feeble-minded Persons was drafted, subsequent to which Illinois House Bill 655 was passed, which allowed courts to permanently institutionalize anyone whom a respectable expert deemed feebleminded.  House Bill 654 granted state officials the power to create institutions for such persons.  Initially, the bills received considerable support.

 

Groups identified in the law

 

House Bill 654 (eugenic commitment) pertained to the “feebleminded” (Rembis, p. 283.)

 

Process of the Law

 

According to Bill 655, anyone that experts considered to be “feebleminded” could be permanently institutionalized.

 

Precipitating factors and processes

 

Both male and female reformers in Illinois were willing to experiment with various modern state- sponsored social measures, which led to the adoption of the eugenic commitment law.  Reformers viewed the law as way to use science to better society (Rembis, p. 285.) and drew support from middle class white women who took it upon themselves to do what they thought was best for “universal mothers” (Rembis, p. 285). To them and many men, eugenics seemed like a simple solution to a more complex social problem (Rembis, p.290.)  To eugenic reformers, institutions seemed to make the most sense because they thought these institutions would provide care for people who could not care for themselves and therefore improve society as a whole (Rembis, p. 293.)

 

Groups targeted and victimized

 

The law targeted young women whose delinquent acts were viewed as sexual transgressions (Rembis, p. 298). For example, fourteen-year-old Elsie Strubble was sent to the Cook County Juvenile Court from the Chicago Detention Home because she had been raped by one man and three boys and consequently termed “incorrigible.” A judge stated that Strubble was a “high-grade feeble-minded girl” and in 1924 recommended that she be sent to the Chicago Home for Girls (Rembis, pp. 296-297).   

 

Major Proponents

 

Alfred E. Walker was a reformer who supported the eugenic commitment law. She thought the law would help improve the lives of the state’s unfortunate individuals. Walker was chairman of the Legislative Committee of the IFWC (the Illinois Federation of Women’s Clubs). Walker was also a member of the committee that helped create the original eugenic commitment bill.  In May 1915, Walker proposed that the IFWC unite on a single way to provide care for Illinois’ feebleminded (Rembis, p. 286.)

 

(Photo origin: Wikipedia.com; available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_C._Hayes)

 

As Historian Michael Rembis has pointed out, Edward C. Hayes, a founder and president of the American Sociological Association, and then a professor in Illinois, urged people to continue to support the use of eugenics to eliminate many of the state’s social ills such as feeblemindedness at the time (Rembis, p. 283.). In his textbook Introduction to the Study of Sociology (1916), Hayes wrote that “though natural selection no longer gives us a highly selective death rate, eugenics may do something toward giving us a selective birth rate (p. 576).  He also used the term “breeding up the human herd” in approving of the state’s plans (quoted in Rembis, p. 283).

 

Bibliography

 

Hayes, Edward Carey. 1916. Introduction to the Study of Sociology. New York: D. Appleton and Company.

 

Paul, Julius. 1965. "'Three Generations of Imbeciles Are Enough': State Eugenic Sterilization Laws in American Thought and Practice." Washington, D.C.: Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

 

Rembis, Michael A. 2002. “Breeding up the Human Herd:  Gender, Power, and the Creation of the Country's First Eugenic Commitment Law.” Journal of Illinois History 5, 4: 283-308.