Maine
Number
of Victims
A total of 326 individuals were
sterilized in Maine
(Paul, p. 370). Of this total, 280 were
female and 46 were male. 86%
of the victims were female, while 14% were
male. 72% of the
victims were deemed feeble-minded, 6% were considered insane, and 22%
were neither.
Period When
Sterilizations Occurred
Sterilizations in Maine
occurred from 1925 through 1963
(Paul, p. 370).
Temporal
Patterns
which Sterilizations Occurred
After relatively few sterilization up
to 1932, the period of 1933 to 1940 marked a peak period, during which
time 149 people were sterilized. After that, the number of
sterilizations declined, although there was a two-year spike of 43
sterilizations in 1954/1955 (see Paul, p. 370). During the peak period
in the 1930s, the sterilization rate per 100,000 residents per year was
about 2, whereas the same rate could be observed in the short peak
period in the 1950s.
Passage of
Law
Maine passed its
sterilization law in 1925 and was the 25th state to do so. It was
slightly amended in 1929, and a new sterilization law was passed in
1931 (Landman, p. 90).
Groups
Identified in the Law
Maine’s 1925 law provided for the sterilizaton "for eugenic purposes or for
therapeutic treatment on feebleminded and others suffering from certain
forms of mental disease, " and the 1931 law referred to residents of
any institution for the instane or feebleminded (Landman, p. 90; see
also Paul, p. 366).
Process of
Law
It appears that core elements of the 1925 law remained intact after the
1931 law had passed, in so far as, Julius Paul notes, a voluntary
sterilization request could come from those identified in the 1925 law
(or relatives or legal guardian) and was extramural and voluntary, and
it involved state authorities only in so far as a committee of three
doctors at Pownal
State School (later: Pineland
Hospital and Training Center) ascertained consent
(Paul, p. 366). However, Landman and Paul also both note that under the
1931 law any physician at an institution for the "insane or
feebleminded" could recommend to the board of such institution
that a resident be sterilized, upon which the board and two other state
hospital superindentents could confirm the recommendation and order a
sterilization after a waiting period of at least 50 days. The resident
had a right to appeal to the state's superior courts (Landman, pp.
90-91; Paul, p. 366).
Groups
Targeted/Victimized
The group victimized most was females deemed feeble-minded and who were residents of a state-run institution.
(Digital picture origin: Eugenics Archives, available at http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/static/images/958.html)
“Feeder
Institutions”
and Institutions where Sterilizations were Performed
(Cumberland
Hall at Pownal
State School
circa 1937. Photograph
origin: The New Gloucester Historical Society, available at http://www.vintagemaineimages.com/bin/Detail?ln=25633)
189 sterilizations were preformed at the Pineland Hospital
(Paul, p. 367). It
originally opened as the Maine School
for the Feeble-minded in 1908. In
1925
its name changed to the Pownal
State School
and by 1957 it was renamed Pineland
Hospital and Training Center
(Vintage Maine Images).
It closed in 1996 and is now in the ownership of a foundation, which
operates the site as a farm and conference center. Its web site does
not mention the involvement of the Pineland Hospital in sterilizations
(Pineland Farms).
Opposition
Maine’s
eugenics sterilization program appears to have encountered little opposition, which was said to have been religious in nature (Paul, p. 368).
Bibliography
Landman, J. H. 1932. Human Sterilization:
The History of the Sexual Sterilization Movement. New York: MacMillan.
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.
Pineland Farms. "Pineland's History." Available at <http://www.pinelandfarms.org/visitors/history.htm>.
Vintage Maine Images. “Cumberland Hall, Pownal
State School.” Available at
<http://www.vintagemaineimages.com/bin/Detail?ln=25633>.