Montana

 

Number of Victims

In total, 256 people were sterilized by Montana’s eugenics program from 1923 until 1954. Of those sterilized, 184 (72%) were women, and 72 (28%) were men (Paul, p. 406). More than 80% of the sterilized were deemed mentally deficient, and the rest, mentally ill.

 

Period During Which Sterilizations Occurred

Sterilization began after the passage of the state’s eugenics law in 1923 and continued until 1954 (Paul, p. 406).

 

Temporal Pattern/ Rate of Sterilization

Sterilizations in Montana occurred at a fairly steady pace until the late 1930s. Between the beginning of 1938 and the end of 1940 77 people were sterilized, which represents the highest annual figures for Montana’s sterilization history. By the mid-1940s, a reluctance to enforce the law had caused the numbers of sterilizations to decrease. Yet immediate after World War II in 1946, 15 sterilizations did occur in a single year (Paul, pp. 404-405). The annual rate of sterilization per 100,000 residents per year was during the peak period of sterilizations in 1938-1940 was almost 5.

           

Passage of the Law

Montana’s eugenic sterilization law was passed by the State Legislature in 1923 and signed into law by Republican Governor Joseph M. Dixon (Paul, pp. 404-405). It was repealed in 1981 (see Roth, p. 10).

 

Groups Identified in the Law

“The law provides for the prevention of the procreation of hereditary idiots, feeble-minded, insane, and epileptics, who are inmates of state institutions” (Landman, p. 82).

 

Process of the Law

Montana’s State Board of Eugenics could approve applications for sterilizations made by physicians at the institutions with state custodial inmates. If consent of the patient was not forthcoming, the Board was to conduct a hearing before approval but had final authority (Landman, p. 82). While the law was technically compulsory, sterilizations in Montana did not occur without the consent of the patient and/or their families. As opposed to almost all other states, with the possible exception of Iowa, Julius Paul noted, Montana had a “higher sense of patient’s rights,” and regarded “consent as mandatory.” In addition, the law that enacted sterilization in Montana provided the patient the right of appeal in District Court if for whatever reason traditional norms of consent were disregarded (Paul, pp. 404-405).

 

Groups Targeted

As was often the case with American eugenic concerns and programs, those targeted included persons whose disabilities were associated with undesirable characteristics, and the two categories were often put together in reports in the very same sentence. For example, the 1919 Report of the Survey of the Feebleminded in Montana included descriptions such as these: "Girl 17 years of age was at Boulder one year. A defective brother is now at Boulder. Girl is at home. Mother is irresponsible for her care. Father is a drunkard" and "Family of children making no progress in school. Father and Mother of low mentality and ne'er-do-well type" (quoted in Roth, p. 6).

 

“Feeder Institutions”

 (Photo origin: Rootsweb.com; available at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~asylums/montanadev/index.html)

The two main “feeder institutions” from where sterilization victims were drawn were primarily the Montana State Training School and also the Montana State Mental Hospital. The State Training School was in Boulder (afterwards name Boulder River School and Hospital) and now appears to be part of the Montana Developmental Center there.

 

(Photo origin: Rootsweb.com; available at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~asylums/warmsprings_mt/shericwarm1.jpg)

The Montana State Mental Hospital in Warm Springs is open to this day, and part of the complex is used as a prison as well as a psychiatric facility (Arehart-Treichel).

 

References to either institution’s eugenic past are absent from their websites.

 

Bibliography

Arehart-Treichel, Joan. 2001. “In Montana, State Hospital Opens New Door.” Psychiatric News (August 17): 14. Available at <http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/36/16/14>.

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." Unpublished Manuscript. Washington, D.C.: Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

Roth, Tona. 1999. "Eugenic Sterilization in Montana from 1900 to 1999." Undergraduate paper, Carroll College.