I went to a conference on eugenics organized by the University of Washington’s department of disability studies. The focus of the conference was the history of eugenics as applied to Washington state law and state-funded projects.
The structure of the lecture was that about 8 historians were present on two panels. Each panel was introduced by giving each person time to tell a horror story that they research, then the panel sat together and fielded questions from the crowd. One panel was in the morning, then lunch, then the second panel was in the afternoon and the discussions were independent.
The topic is new to me and it was specialized to include readings of state legislation from the 1910s and financial records of the same period, and also most of the researchers said that they worked within a small group so a coherent timeline or narrative of the events has not yet been created. But what they said was there was a time when certain people in Washington state were forcibly sterilized to prevent them from having children, on the pretext that their bad qualities would be passed on should they have procreated. This sterilization was often connected to the criminal justice system, although the execution of the procedure itself was extra-judicial. Most of the men who were sterilized were incarcerated in prisons; most of the women who were sterilized were residents of insane asylums.
Every detail given at the conference was interesting, but coming away from it I remember very little. This is just one of those topics that interest me but for lack of time I can only take comfort in knowing that someone, somewhere, is preserving this history and sharing what they find with others.