Sterilization and Scientific Debate in

Oklahoma and Kansas in the Twentieth

Century

As of January 1, 19331 As of December 31st, 19402 As of 19633

Men Women Total Men Women Total Men Women Total Rank

Oklahoma 0 0 0 97 373 470 122 434 556 20th

Kansas 588 388 976 1415 929 2404 1759 1273 3032 6th

Nebraska 94 135 229 154 234 388 423 479 902 14th

Southern

Plains 682 523 1205 1666 1536 3262 2304 2186 4490

%/Nation Total 11.5% 10.6% 11%/ 11.2% 7.3% 9.1% ~630004

Eugenic Sterilization on the Southern Plains First Eugenic

Sterilization Law (subsequent

revisions)

First Legal Sterilization

Last Legal Sterilization

Oklahoma 1931 (1931; 1935) mid-1930s 1955

Kansas 1913 (1917) 1913 1961

Nebraska

(for comparison) 1915 (1929; 1957) 1917 1963

Eugenic Sterilization on the Southern Plains

Eugenic Sterilization on the Southern Plains

Sterilization legislation passed in 1931 in Oklahoma, allowing the sterilization of inmates of prisons, asylums, and other institutions who suffered from “cacogenic recurrent insanity, idiocy, imbecility, feeble-mindedness, or epilepsy” (Paul, p. 450). It similarly applied to those “afflicted with hereditary forms of insanity” (Nourse, p. 43). In 1933, the law was expanded to cover those “likely to be a public or partial public charge” and “habitual criminal[s],” defined as “any person convicted of a felony three times” (Nourse, p. 44). In 1935, the state passed a second revision, the Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act, which

concluded that those found to be habitual criminals with two prior convictions could be forcefully sterilized (Nourse, p. 84).

The 1913 legislation was directed at

“habitual criminals, idiots, epileptics, imbeciles, and insane” (Paul, p. 618). The 1917 law was aimed at the same groups, but

eliminated the courts’ approval from the decision (Paul, p. 619).

• Hospital for the Insane at Norman (also known as the Central State Hospital)

• Hospital at Fort Supply • Hospital for the Insane at Vinita • Institute for Feeble Minded at Enid.

McAlester Prison

• Winfield State Hospital • Topeka State Hospital • Beloit Industrial Girls

School

Gardner Murphy, Psychologist

Karl Menninger, Psychologist

A dearth of eugenic debate in Kansas…

“The prevalence of leisure-class values therefore

favors the mating of these genetically less fit

individuals, with the consequent perpetuation and intermingling of their

traits with those of the hereditarily more adequate types. In these

instances the selective process not only ceases to be selective but

becomes actively dysgenic instead.”

--Dr. James Marrs, 1958

Selection of Johnson’s articles and essays on eugenics and dysgenics appearing in the

Daily Oklahoman, 1917-1938:

“Law and Eugenics vs. Love and Soul,” January 29, 1917. “Race’s Future Demands that War-Mothers Be Endowed by the State,” August 19, 1917. “To Contract Marriage?” April 30, 1921. “Radical Eugenists May Incite Man to Revolt,” September 29, 1921. “What is Your Estimate of New Marriage Plan?” April 27, 1923. “Eugenics and the Trim Girl,” October 24, 1927. “Fruit of the Family Tree,” December 8, 1931. “Romance and Eugenic go Hand in Hand,” June 12, 1932. “The Fruit of the Family Tree,” December 11, 1933. “Parents Should Teach Eugenics,” June 16, 1934. “Shall the Poor Pay this Penalty?” December 8, 1934 “Which Lindbergh is More Heroic?” June 19, 1935. “Our Loveless Society,” June 25, 1935. “Is Roman Ruin Ahead?” June 7, 1935. “Denying Motherhood to Workers,” May 27, 1935. “Shall We Commit Class Suicide?” December 7, 1937. “Unpatriotic to Discourage Motherhood,” October 12, 1938.

Continued: Selection of Johnson’s articles and essays on eugenics and dysgenics

appearing in the Daily Oklahoman, 1939-1960:

“War, Its Engines Destroy Our Best,” May 27, 1939 “Good and Evil in Cousin Marriage,” January 19, 1940 “Look Before They Leap into Wedlock,” Dec 31, 1941 “Beauty and Brains Do Go Together,” April 5, 1942 “From Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves,” May 8, 1942 “War Will Not Ruin Our Men,” August 9, 1942 “For Finer Race,” September 29, 1942 “Sons, Daughters Over-Powered by Parents,” Sep 26, 1943 “Giving Child Good Chance,” March 12, 1948 “From Whom do the Great Spring?” March 12, 1948 “First Right of a Child,” May 13, 1949 “For Marrying Three Ideals,” May 26, 1950 “The Good Who Let Evil Prevail,” July 20, 1952 “Young Genius Has Rights,” March 31, 1953 “This Cause is Starved,” February 6, 1954 “Our Debt to the Retarded,” February 28, 1956 “The Family Tree, Its Fruit,” January 15, 1957 “The Family Tree, Its Fruit,” February 11, 1958

“As the people become increasingly

enlighted [sic]they will give more

thought to a child’s inalienable right

to be well-born, well-loved and

well-nurtured. When that day dawns

husbands and wives will plan for

their children and then, barring accidents,

take good care of them and give them a

decent start. Parents will

be rated not by the number of children

their produce, but the quality of their

boys and girls.”

Edith Johnson, “First Right of a Child,” Daily Oklahoman, May 13, 1949.

Edith Cherry Johnson

Eugenics on the Southern Plains

Kansas Board of Public Health Campaign 1920s

Kansas Memory Collection, Kansas State Historical Society

Eugenics Exhibit at Kansas State Fair 1929

American Philosophical Library

Vogue article on the future of reproduction

1939 Cogdell, Christina. Eugenic Design: Streamlining America in the 1930s.

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.