good evening, everyone, and

welcome to equal a work in progress defining, the ideal citizen. my name is warren, and i serve as one of the managers of engagement at the indiana historical society. my role tonight is to get us introduced to the program on zoom as as provide additional information in, the chat and q&a. throughout our time together at the indiana historical society. we are indiana storyteller connecting people to the past. it is our mission to collect preserve indiana's unique stories bring hoosiers together in remembering sharing the past and inspire future grounded in our states, uniting and principles with fulfill this mission by collecting millions of paper based objects, including letters, photographs, more, as well as other story based mediums such as oral histories, videos and born digital content. the indiana historical society is a smithsonian affiliate and a

member of the international coalition of sites of conscious, the only global network historic sites, museums and, memory initiatives that connect past struggles to today's movements for human rights, turning memory into equal work in progress is a newer conversation based program series exploring equality through history. indiana's constitution declared that all people are created equal, though this revolutionary idea is a foundational principle of our state. it is marred with a myriad of contradictions. this ongoing series started with the complexities of indigenous citizenship and the contextual history around. title nine and continues today with a conversation on eugenics. these interdisciplinary examine our collective definition of equality to be to better understand is considered a citizen who gets a seat at the table and who maintains power in

our society. so before i introduce nicole martinez, the grand who will be moderating our conversation tonight, i have a few pieces of logistics to review. so for this event, sarah, jim and jill and nicole will discuss our topic for about an hour and 10 minutes. and after that, we will be opening up for any parts of their questions. so if you have as we go along, please drop in the question and answer section, we'll keep an eye on them tonight. and incorporate them into the last half of our discussion as our conversation goes. i may be dropping links and information into the chat that our speakers mentioned. don't worry if you missed any of them, aren't able to look at them at this time because we can include them in your follow up email after the program to this program is being recorded and you can catch the replay later on our website. indiana history dot org. i want to take a moment to remind us all to be and understanding as we navigate

historical terminology for mental physical health and illnesses that we now understand more complete and fully in the 21st century lens of technology and medical advancements. i urge us to think more holistically what medical knowledge was available and the intention and actions with that knowledge. it's easy. judge patient care. 100 years later. but we need to think about what the future historians and doctors will have to say about today. so now i would like to pass the mic over to my colleague, yuval multicultural collections curator ihs, and she'll be introducing our panelists in moderating tonight's discussion. nicole, the floor is yours. so you. i am nicole martinez legrand. i am the multiple collections curator here, the indiana historical society. we are met with some great colleagues from across the united states. we have dr. packer coming to us

from pennsylvania sarah halter from the indiana medical history museum and jill simmons from the indiana historical bureau. i want to talk a little bit about, i guess, all of them. do you do mind me doing your introductions, everyone, please. all right so sarah, she's a heritage steward, medical historian and advocate. sarah, the executive director of the indiana medical history museum. past vice president of the league, women voters of indianapolis and secretary of the southern association for the history of medicine science. she serves on the board of directors for the john scholl building history. history of medicine society at the indiana university school of medicine and the associate of indiana museums and youth advance training initiatives. also the advisory board on the easterseals crossroad of central

and the center for rape bradbury studies at iupui. she holds a b.a. in anthropology and m.a. studies and continued education with history leadership institute for the american association, state and local history and fundraising management from the iu family school of philanthropy. dr. james patel is a medical doctor in general addiction care, a psychiatrist with over 25 years of experience serving in a wide range of treatment settings. his work is focused on team based treatment approaches, novel program development and systems oriented integration of service for the chronically mentally ill, medically ill, homeless and disenfranchized based in philadelphia, he supports resources for human development programs, including an faa assisted connection to a shelter based on mental health case management unit and is a consultant psychiatry for

project home. he is a member the pennsylvania psychiatric leadership, a fellow in the apa and the 2014 recipient of the philadelphia psychiatric society's robert award honoring a psychiatrist for their lifelong commitment and service the chronically ill. joey simmons is historian at the indiana historical bureau, a division of the indiana state library, where she has worked since 2008. she is a founding organizer of the hoosier women at work conference and produces the award winning podcast, talking to hoosier history, she writes regularly for the history blog and is especially interested in stories of immigrants and asylum seekers. jill is a lifelong hoosier and holds a b.a. in fine arts from ball state university and m.a. in history from indiana university. the 21 she received two major awards the dorothy hoosier historian award from the historical society and the

indiana university graduate school distinguished master's thesis award for and fine arts. is also a musician and lives in historic irvington with her husband, russell simmons, and a collection way too many vinyl records. as you see the background and of course myself, i consider myself a community collaborator first and a professional. it's a 2016. i've been building strong community relationships to build indiana historical society's collection with latino, hispanic culture stories and ephemera. and so let's get started. so let's talk about eugenics and i think before we kick off into some questions and discussion, let's let's talk about a little bit about the history of eugenics in 1883, sir. francisco, a 19th century english social scientist statistician and psychologist, coined the term eugenics from

the greek word eugenics, meaning, well, born. the practice of eugenics aims to the genetic quality of human population through selective breeding. encourage gene reproduction for the strongest humans, while discouraging reproduction for the weakest humans. in the late 19th century and early 20th century united states eugenics eugenics programs received widespread spread public support, and they took two approaches positive and eugenics positive. eugenics encouraged healthy people to perceive to have above average intelligence to reproduce negative eugenics predominant form in the united states discouraged reproduction and. avik advocated for sterilization of those who have been perceived to have undesirable traits. eugenics programs were supported by legislation. court and powerful promoters. an early advocate of eugenics, harry h. loughlin, director, eugenics records office, cold spring

harbor, new york supported by compulsory states, sterilization laws and significant mentally shape negative eugenics legislation and policy in the united states. margaret sanger. a strong advocate for women's reproductive rights, also a supporter of eugenics movement known as the founder of the birth control league, sanger specifically supported, sterilized of those who were considered mentally unfit. lastly during the 1920s. in the 1930s, the american eugenics society was founded in addition to, many local societies and groups across the country members competed in a in fitter, family and better competitions at fairs and exhibition, including the division of infant child hygiene directly immensely better babies contest at the indiana state fair from 1922 1932, and list goes on. and i want to thank you all for

sitting through all of that. and let's to the heart of this discussion. we know that was the first state in the entire union to pass the first eugenics, sterilization in the united states. but everybody like to take up a little of the history of that. and what is that? what did that mean at the time? sure. you know, thinking was growing in many parts of the country at the turn of the 20th century. and bills had been introduced in other states but didn't become law so in oh seven. indiana had unique combination of multiple factors that i think probably several we're going to listen to on that allowed the state to be at the forefront of legislation. and i think one of these main

factors that the same leaders that were having successes in indiana's public policy were also at the forefront of the eugenics movement. so we have people like the state board of health secretary hershey. he led successful campaigns against tuberculosis, so he advocated for public sanity, sanity and. he believed the marriage bans and sterilization ban would help to make a human race. this is not able to be separated from ideas about white supremacy that we'll circle to. we had other leaders like oscar mcculloch, whose interest in eugenics came from his his lifelong with the poor. but he saw this as losing battle and so he became a eugenics

proponent and he was preaching this in his ministry. there's a long list of other people we also had dr. harry sharp who had been conduct doing the symptoms at the reformatory in jeffersonville since at least 1899. so all of these leaders were able to spread their views widely. these were citizens and they their respectability, their prestige to the movement and imbued it with scientific authority on one hand and moral authority on the other hand. so, i mean, they directly influenced the general assembly and public support for the sterilization. etc. you know, coming from the medical museum here in indiana, can you talk a little bit about that? what does that look like at your we talk a little bit about what your institution used to be

before it became museum. well, so the indiana medical museum is housed in what we call the old pathology. it was the pathological department at central state hospital, which was the first mental hospital, indiana, that opened in 1848. and so our building opened in 1896 as a cutting edge research facility that was dedicated to studying these physical causes, mental illness, and hopefully curing and preventing them in. the future and the doctors really even before people like nikolic and harry sharp, i mean, there were doctors who were really kind of pushing these ideas as early as the 1880s. they were they were speaking at their medical association meetings about the hereditary nature of insanity and you know, there was this sort of

rediscovery renewed interest in mendelian genetics and this idea that that trait like intelligence criminality, poverty you know, all of these things were were traits that were and so there was this growing sense that that these things couldn't be cured by trying to control the environment which people lived so the way to prevent the spread was to prevent people from from breeding and so doctors had had called for castration at times previous that was universally unpopular. it never anywhere in the united states or it was proposed that but there were people advocating for then, you know, a restriction on marriage and isolation, people who were deemed unfit to in institutions.

so various kinds and there was a growing sense that that wasn't enough. and the systems were fairly, fairly new at the time. and they were seen as a less disfigure and more socially acceptable alternative to some of these other things. and actually effective in preventing reproduction. looks great. i mean, no, it's not great, but i think. the answer is, you know, we to think, of course, sterilize the sterilization is something that is inflicted upon women. and so you both gave great examples and said this is just both male and female in terms of gender discrimination within this whole realm. so it is important for us understand the behind the movement so that we can better

discuss 19th and 20th century ideas within the lens of our 21st century scientific medical knowledge and vocabulary way these how can we better understand how these leaders are approaching this to benefit? do we? this is driven more by biology, by economic concerns. and i would like to open the floor to everybody from our guests from pennsylvania as well to to chime in on this. yes, definitely both. go ahead. yeah, it seems like it certainly would have been both think, you know, certain lay understanding of some, you know, biological principles or scientific principles like from the origin of species just basic ideas of natural selection and genetics, as well as in mendelian genetics, sort of laid out an optimistic view that, you know, we really could in more

simplistic way, you know, improve our gene pool, if you will will. yeah, i think that they couldn't separate their ideas about social birth and fitness from economic concerns at the time they were applying those ideals that you just mentioned about survival of the so people without consider social factors like economic downturns or the loss of the job or getting in an accident that makes it so you can't work and that those factors can lead to poverty crime and illness and kind of at the same time this shift the response to and crime from the traditional church led charity to state led solutions like sterilized asian. so with eugenics leaders painting those they deemed as

unfit as drain on society, then sterilization was considered more progress, if more efficient and more economically sound charity or care in a school institution or poor heart. yeah, there this shift kind of in thinking about and government services where you know people are starting to see. insanity mental deficiency criminal as things that were inherited traits that the person couldn't help so it kind of hopeless to just keep pouring in to care for these people to. so it was, you know, they were seen as. so like, you know, these services and charitable organizations were not only helping these people to survive, but they were actually thriving

and it was believed they were at alarming rates. and so there was a lot of victim blaming and fear mongering. but but there was this idea that these services charities were really just keeping these people going. and naturally, these were people who in nature, you know, social darwinism, natural selection, survival of the fittest, those kinds of things would ensure that that these lines died out. so we keeping them going and naturally and it was a drain on the economy that used a lot of language described in people as useless as costing taxpayers money as dangerous not only for for society, but for our personal safety. so there was a lot of language

being thrown around that kind of demonized people for their their circumstances. and those kinds of really stuck with people. and so it kind of helped helped to get some of that through. and so i feel like we're kind scratching at the surface of this. and so, you know, what are what is the ideal ideological framework? who's your eugenicist to link the cultivation of better babies, the sterilization of defective. so what we're like, so who we're i mean, we name some people, we name some darwinian thought, who were you know what were some of the organizations or just a just organizations or just basic ideological framework? well, the better babies, margaret, was is kind of the flip side of the coin for sterilization in a way. instead of focusing on history, the procreation of the undesirable.

this was more about encouraging the fit to reproduce and help children thrive. so the better contest they were organized by the state board of health and held at the indiana state fair and at these events, you know, workers distributed scientific literature, childhood diseases and better hygiene was a lot of educational component that went with this. and scholars have actually linked some of their efforts to the lowering of infant mortality rates, the years that this was going on. but we have to remember that it was only the hoosiers that already had the time and resources to travel to the state fair that had the model healthy babies that were this information. so the contests both for their entrenched ideas about white supremacy since you know the winning babies, always white babies, a middle or upper class

families, but it also widens the educational gap. child care. and there's some really excellent points in. that was primarily during the twenties and thirties but jumping earlier to 1905, indiana was tied to being home to one of the first restrictive marriage laws in the country. and then again in 1805, passing. or prohibiting prohibiting mentally deficient persons with principles, oral disease and habitual from marriage. and so this is the to start where we see in legislative forefront. can we talk more about can we talk more about that? there. well, i mean, at all in all goes back to that idea of, you know

preventing people who shouldn't be be thought who were thought to not be fit to contribute to the gene pool from from from reproducing, but i think it was pretty to most people. that doesn't really prevent people getting married, but that the isolation and segregation with the other side of that too. so there were restrictions on who could marry but there are also a lot of people who ended up not just in mental hospitals, but in, you know, institutions for for the feeble minded and other kinds of institutions like that, who were segregated from the rest of society and they were isolated. and the idea was that, you know, if they were if they were kept there, not only out of sight and out of the public but out of, you know, society, that that they would be prevented from

reproducing any you see, the 1907 law comes right after that, too, where if we should just sterilizing. so again you know that sort of a legal framework not only just prevented people from forming a union and producing families, but it also prevented some people to come into the united states in terms of immigration law. jill, can you talk to us a little bit more about that? sure. i guess you know, americans have always and hoosiers have always been concerned about policing who is and who's not american. this question's been linked to white supremacy in maintaining white supremacy. so kind of looking at the laws, you know, leading to the eugenics laws. and there's eugenic thinking behind a lot of immigration laws. so like the first naturalization

law that was passed by congress in 1790 excluded black americans from citizenship in 1882, we have the act to regulate immigration, which prohibited immigrants who might become a public charge or a public nuisance from entering the united states. and we see a little bit of that eugenics type language coming in they're trying to prevent people who are fleeing may be impoverished so instances from coming here the same year then we have the chinese exclusion act, which i think a lot of people are familiar with, which is the first law in the united states to really target an ethnic group. so this kind of thinking culminates in the johnson reed act, which is more popularly the immigration act of 1924, which is one that drastically limits immigration to the united states through a quota system that targeted specific groups for

exclusion, their country of origin. so these undesirable groups again with the eugenics type language included, eastern and southern european immigrants, many of whom were catholics and specifically singled jewish immigrants. so these laws were very directly influence by leading eugenics, especially the eugenics office. superintendent harry laughlin, who came up in your summary in the beginning you know, he collected skewed data, you know, claiming that immigrants from these areas more likely to become a public charge. he lobbied for of those deemed unfit and like in the same breath as the exclusion of immigrants he claims specifically that -- had higher rates of feeble mindedness which

is probably a term we're going to come to in the that these people in would pollute what they called native american stock, which of course does not refer indigenous people, but anglo saxon and scandinavian origin immigrants. at some point. but his he to all of this in congress multiple times when they were looking to pass this 1924 immigration act. he also drafted model sterilization laws at the same that were then adopted by states after indiana and it is his wording then that directly influences the nazi race laws of 1933. and then fast forwarding -- are attempting to flee nazi persecution in the late then. he is still advocating needing to keep those quota systems in place. so you just have a direct line

from eugenics eugenics lobbying. so anti-immigration laws to the nazi race laws, the 1930 to, you know, those quota laws stayed in place long enough that they impacted -- trying to flee nazi atrocities. and you can see a lot of that work. all those the progressive era thoughts and threat of public charge, especially here in the united states with the mexican repatriation, a lot of eugenic thoughts were based on that. and you can look at paul as taylor or his work mexican labor in the united states in 1920s, 1930s era reporting on again mexican labor in the united states where they talk about especially here in our early latino or early early mexican populations and their thoughts on like charity and public charge and and all that all of that a kind almost you know

giving them more fuel to the fire for you know the repatriation of you know i think it's originally 400,000 i think it's up to. 1 million mexicans who are some who are of american or us or native born heritage, for example, too, because in the shift in whether or not mexican immigrants considered white, that when we have needed them as laborers in the around world war two and everything, then they've been classified as white. and then you nonwhite. when send them back. so within the chinese too they were encouraged to come when we trying to build railroads across the united states and then once we didn't need them anymore and felt threatened by their then suddenly there they should be kept out. so really, when you went to look at immigration, you really just

see that it's pretty it's, pretty reactive. so, jim what were you about to say before? kind of move beyond the kind of progressive era, circling back maybe before immigration as much? there really was a movement of increased compassionate and a sense that people who couldn't take care of themselves or even institutions, there was a way or a sense they needed to be cared for, compassion and humanely, and that issues were regarding procreation, were part of a longer term solution. so at least then was an idealism and even some attempts to and a realization that some of the folks that needed institutional were not the product of a genetic disorder, possibly an injury, sometimes an increased understanding. some of the infectious diseases so that slight moral bright spot was there. i think certainly turned darker.

when you do get into what where germany took it in the nazi era and that idea kind of failed though, really, because the moral treatment was something that came of some quaker reform efforts. and it was really originally and it's helped keep doctors out of what we now call psychiatry that they were doing more more damage than they were doing good. and so the quakers started opening nations situations where people were going to be cared humanely, they were going to be given lots of fresh air and sunshine and, beautiful surroundings and, you know, and they did have success. there's evidence there are a lot of people improved because of that. but then when when states start, when governments start opening these mental hospitals, then the doctors get involved again with with good intent science and high hopes and all of that.

but we were limited terms of our understanding of these diseases. we didn't have an arsenal therapies, there were kinds of problems related money that very quickly overwhelmed there was mismanaged funds, misappropriation of funds, cronyism, nepotism. these things cause all these huge problems, these hospitals. so by the mid to late 19th century, you see these hospitals filling up with patients who aren't being adequately cared for and they're in facilities that are falling apart because they weren't well made in the first place. they're not they're not staffed. the staff aren't well are not well paid, they're not equipped and emotionally to deal with all of this. and so you see the group behind right. and so so that kind of contributed to or to this sense that that diseases were not as as terrible as we thought. because i look at all these hospitals that are filling up

with patients and they're not going home because they're not getting better. and so you start seeing in this of is tied to that shift in ideas about charity that i mentioned. do you see kind of a decrease in state funding for facilities and at the same time and that's when when they really need it the most. and so there were of you know, there's the difference between traumatic injuries and like congenital defects and disorders that were thought to be hereditary. but but yeah, it's it's really interesting how quickly that sort of went down the toilet. yeah. and here in also with the quakers. but regarding people who were incarcerated, there's still the eastern state penitentiary existed in the state which was a very idealistic idea that believed in sort of spiritual reform and transformation,

really quiet and now spooky, but, you know, part of, part of the idea that something could be really done with that. so then we have some of the other, you know, state institute nations and whatnot that when they are getting overcrowded, like facing economic and stuff, then they turn to sterilized asian as a condition for release so trading concern. i don't know if you can consent or you're just trying to get out of an institution of some sort, but trading consent for release then becomes a way that sterilizations actually increase think during the great depression and even after even i think like even after we hear about the atrocities of nazi germany. yeah yeah i mean they i think

the bulk of them really were were done like the early thirties and maybe the fifties but. yeah. i mean there were there were periods where you don't to at least as far as the state hospitals through 1940s. you don't really you don't really see them. max barr who is superintendent of central state hospital. the time attributed that more to the lack of surgeons. you know, they were all at war. and so there was no one there to actually perform the sterilization. so when you look at the, you know, the annual what's what's about the information we have about the numbers of sterilized is that we have an idea of how many were done across the state hospital system. but we don't know who was sterilized necessarily don't even know specific data to two different hospitals, but know he he talks later in his life about

how they they were reporting zero you know during that period because because there was no one there to perform on not not because they thought better of it. and so it wasn't a great threat to talking about institutional institutionalization. what i guess, you know, in the field like mental health care and what were some of the common reasons for somebody be institutionalized that are definitely treatable today, that wouldn't require that level of incarceration. so, you know, just looking at it term, i mean, in the early years i mean, it really it fluctuates throughout time as. their understanding of these things change and and as psychiatry becomes more of a specialty. but, you know, you see a lot of

diagnosis like mania and dementia praecox, which we now call schizophrenia a lot a lot of degenerative diseases like different kinds of senility. but then like in the really early years you don't even get a diagnosis. the records, what you get is like, oh, you know, this person's obsessed religion or this person, you know, wanders at night, know, you get more descriptions of the issues that they were facing rather than like an actual diagnosed. and then it changes over time after after that, maybe maybe jim could take from there after about the 19 late 1940s, that kind of interesting and even before probably around the turn of the century, that century, even before, it's hard to find completely accurate data, but there's not that greater than 50% of the people in psych institutions such as this had a

tertiary. so syphilis was far the most significant. why people would be in one of these institutions at some point in time. there was sense that there was a separation between adults who acquired a condition and and children or youth had a level of disability that. families at home that it normally would absorb, you know, in a typical sort of form would absorb a slower, you know, individual that had what would now call intellectual disabilities disorder. but, you know, there was a sense that they then went to an institution and down the road some of the institutions for some of the worst you know the the history of mental health institute sort of points to the fifties when some early antecedent chronic medications that at least helped and

certainly made them more manageable as well as the early parts of a movement toward deinstitutionalization occurred that sort of moves on up into the seventies eighties partly because of the horrible and overcrowding. and one can really critique how we did deinstitutionalization. but that's probably a whole different discussion. yeah, right. well, you talked you mentioned kristallnacht here. oh, go ahead. oh, i was i was just going to say, like, in terms of like things that you might be institution wise for that you would not be today include things like alcoholism or epilepsy, which is you know, it was a mental illness before. it was understood as a neurological condition. and then there were things we really need to consider a mental illness today, like up until the 1970s, homosexual was listed in

the dsm as an official diagnosis of illness. and so now now we have a completely different understanding of that. and i think when you into like the you know, the forties and fifties we really did have like a two class system of psychiatric or hospitals and, some which were like trust children or were really they were confined and wasn't a lot of personal choice or autonomy. but many women who had hysteria would be, you know, hospitalized against their will. and then, you know, same thing with the people with mania and that kind of thing. but there was not they weren't really the public institutions that were, you know, the most hard to stomach. i wanted to circle back because you mentioned tertiary syphilis and syphilis. can you talk about what that is? i think we all some of us have

it kind of understanding, a very basic understanding of it. so can and package that for us or i mean so no doubt primary syphilis would be you know, the types of presentations and symptoms that people have. syphilis now would have. and then this would be either unidentified people kind of knew what syphilis was, knowing the specific cause that people would develop. but dementia, lots of confusion, lots of psych, you know, basically was a brain disease which now is easily prevented with antibiotics. but, you know, there it wasn't would often be misdiagnosed schizophrenia or dementia. um so we did talk about, you know, of course, sterilization during war two, there being a

lack of sterilizing action. did this continue in the united states beyond 1945. that's not all at once. not it was, yeah. i mean, in indiana, the the 1907 law had been so governor marshall, you know, once he to office he said we're let's stop doing this this makes me uncomfortable and he sort of cut funding for it and then that that law wasn't really declared unconstitutional and repealed until 1921 and then there was a new law. in 1927 that like sort of further narrowed the the types people who were targeted in, the law. but that law was not revealed in indiana until 1974. and so up until that point, you know, you do the udc

sterilization and there are estimates that between 1987 and 1974, in indiana alone, there were about 2500 sterilized agents that were reported. we also kind of see in this time leading up to that the repeal that law, a shift in the language from hereditary defects and like that kind of original language around eugenics to ideas about bad parenting, poor families and so it's sort of shifting from sterilization to other kinds of policing the poor and their decision making is, okay. and just to kind of bring it up to little bit to present day, you know, what are is what are other issues in health care continued around some of the

original ideas of of sterilization or reproductive education, medical reasons, economic bias, medical care for the institutionalized or incarcerated or other ideas, i guess diving more into this, you know, what is medical care, the institutionalized or incarcerated look like today compared to what it had been historically? and what are some of the biggest concerns regarding their safety, bodily autonomy and happiness? and it james i know that you are currently working in this field as it is, is probably a question more directed towards you you. yeah. so the terms of the treatment of what i, i just lay out what seem to involve some factors that evolved that and then i think the question of reproductive and reproductive rights and reproductive choices can layer on top of that. but we with i'd say into the

sixties 70 was was this real civil rights that included the. mental health patients people had it like that they deserved to have autonomy or they would be better off with their family often. earlier they were highly encouraged to go to an institution. parents weren't always happy with that. that pressure or that decision decision. you know, the last law that kennedy signed before he was assassinated was the beginning of the mental health act, which at its core changed the decision about. reasons for involuntary hospitalization really sort of changed it from a paternal stick model where if a professional physician or psychiatrist saw it

was in their best interest to be treated or held against their will, were to needing evidence of dangerousness, self or others. so just being mentally ill and refusing medication, not that medication always works, but declining treatment didn't lead to involuntary treatment and just because your spouse thought it'd be good for you or your doctor wasn't to get people hospitalized or against their will. that was happening at the same time that more effective medical treatments were emerging for serious and, persistent, more serious mental illness where a lot of folks were in institutions. so although states really seem to like the idea of getting that money back a little too fast, there was a real movement toward

the. with obvious challenges. i think the particularly with folks had significant. limited capacity sometimes they didn't even have legal capacity to make their autonomous decisions. questions, reproduction, really big. they changed and i'd say the emergence birth control pills in particularly longer acting depo choices, birth control, which were temporary aerie, birth control, not permanent entered the picture and sort of changed the moral questions dilemmas that individuals and then caregivers and, family members had to wrestle with. still lots of problems. but on the ground and even more recently i worked a program where there were the housing first program for people who were had homeless and met the

criteria for like a wraparound program along with housing. and we had a woman who had lost children to daca, dhs are children youth service, and she got pregnant twice during that time. we supported in that choice second time, you know, she had some ambivalence. she lost both children to dhs. i think once we had to be the reporter because she really was not in a position do that with the resources we could come up with. so those are some of the grayer areas, i think, that occur now. and but still, you know, where i see pressure, there might be somebody who's on a three month shot and their primary care provider or family member might really make sure they make that appointment, you know, really

makes you keep track of that and make sure so that there's a slippery slope there. it also might be perceived in the in the individual's best interest, even if it's been their stated goal in the past. so those are just some thoughts on where we've come to. so what other folks think. i think we're not working in the field so that that's not going to qualified to have an opinion well was just me because we're all in the in the history field but you know the historical regularly does and regular they do historical markers throughout the state and so there is a historical marker that marks the 19 seven legislature in and it is in front of the statehouse in in what is you know you can't just create something and put it in the ground. i know it's a very detailed

process. jill, can you about the historical bureau marker program or does that look like self-promotion time? yeah, the in 2007 as part of the of the 1907 eugenics law and an attempt by a few different organizations to recognize those impacted the state mandated sterilization a marker installed so the marker across is completely publicly driven we're a state agency we don't go into communities and tell them what's important about their history. anyone can apply for a so and then our staff does research and works together and works with the applicant to the text right. i don't know if lauren wants to put a marker up so people can see it's pretty right. i have had a computer freeze once.

okay. it's pretty brief. we like to say that it's like two tweets. it has different text on front and back, but we try to get a lot in. so in this case, the applicant was dr. william schneider, who is both professor emeritus of history and professor of medical humanities and health studies, iupui. so he led application for this marker as well as symposium of scholars having. kind of like what we're doing today. there was also an exhibit, the state library around this there, a issue of the indiana magazine, a history looking back on indiana's eugenics past. so the marker kind of explains 1907 and 1927. law notes the number of individuals impacted and estimate and provide some

context on eugenic thinking. there you see it it's actually on one of the state library smart went in a year before i started at the historical bureau so i don't have all the information but it seems from looking at newspapers that the first attempt was to put it on the statehouse grounds and that that did not go through. so it's out on the library grounds which the library and the statehouse face each other. so you can't see it from the statehouse grounds. but i think the idea was for legislators to walk past it, and that was so the library stepped up, put it as far to the edge as possible in the statehouse. so pushing it to the barricades section seems it it may have been a tiny step towards healing. one of the people that unveiled

the marker was jamie renee coleman. she's one of the last people sterilized in indiana when she was just 15 and she was without her knowledge under the guise of having her appendix removed. according to her story and the other person that the marker was the indian health who offered a formal apology, formal apology, hoosiers who were forcibly sterilized. okay, one last question for everybody before we open up to just the discussion and to our attendees, attendees started thinking about some questions and dropped them into the chat. due to the q&a. so it doesn't get lost in the chat. or you can just put it in the chat room. so. all right last question. so we've talked about a wide variety of topics to around the different time periods history, but do you think is the most important thing that we should

take away from this conversation? anybody just take their first a attempted at answering this question. okay. i kind of have a couple thoughts, but first, i think need to protect ourselves. but our most vulnerable from legislation from policies that infringe our individual rights to make our health choices also looking at healthy and not repeating mistakes empathy first, i think our decisions on how to help people in need be based on as we've seen in this case, economic or politics or, you know, pseudoscience but on humanity. we need to think of people as theater unfit, worthy, unworthy. we definitely know that people cannot be things.

people also cannot be a legal as one of the world's leading democracies have a responsibility to people seeking asylum, especially children. i would argue, and our past mistakes such as allowing these immigration policies that we looked at that were shaped by eugenic thinking to shut the door, refugees should serve as a warning. so if policies impacting humans not made humanely, the results can be devastating. and just one last thought. i think let's look out, too, for xenophobia or other hateful policies that are wrapped in patriotic language. you know, a lot of the eugenic language was weaponized ideas about america. first, let's view slogans this with suspicion because as we talked about who is and who's american has been policed by those protecting white

supremacy. and even the idea of what is white has changed time, too, based on politics and other things. so italians were considered white for, for example, in syria. what do you think is, you know, from a historical medical history perspective, important thing to kind of take away from not so well, one one thing that strikes me about all this, how you know, this this did happen slowly and it was not resistance, but once the idea kind of took hold, its alarm me how easily these things sort of progressed and you know you can't argue that this all happened because eugenicists were just like bad people who consciously wanted to hurt people who they thought were there them i think many of them did have good intent and thought they were doing good work and

they wanted to you know, they themselves as sort of progressive, they wanted to make positive change in society. but their view of, what made society good was by their own experiences and their own situations, and they didn't account for any kind of diversity of background or religion or culture or worldview or priorities. and it was it was just a very close minded effort to make things better. it's sort of like it hurt people and that's alarming to me. but also it was doomed to fail because it was just it was based on kind of absurd ideas, you know, and it was something that people small too easily because you know, they they knew how these misunderstandings and misinterpretation of data and oversimplification of genetics and science and so they didn't really understand, but it made

sense them and it reinforced kind of their own about themselves and people. and they've been fed, you know, these harmful and unfair stereotypes about people who are different. they were subjected to fear. these people were made feel like their way of life, their culture, their religion, whatever was threatened. but not only that, like people who were unfit were threatening the economy as well. so they're threatening people's financial well-being. and so, you know, all of these things and, you know, their ideas about their superiority that were so ingrained that they couldn't even them, they were totally invisible to people. we see that today, too. yeah. it allowed to try to be diplomatic. you know, it just it allowed people to very easily embrace this idea that people who poor

or people who are from someplace else or look different or who were suffering from mental illnesses were labeled mentally, you know that they were less human. they were entitled to rights and that they should be grateful and happy to contribute to society by giving up their own bodily autonomy in the name of the greater good, you know, to improve society, which of course meant, for the most part, you know, middle and upper white american society. i should stop. okay. dr. peck. so do you feel like is the most important thing that we've we get our can take away from this conversation from perspective. oh yeah i two thoughts. one that in a way it comes to

scientific information and knowledge that becomes part of of the lay language like happened with evolution and mendelian genetics that even the science didn't really a whole lot of details and had its own built in humility to it but people took that and ran. and i think that tendency is with us today. you know, there's still a lot we don't know in my field of psychiatry. three, we still don't much at all about the cause well, we don't know much about the brain. we don't know much about the cause of. most mental illnesses certainly made progress, and yet they were one of only two countries on the planet that allows direct to consumer advertising housing. and so everybody, you know,

thinks that the science is a lot further along than it is that, you know, that these medications are pills that are being advertised on medication, on television have a lot of clarity and terms are used. and this my life crazy because you know go ask your doctor yeah no thanks and then the other thought is that you know if we really go back to the term eugenics better baby eugenics is alive and well and i think the problem is that we're not focused on cutting off the lower or that, you know, purifying from below. but there's a lot of pressure toward pulling up from above, you know, human hands meant fertility counseling and clinics, you know, people who can go to a -- bank catalog and pick from various traits. so it's going to be compensating their child.

so the, you know, the that impulse toward a better collective human race is is there. but we need to be cautious. we really need be cautious about it. great. we have a question for sarah. so, noel, ask i'm wondering about the obsession with religion as a mental disorder, the late 19th and early 20th centuries. could you please talk about that more? it was beyond just somebody who would be devoutly religious. these would be people who took things to a fanatical. you might describe it as like a monomania, but it was just, you know, there were the same list. and this is more mid to late 19th century, not so much the 20th century, but either you see the same ideas about like an obsession, anything. so there were people who were obsessed with politics and they like to to a point where it

impacted lives then other people around them. so that's kind of what they were referring, not not just people who are deeply religious, but. can see she i've heard the term religious. yeah, it's like the same lines. the thing about these and i wouldn't call them a diagnosis, they're more a description of symptoms that that people were categorized before before they were the systematic diagnoses and even that changed over time but you know you just you see you see a lot of people who just. they just have this inability to kind of deal with their surroundings and their and so

they react in different ways. some people might become like obsessively manic about something and others might might go the opposite direction in another for that more from a religious definition like dark night of the soul, sort of a spiritual crisis, you know, it's been written about and described sort of a crisis of meaning, especially for people who relied their religion significantly, then have a real crisis of meaning, guessing that might be what talking about. that's some of it, too. yeah. okay. other questions also kind of geared towards sarah. sarah, a hot topic tonight. you know jill talked about unveiling of the history the bureau the the marker in who was i guess last what legally sterilized person in in indiana and sarah with your work you do a lot of research on individuals

and you know really kind of you know moving them beyond being like a specimen in the pathology lab and giving them a backstory and kind of giving them a second life. but can you give us some specific examples of individuals and reasons from central straight that that were from individuals that forcibly sterilized? unfortunately i'm not really one of the problems is that these these numbers were reported in any detail. so the kinds of records that we have access to don't really indicate specific who was sterilized or, even how many from each individual hospital for for the most part. and so where where information lies when it at all is within the patient's medical records.

and those are protected after their death. so some of those are now becoming excess. all but a lot of those records haven't been available to to research or to compile them. we don't know a whole lot about. those the kinds of things that you see the 1907 law made a made compulsory sterilization legal for people who were deemed mentally ill or mentally deficient. but there were various terms that that would apply in those categories. criminals could could also be if they were like constitute really criminal. but but all of those things are open to interpretation by the that the early law require that two surgeons at institution. so i don't know why my camera stops require that two surgeons at the institution investigate

candidates and then sign off on the sterilization and they they were free interpret that how they would the 1927 law really on the deficient mentally ill the criminals were sort of out of that second law and system changed a little bit that process so the superintendent of an institution and could decide who was the for sterilization and they would make a recommendation to whatever that institution's governing board and then they have a hearing where the patient their family, if there was family around and physicians would all testify. and then the governing board make a decision about sterilization, then it was expanded and i think 1931 to allow court courtroom judges to make that determination as part of the commitment.

so you'd have these insanity inquests in. the court and before the press, it even added up at central state hospital or another institution. it could be determined that they were eligible for sterilization. and that did require that two physicians sign off it. but it didn't have to be any particular physician. so, i mean, the kinds of things that that that would make you eligible were kind of varying and open to interpretation. so you about those records? oh, sorry. just general, i was just going to say i think what maybe what you were about to say to sort of if people are interested in, some of these case studies, like sara said, know the records are really sparse, are missing there is a pretty easily indiana magazine a history article you can just search their archives the author's last name is stern

and it's from thousand seven and she does give a few case studies from her research on some individuals that were sterilized. she starts off the article talking about the forced sterilization of of the inmates at the indiana reform story in jeffersonville. and so he was incarcerated for just for petty larceny. and he's one of the people that wrote governor thomas marshall. to say that he was forcibly sterile, sterilized, that you didn't agree a vasectomy, and that he even physically resisted. doctor, in the operating. so these kinds of stories were some of the things that prompted governor marshall to put a stop to sterilization. so all of the constitutionality of the law was looked into so, yeah, you know, sarah's

absolutely right. the are sparse, but there are a few of those individual stories in the i can probably drop it in chart there. actually i think gloria stood up on a slide. yeah and then you can see the pedigree chart from 1918, i think of this this individual is it. it was fast work. mm hmm. so. and because the record is so, are there any other question that the check out q&a. nicole, we have some good questions in the chat, so i'll just go ahead. yeah, go ahead. i'm trying. i kind of. yeah, go. one question as back to present day that there are some stories floating around videos in social media. and that's finance encouraging

sterilization individuals are homeless and also opioid addicts to not enter a child into the mix. i've seen some videos that encourage just aiming for for going to get their tubes tied, vasectomy or whatever the case may be. but it is this is this prevalent for for jim and what seems be the psychiatric opinion about sterilization? it comes to the opioid addicts today. oh. i don't i don't know that's an interesting i heard that. i know there have been other as was mentioned around the incentive to get from an institution. there have been subtle and not

so subtle coercion and i think states informally with people that were having a number of children who were on the welfare rolls, there sometimes be some conditionality, a formal or informal, around some pressure toward that. it makes me nervous. it also does have distinction of not solely against their will. so it's different than other types of pressure. to me that the people would be in courage to have their tubes tied or whatever specifically they're they're proposing. because when i was in my early twenties, i wanted to have my tubes tied and my doctor refused to do it because he was certain that i change my mind and i would want to have children.

and i was not smart enough to know what i wanted or what was best for. and so i was not able to do it when i did want that. and it i think it's interesting, i, i didn't think of that as positive eugenics at the time, but that's. doing it now. i would be more inclined to say that that's that's kind of disrespectful to people who are opiate dependent, because i think especially for that condition they haven't lost their sense of personal morality and responsibility. i think it's sometimes hard for them to get access to the birth control that they want. so, you know, that. so i'd see that. any. are there any other questions for our panelists before.

i see a question, is some states or in a similar vein, is the opioid epidemic and that encouragement some states are also offering sentence reduction to prisoners who volunteer or to business vasectomies or iuds? since these are still coerced but reversible sterilization procedures in your individual, do you think these reversible procedures there are coerced are still part and examples of the eugenics. there in vein? for sure. yeah. i would say i don't. i don't really see a lot of i

would say i don't see a lot of situations where i would imagine that coercion there's a lot of prohibited, you know, prohibitions against that kind of coercion more than it being likely. so i think we've shifted to another place when we you know, are managing or giving people access to their choices. i think there'll be a lot of forces up against that pretty easily. that's a lot of guardrails now and i think we we talked about that historically earlier. can you give consent if the trade is you're freedom. in in any any last final thoughts parting words that you really want our audience to kind of take away with them beyond

the 21st century question that i asked earlier. you know, now that we've kind of had little bit more discussion about what this more about this topic. i think we all kind of hit on, you know. being wary about things that infringe on individual rights, especially in health care. it's so personal safety. jim, sarah. i agree. i agree. i'm kind of a bit of a closet optimist and so i'm aware the progress that's been made sort of like that. last question i thought to myself, that is not to be happening many places. we've got lots of spots and we've got work to do. but you know where we've come a long way with.

well, one with fact, i want to say thank you so much, sarah, jim and jill and my teammate nicole for tonight's conversation. if any last questions or dropping into the q&a or the chat, my say thank you again and closes out. well, we dive into one of those, but otherwise you can go off and have a wonderful rest of your tuesday evening. but again, i just want to say thank you to sarah, jim and jill and nicole for tonight's conversation. and we very greatly appreciate time you gave and energy you brought this incredibly important discussion. thank you as well to our participants who engage with such great questions and took the time to join us this evening and. if you enjoyed this program, we hope you'll consider coming back for more. if nearby, visit the indiana historical society, a history for dimensions and testimony

through january 27th for an interaction journey into holocaust history through the story and legacy of. eva court, a holocaust survivor, eyewitness to history who settled in and who was founder i of the candles museum, the children of auschwitz that dottie did lab experiment survivors in an effort to locate other surviving mengele's twins also evercore from auschwitz to indiana through also through january 27th. more about evercore who survived auschwitz as a child. an experiment of dr. joseph brinkley and her life leading up to being one of the most influent holocaust educators and activists in the world. come visit also for festival of trieste open now january 7th with twilight, tuesday hours until 8 p.m. next week through december 20th. in all our other festival of truth events for families and nights out, including virtual conversation, indiana's favorite department store, ellis ayres

and. an extra shout out to nicole's book that just chats nicole's newly minted author through the indiana historical society. we're all excited about her contribution to telling all of indiana stories. also includes the history of latino american hoosiers and asian american in this first book, drop today. so check out our website those. so thank you all for joining us tonight, especially thanks to sarah jim and jill and my teammate nicole and. every single participant. have a great rest of your tuesday and thank