Sterilization in California
California was the third state to enact a compulsory sterilization law (after Connecticut and Indiana), and unlike its two predecessors, it enforced it rigorously. From 1909 to around the beginning of the Second World War, California conducted more sterilizations than all other states combined. At one point it accounted for 80% of the enforced sterilizations performed in the United States. After World War 2 the practice decreased, but did continue until 1963. California’s eugenics program extended into the state’s prisons, but was primarily conducted in the state’s mental hospitals.
Among the so-called pioneers of the eugenics movement in California was David Starr Jordan, the first president of Stanford University. He also served as chairman of the American Eugenics Commission. Another was Ezra Gosney, who founded the Human Betterment Society and authored a paper entitled Sterilization for Human Betterment. Others included the state’s Attorney General of long-standing, Ulysses Webb, leading philanthropists and scientists, and faculty members from state universities and colleges.
One of the leading proponents of sterilizations in California was the chief surgeon at the state penitentiary at San Quentin, Dr. Leo Stanley. Stanley was an adherent to the theory that criminal behavior was often hereditary and that it was driven in men through the testicular glands. In Stanley’s belief, male criminal behavior could be altered by testicular surgery. Among Stanley’s ideas was the supposition that an ideal male could be created by replacing his testicles with those of another, deceased male. Stanley sterilized over 600 prisoners at San Quentin.
David Starr Jordan published a series of papers under the title The Blood of the Nation: A Study of the Decay of Races by the Survival of the Unfit. They were later compiled and published in book form. The papers were an attempt to gain a wider degree of support for eugenics policy from outside the academic world and discuss what Jordan refers to as inborn cultural behaviors. Jordan also argued against war, claiming that the casualties resulting from warfare weakened the gene pool through the elimination of the fittest men.
Between 1909 and 1963 state hospitals and prisons conducted more than 20,000 forced sterilizations in California as part of its state sanctioned eugenics program. Records of surgical sterilizations are maintained by the state but remain confidential due to the personal and medical information they contain. Not only were more enforced sterilizations performed there than in any other state, for a time there were more performed there than anywhere else in the world. Harry Laughlin lauded California, commenting, “California must be given the credit for making the most use of her sterilization laws.”