1. History of Disability and Deaf Eugenics May 7, 2012 Joanne Woiak, jwoiak@uw.edu Disability Studies Program

2. Overview of history of eugenics Word means “well-born” (coined by Galton, 1883) Goal to improve the biological quality of the human race. Methods involved controlling reproduction of the “unfit” (negative eugenics) and “fit” (positive eugenics). History of the eugenics movement, ~1900-1945, organized in 30+ countries (including US), diverse ideas and policies. Key components of eugenics: – Scientific knowledge claims. – Ideological beliefs. – Social practices aiming to reduce “social problem groups” for “the public good.”

3. Overview of eugenics: policies to improve the hereditary make-up of the “race” Positive eugenics – Encourage “fitter” people to have more kids who share their “good” genes. Negative eugenics – Persuade, pressure, or compel “unfit” people not to pass on “defective” genes. Permanent institutionalization. Forced sterilization (surgery to make infertile). Murder of disabled people and ethnic minorities.

4. Overview of disability studies Framework for answering “what is disability?” Disability is defined as restricted participation caused by social barriers. – “The right to live in the world.” – Negative attitudes and stereotypes (ableism), architectural barriers, social policies, cultural representations... oppress people with disabilities.

5. Theoretical framework: Models of disability “Medical model” Problem is the individual’s impaired body or mind. – The solution is medical treatment (or prevention). The individual is expected to try to “overcome” her disability in order to be accepted by society. “Social model” Problem is society. We can create equality and justice by changing the environment, not just the individual’s body/mind.

6. Eugenics analyzed by disability studies Eugenicists put forward a wide variety of proposals for “race betterment” in the name of “the public good.” We can identify these core components of eugenics: 1. Biological (genetic) cause of social problems. – Disability is pathology; dealt with by medical-scientific professionals. 2. Some people are a burden on society/state. – Disability is dependency; unproductive people; institutionalized. These medical and economic framings of disability added up to an oppressive set of ideas and practices that labeled many kinds of people unfit for citizenship (and unfit to be born). So who were the “unfit” / “defective” / “socially inadequate”?

7. Eugenics targeted people with disabilities: e.g. pedigree of “feebleminded” family Source: Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement (http://eugenicsarchive.org ). Hosted by the Human Genome Project’s Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which was originally the Eugenics Record Office, the center of US human genetics research and advocacy for eugenics policy, 1910-1939.http://eugenicsarchive.org

8. Disability (intellectual and mental) was believed to be the cause of other “social ills”: crime, poverty, prostitution… “The brighter class of the feebleminded, with their weak will-power and deficient judgment, are easily influenced for evil, and are prone to become vagrants, drunkards, and thieves…. It is better and cheaper for the community to assume the permanent care of this class before they have carried out a long career of expensive crime.”

9. List of undesirable traits, from the Eugenics Record Office, 1911, “The Study of Human Heredity”

10. The “public good” of relieving the economic burden of disability “It is a reproach to our intelligence that we as a people should have to support about half a million insane, feebleminded, epileptic, blind and deaf; 80,000 prisoners and 100,000 paupers at a cost of over 100 million dollars per year.” -Charles Davenport, founder of the Eugenics Record Office, 1910

11. History of state institutions for disabled people 19 th century goal of treating “lunatics” and training “idiots” gave way by 1900 to long-term confinement and “care” in vast state institutions. – Massachusetts School for Idiotic Children: “brutes in the human shape, but without the light of human reason.” 1886 Washington School for Defective Youth – 1906 State School for the Deaf and Blind – 1906 State Institution for the Feebleminded (1933 Custodial School)

12. Social construction of disability: Who was “feebleminded”? 1905 IQ invented by Alfred Binet: “abnormal” children can be educated. 1910s US psychologists corrupt this goal: Intelligence is hereditary, unchangeable. Label & institutionalize. “Menace” to society. – By 1900, in US there were 328 institutions housing 200,000 people labeled mentally ill or mentally deficient.

13. Social construction of disability: Intelligence testing 1918 Example from the IQ tests in US Army For recruits who were non-English speaking or illiterate. “Complete the picture.” 40% found to be feebleminded.

14. Test Questions, Army Alpha SAMPLE People hear with their eyes\ears\nose\mouth 1. Pinochle is played with rackets\cards\pins\dice 2. Habeus corpus is a term used in medicine\law\pedagogy 3. Bud Fisher is a famous actor\author\athlete\comic 4. Velvet Joe appears in ads for tooth powder\soap\dry goods\tobacco 5. The number of a Kaffir’s legs is... 2\4\6\8

15. Outcome of Army mental tests: ranking by race / national origin

16. Disability was sometimes defined in terms of race and ethnicity 1924 Immigration Restriction Act Mental testing and “expert” testimony to Congress legitimized the law. Set quotas for Eastern and Southern European immigrants allowed into the US. Congressman Albert Johnson, R-WA, 1924, head of the immigration committee: “With this act, the US is undertaking to regulate and control the great problem of the commingling of races. Our hope is in a homogeneous nation. At one time we welcomed all and all helped to build the nation. But now asylum ends. This nation must be as completely unified as any nation in Europe or Asia. Self-preservation demands it.”

17. Eugenicist’s model law for compulsory sterilization (1922 ) AN ACT to prevent the procreation of persons socially inadequate from defective inheritance, by authorizing and providing for the eugenical sterilization. Persons Subject. All persons in the State who, because of degenerate or defective hereditary qualities are potential parents of socially inadequate offspring, regardless of whether such persons be in the population at large or inmates of custodial institutions, regardless also of the personality, sex, age, marital condition, race, or possessions of such person. “Feebleminded, insane, criminalistic, epileptic, inebriate, diseased, blind, deaf, deformed, orphans, ne’er-do-wells, homeless, tramps, and paupers.”

18. Negative eugenics: 30 states had compulsory sterilization laws by 1930s

19. Washington sterilization victims, 1921-1942 (website)website 685 surgeries under the 1921 law – 184 Male – 501 Female (73%) 403 “Insane” (Male 147, Female 256) – 3 state mental hospital 276 “Feebleminded” (Male 33, Female 243) – 2 state custodial institutions

20. Forced sterilization: social control and “public health” 1927 Buck v. Bell, US Supreme Court. – This ruling upheld the Virginia sterilization statute and set precedent for more states. – “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Story: Carrie Buck was a poor, white teen who had a child out of wedlock and was labeled feebleminded. “For the protection and health of the state.” – “The principal that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes.”

21. Morality: the “public good” of regulating female and male sexuality 1.Female, 20. Parents not married. Mother drank constantly before conception and during pregnancy. Child was neglected and abused. Patient’s sexual condition: passionate. Lived with a man to whom she was not married. Hard to control where men are involved. Might easily become a prostitute. 2.Female, 20. Mother of low mentality. Mother’s mother also FM. Patient uncontrolled around boys. After operation: One of the few girls with whom sterilization may have done more harm than good, in making her feel free from restraint. 3.Male, 20. Masturbator. Up to this time his parents have been able to care for this boy by keeping him closely at home. Now they are afraid that he will do harm to some of the little girls in his neighborhood. (Actual cases files from the archives of the Human Betterment Foundation, CA)

22. “Deaf eugenics”: Alexander Graham Bell Bell’s 1883 paper to the National Academy of Science was a focal point in the early history of the eugenics movement:. “On the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race.” – Among his list of “socially unfit” people were those with deafness (as well as “undesirable ethnic elements”). – Investigated the heritability of deafness (looked at surnames and deaf relatives in institutional records). – “Deaf-mutes marry deaf-mutes” because they are segregated by using ASL. – “Great calamity” of the births of deaf children. – Educating deaf children costs the public $1 million per year. – Policy proposal: prevent inter-marriage of Deaf people.

23. Bell’s eugenics “The influence of selection in modifying our breeds of domestic animals is most marked, and it is reasonable to suppose that if we could apply selection to the human race we could also produce modifications or varieties of men.” “Remember that children follow marriage, and I am sure that there is no one among the deaf who desires to have his affliction handed down to his children.”

24. Bell’s defense of oralism: comparison with assimilating immigrants “In an English speaking country like the United States, the English language alone, should be used as the means of communication and instruction at least in public schools.” The use of ASL “is contrary to the spirit and practice of American Institutions (as foreign immigrants have found out).” Bell’s goal was to halt the growth of Deaf culture, in order to “assimilate” Deaf people into the mainstream, like new immigrants. He preferred that Deaf people should choose oralism as the best way to prevent deaf marriages and offspring. More humane than forced sterilization or marriage bans. His opinion was widely respected by eugenicists.

25. 1921 proposed eugenic legislation to ban marriages of blind people.

26. Deaf resistance to compulsory eugenics 1. Scientific evidence: – their statistics showed that most Deaf children are born to non- deaf parents, and 90% of Deaf-Deaf marriages do not produce Deaf children. 2. Individual rights: – society’s interest (“public good”) in avoiding defective births (“public burden”) should not outweigh the right of citizens to make private reproductive choices. 3. “Normal” domestic lives: – Deaf people are no different in their desire for love, marriage, and children. Source: Joseph J. Murray, “True Love and Sympathy: The Deaf-Deaf Marriages Debate,” Genetics, Disability, and Deafness

27. Deaf support for “voluntary eugenics” A British Deaf researcher on 118 Deaf-Deaf marriages: – “They have 234 children and 60 grandchildren and I am thankful to say they can all hear and speak perfectly.” An American Deaf leader: – “Self-evident” that births of Deaf children “should be avoided.” – Preferably, Deaf people should “voluntarily ” practice eugenics in selecting marriage partners. Murray’s conclusion: – “With their rights potentially at stake, Deaf leaders sought a middle ground, refusing to cede individual rights [to marry], yet rejecting any attempt to publicly defend the right to have Deaf children.”

28. Most extreme: eugenics in Nazi Germany 1933 Forced sterilization law: applied to 400,000 “hereditary defectives.” 1939 T4 killing programs (so-called “euthanasia” or “mercy death”): More than 200,000 institutionalized adults and children with disabilities. Economic logic: “lives not worth living,” “useless eaters.” 1941 Final Solution Gas chambers from Action T4 were moved to the concentration camps to murder 6 million Jewish people and other groups.

29. Links between German and American eugenics movements Nazi regime seeking “racial purity” (1933) borrowed the idea of forced sterilization from the American eugenicists and used Laughlin’s model law (1922). Hitler: “I have studied with great interest the laws of several Am. states concerning the prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny would be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock…. The possibility of excess and error is no proof of the incorrectness of these laws.”

30. July 14, 1933, sterilization “Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring” Doctors required to register all “defective” births in Germany. Forced sterilization for hereditary feebleminded, mentally ill, epileptic, alcoholic, blind, deaf, etc. – Deaf people were 4% of sterilizations = 16,000. – In 1932, there were total 40,000 Deaf people in Germany. – Commonly, deafness was associated with “idiocy.”

31. Deaf community responses to Nazi policies Some superintendents of German deaf schools collaborated with Nazis to implement sterilization law. – Informed the Genetic Health Court about individual deaf students; gathered family histories of deafness; encouraged parents to consent to children’s surgeries. Some Deaf school leaders resisted the Nazis – Refused to turn in deaf and/or Jewish students To avoid persecution, some schools and deaf clubs publicized themselves as “ideal Germans” (i.e. not Jewish). – Source: Interviews with survivors in Horst Biesold, Crying Hands: Eugenics and Deaf People in Nazi Germany (1999).

32. Murder of Deaf people in Nazi Germany July 26, 1941, letter to the sister of a deaf teenager who had already been forcibly sterilized, and was now being taken from her deaf school to the killing center: “By order of the Reich Defense Commissioner [she] was transferred to another institution whose name and address are not known to me. The receiving institution will send you a letter. I would ask you to abstain from further inquiries until this notice is received.” 5 weeks later: “We inform you with regret that your sister unexpectedly died as a consequence of pulmonary tuberculosis…. [local police] ordered the immediate cremation of the remains and the disinfection of belongings.” – Source: Horst Biesold, Crying Hands: Eugenics and Deaf People in Nazi Germany (1999), 168.

33. Crimes against humanity? Doctors and nurses who performed the sterilizations: none charged with crimes. “Euthanasia” and human experimentation: 23 physicians were tried, 15 found guilty, 7 hanged. They argued their actions were “humane” to kill the disabled.

34. Conclusions: where were “disability” and “Deaf” in the history of eugenics? Some shared experiences in the history of the disability and Deaf communities: – Marriage restriction – Institutionalization – Sterilization Deaf eugenics: – Persecution: oralism, violate reproductive rights, murder. – Negotiated strategies of resistance within discriminatory societies. Constructions of the category “disability”: – Intersections with class, race, gender categories. “Disability” was determined based on ideological needs, racism, sexism.

35. Deaf positive eugenics? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1916462.stm April 8, 2002, Couple 'choose' to have deaf baby A lesbian couple in the US have provoked strong criticism by deliberately choosing to have a deaf baby. Sharon Duchesneau and Candy McCullough, who have both been deaf since birth, were turned down by a series of sperm banks they approached looking for a donor suffering from congenital deafness. The couple, who have been together for eight years, then approached a family friend who was totally deaf, and had five generations of deafness in his family. While she was pregnant, Ms Duchesneau said: "It would be nice to have a deaf child who is the same as us. "I think that would be a wonderful experience. You know, if we can have that chance, why not take it? A hearing baby would be a blessing. A deaf baby would be a special blessing."