Indiana’s Disturbing Eugenics History

Q: What’s that historical marker about eugenics outside the Indiana State Library all about?

A: Historical markers typically celebrate a Hoosier hero or noteworthy landmark. But the story behind eugenics—the long-discredited theory that supported selective breeding to “improve” the human race—is much, much darker. The plaque “commemorates” one of the most immoral moments in Indiana history: the 1907 Indiana Sterilization Act, the first eugenics sterilization law ever adopted by anyone, anywhere. This nasty bit of legislation greenlit involuntary sterilization for the inmates of state institutions deemed to be “confirmed criminals, idiots, imbeciles, or rapists.” Around 2,500 people in state custody were sterilized under the law, which was struck down in 1921 but revised and revived in 1927 before finally being repealed for good in 1974. The state formally apologized to the program’s victims in 2006, and a year later, put up the marker to acknowledge the whole sordid affair.

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