Many people are surprised to learn that in the 20th century over 60,000 people in the United States, mainly patients in state asylums and hospitals, were sterilized based on eugenics laws. A number of excellent books and articles and a few web resources on the history of eugenics and sterilization have appeared in recent years, but very little known is about the demographics and experiences of people sterilized, often against their will. Eugenics, the effort to shape and limit populations through sterilization and other forms of reproductive control, was popularized and institutionalized in 20th century America. While eugenics laws have largely been struck down and/or removed, the legacies of these practices have shaped communities and relationships between communities throughout the U.S.

Working with a unique resource -- nearly 20,000 patient records from California institutions from the period 1921 to 1953 -- our project seeks to make this history visible. Additionally we are working to make the dataset we've developed accessible and interactive. These records were microfilmed by the California Department of State Hospitals in the 1970s and only recently discovered; Stern and her team have digitized these reels and are using them in compliance with state and university regulations to create what is known as a de-identified data set. As medical records, this collection contains sensitive patient data that must be de-identified and used in accordance with HIPAA regulations and IRB protocols. This places considerable limitations on modalities for storytelling and possibilities for humanizing stories of reproductive injustice. It also raises important legal questions about how to balance the “right to know” with the “need to protect” in the realm of medical and health histories.

Over the past three years, Stern and her U-M team have created a dataset with this unique set of patient records that includes 212 discrete variables culled from over 30,000 individual documents. This resource is the first of its kind, encompassing almost one-third of the total sterilizations performed in 32 states in the U.S. in the 20th century.

This is very much a work in progress and we welcome your feedback and thoughts.