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 indianas 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 todays movements for human rights, turning memory into equal work in progress is a newer conversation based Program Series exploring equality through history. Indianas 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, well 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. Dont worry if you missed any of them, arent 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. Its 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 shell be introducing our panelists in moderating tonights 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, shes 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 HealthCase 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 societys 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 masters 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. Its a 2016. Ive been building Strong Community relationships to build Indiana Historical societys collection with latino, hispanic culture stories and ephemera. And so lets get started. So lets talk about eugenics and i think before we kick off into some questions and discussion, lets lets 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 womens 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 lets 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 didnt become law so in oh seven. Indiana had unique combination of multiple factors that i think probably several were 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 indianas 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 well 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. Theres 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 couldnt 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 wasnt 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, its 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 couldnt 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 cant 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 couldnt 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 were kind scratching at the surface of this. And so, you know, what are what is the ideal ideological framework . Whos your eugenicist to link the cultivation of better babies, the sterilization of defective. So what were like, so who were 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 . W