"Why Me?" Eugenics In North Carolina
project type: fabrication , graphics , museums
A National Movement
American Eugenics developed in the late 19th, early 20th century as rapid urbanization and industrialization changed the landscape of American society and led to increased poverty and unrest. The eugenics movement sought the help of scientific experts to reduce social problems by curbing immigration and controlling the reproduction of the poor. Eugenicists favored better public health, family planning, more thoughtful preparation for marriage, and education about human reproduction. They encouraged reproduction of the “best and the brightest” and discouraged reproduction of the “unfit” — including criminals, alcoholics, psychotics, the retarded, paupers, and those in poor physical health. By sterilizing the mentally ill and restricting foreign immigration, eugenicists sought to isolate the American genetic stock from the taint of allegedly bad genes.
In North Carolina, those in regular contact with social workers were the most likely to be suggested for sterilization. While sterilization programs in other states focused on inmates of the state’s mental institutions, North Carolina’s program focused increasingly on welfare recipients. With growing welfare rolls after World War II, social workers looked to eugenic sterilization to save state funds. Welfare recipients who had children outside marriage and while on welfare were deemed irresponsible and suggested for eugenic sterilization. From 1929 through 1974 the State of North Carolina sterilized over 7,000 people.
The Exhibit
In 2006, Design Dimension was asked by the North Carolina Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities to design a traveling exhibit that would help draw attention to this aspect of the state’s past. The exhibit focuses on the history of the movement, its footprint in North Carolina, and the stories of some of the survivors. The finished exhibit is a series of large graphic panels that can be arranged to create a central space. The sequence begins with a description of the program and a timeline of its history. Another panel details many of the sterilization procedures that were done along with a display case holding medical implements used in the procedures. The centerpiece of the exhibit is a set of kiosks where visitors can pick up a listening device and hear the compelling and often painful stories of survivors in their own voice. A eugenics statistic panel uses a display of clothing buttons in containers to depict each victim of the program, categorized by race and gender. The exhibit ends with another series of listening opportunities covering the responses by many current-day elected officials in the state.
The exhibit made its debut at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh, and was met with much media attention and many favorable responses by the public. Most people had no idea that this had taken place in their state; and for that reason alone, the exhibit was a success.