@article{1355903,
      recid = {1355903},
      author = {Trombley, Stephen. and Eadie, Bruce.},
      title = {The Lynchburg story eugenic sterilization in America /  [electronic resource] :},
      publisher = {Filmakers Library,},
      address = {New York, NY :},
      pages = {1 online resource (51 min.).},
      year = {1995},
      note = {Originally released as DVD.},
      abstract = {In the early years of this century, authorities were  obsessed with a belief that the "racial stock" of the  country was in decline. By the 1930s, over half the states  had enacted eugenic sterilization laws, giving states the  right to forcibly sterilize citizens they deemed "unfit" to  reproduce. This haunting film tells the story of what  happened at The Lynchburg Colony for the Epileptic and  Feebleminded in Virginia. There, between 1927 and 1972,  over 8,000 children and young teenagers were forcibly  sterilized. The state claimed they had hereditary defects  that would be passed on to their potential offspring: in  fact most were simply poor, ill-educated and considered a  financial burden on the state. Sterilization victims  interviewed today tell of the devastating impact on their  lives.These individual tragedies have a broader political  context. The sterilization law declared constitutional in  the U.S. in 1927 became the basis of Hitler's eugenics  program. It was the beginning of the Holocaust as  sterilization gave way to killing undesirables. American  biologist, Dr. Harry Laughlin, who drafted the legislation,  was awarded an honorary doctorate in Germany in 1936.  Goebbels was the guest of honor.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/1355903},
}