In the spring of 1911, the New Jersey Legislature passed a bill that was signed into law by Gov. Woodrow Wilson saying, “WHEREAS, Heredity plays a most important part in the transmission of feeble-mindedness, epilepsy, criminal tendencies and other defects …” This law permitted “An act to authorize and provide for the sterilization of feeble-minded (including idiots, imbeciles and morons), epileptics, rapists, certain criminals and other defectives.”
In February 1912, as the first sterilizations were about to begin, the New York Tribune ran a full-page article about…
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