The Plurality of Prevention: Medical Superintendents and the Practices of Compulsory Sterilisation in Californian State Institutions, 1909-1960. (360G-Wellcome-104906_Z_14_Z)

This project will examine institutional records related to the distinct practices of compulsory sterilisation in Californian State hospitals between 1909-1960. By developing an awareness of the institutional organisation of compulsory sterilisation in California, this project will generate a nuanced understanding of how state policy was interpreted and implemented differently by medical superintendents. Highlighting these clinical practices will assist in evaluating whether superintendents t ruly believed in the law's therapeutic mandate. Furthermore, California's impact on British eugenicists will be highlighted. This project will prompt a significant scholarly re-evaluation of compulsory sterilisation in the North American and international context. The aims of this project are therefore: 1. To understand how state medical authorities understood and implemented the practice of compulsory sterilisation in the psychiatric institutions under their control. 2. To understand th e extent to which superintendents believed that sterilisation benefited the patients 3. To examine the overlooked role of hospital superintendents in the practice of compulsory sterilisation in Californian prisons. 4. To highlight the knowledge exchange between Californian superintendents and British eugenicists and physicians. 5. To advance a new methodological explanation for the decline of compulsory sterilisations in California during the 1950s and thereafter.