Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck

by Adam Cohen, Dan Woren (Narrator)

One of America’s great miscarriages of justice, the Supreme Court’s infamous 1927 Buck v. Bell ruling made government sterilization of “undesirable” citizens the law of the land
 
New York Times bestselling author Adam Cohen tells the story in Imbeciles of one of the darkest moments in the American legal tradition: the Supreme Court’s decision to champion eugenic sterilization for the greater good of the country. In 1927, when the nation was caught up in eugenic fervor, the justices allowed Virginia to sterilize Carrie Buck, a perfectly normal young woman, for being an “imbecile.”

It is a story with many villains, from the superintendent of the Dickensian Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded who chose Carrie for sterilization to the former Missouri agriculture professor and Nazi sympathizer who was the nation’s leading advocate for eugenic sterilization.  But the most troubling actors of all were the eight Supreme Court justices who were in the majority – including William Howard Taft, the former president; Louis Brandeis, the legendary progressive; and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., America’s most esteemed justice, who wrote the decision urging the nation to embark on a program of mass eugenic sterilization.

Exposing this tremendous injustice—which led to the sterilization of 70,000 Americans—Imbeciles overturns cherished myths and reappraises heroic figures in its relentless pursuit of the truth. With the precision of a legal brief and the passion of a front-page exposé, Cohen’s Imbeciles is an unquestionable triumph of American legal and social history, an ardent accusation against these acclaimed men and our own optimistic faith in progress.


From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Law, American History, Science, Eugenics

14 pages, Audio CD

First published March 1, 2016

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fabulous re-read to get my analytical juices flowing!

Cohen uses this book as a much-needed soap box to highlight a case that made its way to the US Supreme Court, Buck v. Bell, and whose analysis was so jaded that it has found its way on a list of the Court's worst of all time. Not only were some of the greatest minds of time involved in the ruling, Louis Brandeis, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and William Taft, but the Court stood behind Holmes' written decision almost unanimously. However, Cohen chooses not only to focus on the Supreme Court ruling, which explored the eugenic sterilisation movement in America (as well as sanctioning the Virginia law as constitutional), but the journey the law took from its inception in the legislature and selection of a young Carrie Buck to be the test subject.

Carrie Buck was a young woman, eighteen by the time the case made its way to the US Supreme Court, who was adopted as a child. She attended school for a few years before she was pulled out to work, as determined by her adoptive parents. At the age of seventeen, she fell pregnant and was committed to an institution for epileptics and the feebleminded, seemingly because she possessed loose morals and was deemed a woman whose brain was oversexed. At the time, the early 1920s, this was entirely appropriate and Carrie was forced to abide by the stringent rules set upon her by the State of Virginia. Around this time, as the eugenics movement in the United States was heating up, Virginia sought to pass a law to bring about eugenic sterilisation, which would not only ensure that the state's residents were of the highest calibre, but also ensure those who were less than adequate could not reproduce and sully the gene pool [their views, not mine]. While other states were having similar laws overturned by the courts as unconstitutional, Virginia sought to test their legislative initiative all the way to the Supreme Court, using Carrie Buck and her situation as the ideal set of facts. From there, it was a process stacked against Buck, offering her no hope of personal victory. Doctors who manipulated facts and forced her to undergo mental testing for which she was not adequately prepared, an assigned lawyer who sought to defend her by offering flimsy arguments that would not pass muster in any court of law, as well as a set of legal and medical minds buoyed by a movement that tried to press for the purest of the race to continue, leaving those of a lesser ability to be subjugated to the role of subservient. By the time the case made its way to the nine justices of the US Supreme Court, the legal circus was in full swing and Buck had no chance. Once Justice Holmes got his hands on the right to pen a decision, he chose not even to explore the validity of the arguments made and simply rubber stamped the law, adding one of the most perverse comments ever attributed to a decision of the US Supreme Court: "three generations of imbeciles are enough!" Cohen dissects that inane comment throughout the book and shows how Buck was truly a whipping boy for the movement and stood no chance at having her rights upheld, personal and/or constitutional.

While the story of Buck would be enough to pull on the heartstrings of any warm-blooded reader, Cohen goes further, examining the backstories of the key actors, as well as the eugenics movement in America. The medical and legal communities filled their professional journals with articles on the subject, coming out on either side, which led to a mainstream propaganda attack, which propped up the idea of eugenics in books, pamphlets, and even a Hollywood movie, which sought to explore what letting a feebleminded baby grow up might yield (a mentally deficient killer, of course [which I say, tongue in cheek]). This eugenics movement was so well-established that the likes of Dr. Josef Mengele was surely salivating at the chance to implement it in Germany. Cohen does mention that some of the early eugenic ideas of the Nazis are attributed directly to the American movement, as lauded in German medical and propaganda materials in the early 1920s. Deplorable, perhaps, but also poignant as the world tosses out how atrocious the Nazis were in their Megele-ian experiments. We need only look to the Land of the Free to see how enslaved segments of its population were at the time. Worry not, when sober thinking returned, America scrapped its eugenics movement, seeking to sweep it under the rug and point to Germany's atrocities, as if the left hand's antics would never be remembered. Cohen makes it much harder to reach for that first stone now, though what is even more astonishing is that this case, this entire narrative, is not better known. America (read: anyone with a general knowledge of human and civil rights) is not able to toss out Buck v. Bell as a horrendous legal precedent, as we do Dred Scott, for reasons that baffle Cohen, as this was a significant case with a fiery line penned by Justice Holmes. Alas, the annals of poorly supported decisions made by the US Supreme Court must have missed this, their golden child example. It is that shameful sleight of hand that is perhaps worst of all!

Cohen does a masterful job at presenting this book. It is more than simply Carrie Buck and how she was forced into being sterilised, thereby forcing her not to have any children after her first. It is also more than a simple analysis of the criteria surrounding feeblemindedness in America, or the push for eugenics, which would rid the country of the 'lesser folk from procreating'. It is even about more than forced sterilisation, which is a horrid subject in and of itself. Cohen explores all the pieces of the movement, its actors, and detractors, as well as using the Buck narrative to explore how America failed its citizenry and a US Supreme Court disregarded its fundamental law, the Constitution, to protect those who needed it the most. With significant research, Cohen hones in on many of those who played a role, some of whom will surprise the attentive reader. His narrative is crisp and propels the story forward, as abysmal as the content might be. It also pulls no punches in drawing significant connections between the American eugenics movement and the influence it played on Nazi Germany's decision to adopt similar ideals. The blood is right there on the hands of the influential and the reader cannot deny its existence. No matter how the reader feels about eugenics and reproductive rights, the book opens eyes, leaves mouths agape, and paves the way for many intellectual or gut arguments. I can only hope readers will engage in this, both on public forums like GoodReads, and in their own way. This is not a topic to read about, nod, and move along. It is a discussion to be had. Are you willing to join in?

Kudos, Mr. Cohen for this spectacular piece. The title is so open-ended, I am left to wonder if you reference Holmes' comment or the list of those who failed Buck throughout the ordeal.

Like/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the 1920's, the nation was in the midst of a panic over feeblemindedness.
People were being sent away in record numbers - institutionalize -in state hospitals
and special schools for the "feebleminded".

The governor of Virginia made a public apology 75 years later (The 75th anniversary of United States Supreme Court's ruling in Buck v Bell.

Adam Cohen tells the story of Carrie Buck. She was a victim of the eugenics movement. The Government should never have been involved.

Adam tells complete story about Carrie from when she was first living in a foster care home - and later became pregnant. She was wrongly labeled ..."feebleminded" ..and
"Epileptic". ( she was neither). Plus, nobody knew at the time that she had been raped.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. - ( consider a great mind in American History), was one of the primary person who wrote the 1927 ruling, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough". ( BRUTAL)
This was a Harvard-educated man - from a distinguished family. Holmes acted so superior toward Carrie Buck who was poorly educated and a working class mother.
Holmes opinion was respected ..... It was an 8 to 1 majority to uphold the Virginia's sterilization law.

"The nation must sterilize those who sap the strength of the State", Holmes insisted,
"to prevent our being swamped with incompetence."

"It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are
manifestly unfit from continuing their kind".

This story is sad. Adam writes it in a way that it almost reads like a fiction story ( I wish it were) ... Point it: it's engaging...it's fascinating ...he makes it very personal by focusing primarily Carrie Buck...
Yet..,we are aware of the story being much bigger. 70, 000 woman - in OUR COUNTRY less than 100 years ago -- were forced into sterilization ( lied to- choices made for them - judged harshly)

After having read the Historical Fiction book, "Necessary Lies", by Diane Chamberlain ...( a book that 'knocked-my-socks' off and opened my eyes to the Eugenics Laws), ....as soon as I learned about this book, I knew I HAD TO READ IT!!!

Note: I had a fear ... That this book might be too dry, and a little to academic...
But it's NOT AT ALL.... It's very readable. It's an important book....and thankful Adam wrote this book with nothing less than intimacy and compassion.
The black and white shiny photos included in the physical book of Carrie --and other family members are beautiful.


Thank You to Penguin Press, Netgalley, and Adam Press

[Darlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recently I've come to the conclusion,after spending the last couple of years reading books about American history and politics, that most of what I was taught in school seems to be propaganda.. a white washed, sanitized and just general rewriting of United States history. This book, 'Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck' taught me about a movement which began early in the 20th century which targeted poor white people (mainly women) for enforced sterilization… "to improve the genetic quality of the population"… whatever THAT means. I had heard of eugenics and read a fictionalized account of the practice of sterilizing a person against her will and without her knowledge ('Necessary Lies' by Dianne Chamberlain); but after reading this book, I realized just how little I actually knew about this movement.

To begin, on May 2, 2002 (on the 75th anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling in Buck v Bell). Governor Mark Warner of Virginia issued an apology for the state's participation in eugenics. 7,450 people were sterilized between 1927-1979 in Virginia… a state which sterilized more people than any other state besides California.

Adam Cohen, the author of this book, moves forward and backward through history, providing background information regarding what the social, political and economic climate was during the formation of the eugenics movement; and he couples the historical context with the facts surrounding this one young woman, Carrie Buck and what her case means in a broader sense.

To understand what happened to Carrie Buck.. to understand HOW Carrie Buck could be ordered by the Supreme Court to undergo sterilization.. Mr. Cohen explains what was happening in the United States in the early 1920s. The early 20th century was characterized by an explosion of new immigrants. The United States was in the process of changing from a rural farming society to an industrial urban society. The explosion of new immigrants was transforming the ethnic and religious makeup of America, leading to a feeling of angst among the middle and upper classes. (Sound familiar?) In England, at about this time, some followers of Charles Darwin and his ideas about natural selection and survival of the fittest, usurped those ideas to come up with a plan to deal with the people they considered 'unfit' or 'undesirable' in society. (Charles Darwin did NOT support the eugenics movement, by the way). Also at this time, the movement was encouraged by work being done by Gregor Mendel, who with his experiments with his famous pea plants was making important discoveries on the role of heredity.

The eugenics movement picked up steam in the United States and various states began passing laws forcing the institutionalization of people referred to as 'feebleminded'. This forced institutionalization began with the state of Indiana in 1907, and it was just the first step, according to prominent eugenicists, in "improving the human stock". And here is where the case of Carrie Buck becomes very important….

Three categories had been devised to determine whether people should be institutionalized and then for their protection and the protection of society, should be sterilized…. a person would be determined to be either 1. an idiot, 2. an imbecile or 3. a moron. I know, this sounds ridiculous… what do these terms even mean? These categories were vaguely defined and honestly, I couldn't make sense of any of them. I don't know if these were considered legal terms or psychological terms…. but the people who were ultimately classified as such were any people who "behaved in a way that offended the sensibilities" of the middle or upper classes… people with epilepsy, alcoholism or drug addiction, anyone who exhibited signs of criminality and women who seemed to be uncharacteristically interested in sex.

Carrie Buck, a resident of Charlottesville, Virginia, was born in 1906 and her family situation was a bit complicated.Carrie's mother found it impossible to care for her daughters after her 'husband' deserted the family. Carrie's mother was then placed in the Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded; and Carrie was placed in the care of a foster family named Dobbs. John Dobbs was a police officer and he and his wife had one daughter who was slightly older than Carrie. The Dobbs family took Carrie in as a toddler and although they left her enrolled in school until the 6th grade, they treated her mainly as a servant.. not a daughter. When Carrie was removed from school, they began to loan her out to work for neighbors so that she might contribute monetarily to the household. It was in 1924 that Carrie became pregnant.. coincidentally after the extended visit of a Dobbs nephew, Clarence Garland. In a nutshell, the Dobbs knew Carrie's pregnancy would invite gossip among the neighbors and a stigma would be attached to the family. They had Carrie declared 'feebleminded' and labeled an 'imbecile'. They used her pregnancy as proof for this classification. After all, hadn't her pregnancy resulted because of her "excessive interest in sex'?

Carrie was sent to join the Colony of Epileptics and Feebleminded and it is here that she unfortunately caught the attention of Dr. Albert Priddy, the director of the colony, who was incidentally looking for a subject to use as a 'test case' in court for forced sterilization. In hearing after hearing, Carrie had no one who looked out for her interests. To say her counsel was ineffective would be a compliment. Her counsel raised no objection and had nothing to say whatsoever. Finally, the case came before the Supreme Court and that is where this travesty was completed. In an 8-1 decision, the Court ruled that Carrie Buck would have to submit to forced sterilization. Justice William Howard Taft (former president of the U.S.) , Louis Brandeis (a SUPPOSED progressive) and of course, the 'esteemed' Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. voted in favor of forced sterilization . In his opinion, Justice Holmes wrote that ".. three generations of imbeciles are enough" and that "the nation must sterilize those who sap the strength of the state". Only one Justice dissented … Pierce Butler, who wrote no dissenting opinion , although it is assumed he disagreed based on his religious beliefs.

Carrie Buck was ultimately sterilized… although this procedure was never explained to her. She believed that she had had an appendectomy. Years later, after having been married and widowed twice and having lived a quiet and productive life in Virginia, she was told she had been sterilized. This news filled her with anger and sadness which she carried the rest of her life. The daughter she had given birth to as a young woman, had been raised by the Dobbs and had died at the age of 8 from a stomach infection. Carrie had always wanted to have a couple of children and had never understood why it hadn't happened. One more thing regarding Carrie… her intelligence was found to be in the normal range… she had NOT been 'feebleminded' OR an imbecile.. she had been a pawn in a horrendous game.

I was shocked, horrified and terribly saddened by this book. And if it's a possibility, I was even MORE shocked to learn that Buck v Bell has never been overturned. It's very popular these days for people to talk a lot about American 'Exceptionalism' ; and I agree the United States and our citizens have achieved much to be proud of and that has contributed to the good of all mankind. But I also believe that we should never forget that we have engaged in horrific acts of cruelty and oppression against the powerless and most vulnerable people as well. So instead of trying to whitewash these events from our history, we should acknowledge them … so that we will never repeat them.

That Buck v Bell has never been overturned is worrisome to me. Scientists are now working on the Human Genome Project in which the goal is to map every human gene. What roads could this project lead us down? Perhaps once again,science will be twisted to quell the angst felt now over the changing face of our population. Perhaps I or my children… or perhaps you or your children will be found to possess a gene which makes us 'undesirable' or 'unfit'.

I highly recommend this book to everyone. The cast of characters is indeed large and Mr. Cohen is, at times, repetitive but this book is SO worth reading!


And one more thing… during the Nuremberg Trials, the Nazi war criminals used the American Eugenics movement as a defense of the atrocities they had committed. They had used the eugenics movement when designing their 'solution to the Jewish problem'. Think about that…….

[Kimba Tichenor · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book examines the eugenics movement in the United States and the Supreme Court's ruling in Bell v. Buck, which allowed for the sterilization of so-called undesirables. As the author notes, this ruling has not been overturned to this day. But what is truly amazing is that the author turns a fascinating topic into a tedious recitation of unrelated biographical details of the principle actors involved in this case. Yet, the author provides little contextualization of the American eugenics movement; offering no explanation for why eugenics became so popular in the late 1800s or why its popularity waned in the early 1900s only to resurge again in the 1920s. The study also fails to explore the gendered dimensions of eugenics -- the fact that women, not men, were overwhelmingly targeted for sterilization. The book does succeed in offering very detailed readings of many of the primary texts; but this strength is often lost because of the endless repetition of unnecessary biographical information and other detours from the main subject.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book takes a long look at the American eugenics movement and the key players in it through the story of how Carrie Buck, a young girl from Virginia, became the first in that state to be sterilized for being "feeble minded" after losing a Supreme Court Battle.

The Good:
I didn't know a lot about the eugenics movement. I knew that it existed and people had been sterilized, immigration laws changed, etc. I thought the book did a good job of capturing attitudes of the people involved. The inclusion of what was then cutting-edge genetics research was both horrifying and fascinating. "Horrifying and fascinating" could probably describe most of the book, actually. I learned some things, while also being continually disturbed over humanity.

My Complaints:
The organization of this book is a disaster. I didn't notice it right away, but after a while things start to repeat, multiple times. How many times did he mention that Carrie could not have a mental age of nine because she'd reached the sixth grade? I lost count. There were lots of details that were mentioned over and over as the stories of the people being profiled in the book intersected. The story of how the colony came to be on the site that it was on was in there at least twice, for example, for no apparent reason. The fact that Carrie was not actually an imbecile but a moron was put out there maybe twice a chapter. It really got on my nerves.

The other thing I would've liked more of is what happened with eugenics after the decision. The sort of immediate aftermath and statistics about sterilizations were interesting insofar as giving the scope of what happened as a result of the decision and knowing the terrible reality that many of the sterilized 1) weren't actually intellectually disabled and 2) had no idea what was being done to them. Towards the end of the conclusion, Cohen put something in there about Buck v. Bell still standing as of 2001 but he never definitively said, "This ruling still stands today" or "This ruling doesn't stand today because x." I feel like he missed an opportunity to nail his argument down. I mean, I looked it up and Buck v. Bell has never been overturned, so it seems like there was a gaping opportunity for Cohen to comment on that that, and it just zoomed on by.

All in all, if you, like me, didn't know a lot about how the eugenics movement came to be a "thing" that the supreme court eventually ruled on and you have a decent tolerance for an author repeating things to you as if you have a short term memory problem, this may be a fairly interesting read.

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The nation must sterilize those who sap the strength of the State to prevent our being swamped with incompetence."- Oliver Wendall Holmes

"Professing to be wise, they became fools."- Romans 1:22

Imbecile is the story of the Supreme Court case of Buck vs. Bell, which allowed sterilization of the "unfit" or feebleminded in the name of the eugenics movement. Yes, this was in the United States beginning in the 1920s and, for some states, staying on the books until 1979. Some of the most highly respected minds of the time were associated with either this case or the movement: Louis Brandeis, Oliver Wendall Holmes, William Taft, Theodore Roosevelt, Margaret Sanger, John D. Rockefeller, Alexander Graham Bell. It wasn't just a science craze. It had a national magazine; it was supported by social reformers and women's clubs; clergy preached it from the pulpit. Hollywood even cashed in with a "horror" movie.
Feebleminded and defective were the blanket terms most often thrown around, and left to judges and social workers of the white upperclass to define. They could mean anything from having a low IQ, to women having an abnormal interest in sex, to just being too poor, and basically comes down to the powerless against the powerful.
It is believed the Nazi party based their extermination pograms on the American eugenic movement, with Buck vs. Bell being cited during the Nuremberg trials. By this time in the book I am shocked, speechless, and disgusted. But wait, there's more!
Various scientists, researchers, and lawyers set the groundwork for this case beginning in 1921. Step one was the immigration acts of 1921 and 1924, which drastically limited the number of eastern and Southern European immigrants as well as Jews. Statistics state that in 1920 190,000 Jews immigrated to America compared to 7,000 in 1926, sealing the fate of many running from Nazi terror. Later research proves that the most famous of those affected by this law was the Frank family.
Step two was an 1895 law forbidding various "unworthy" people from marrying. Step three entailed the segregation of "undesirables" in institutions during the childbearing years, some men, but mostly young women, who all viewed as promiscuous. Finally, when all previous steps were deemed ineffective or expensive, there came step four: sterilization, first adopted, I am ashamed to say, by my home state, IN.
When VA adopted the bill, they decided to take it all the way to the US Supreme Court to make sure it was constitutional. Enter Carrie Bell. She was deemed the perfect test case for the following reasons: she had only been institutionalized for a few months; she was born into an impoverished family where the mother had already been sentenced as feebleminded; she had a baby out of wedlock; and the invalid intelligence test results stated she was an imbecile. She was given no chance to defend herself and nothing was explained to her. Does anyone else find it intolerable that the medically accepted labels for Carrie and her ilk were "idiot", "moron" and "imbecile"? Sickening
Oliver Wendall Holmes shows to be pompous windbag, a Boston brahmin who believed in an unspoken caste system in the United States. He made his career by climbing the shoulders of others in power, asking favors when necessary.
Finally Buck vs. Bell goes to trial and is appealed to the US Supreme Court simply to test a theory-that 15 million people must be sterilized to cull the feebleminded from procreating leading to a master race- not in Germany in the 1940s, but the USA in the 1920s. As the Justices are introduced I already know Carrie doesn't stand a chance. There is Holmes, whom we've already discussed, as well as two anti semites, an already well known Eugenicist, and two social Darwinists. That's who enforced our Constitution, folks. Not surprisingly, eight of the nine voted to uphold the original mVirginia decision for Carrie's sterilization.

Thanks go out to my friend, Matt, for doing a group read with me. I can't find his review' email address to add to this, but please look him up and add your thoughts.

[literaryelise · Rating 1 out of 5]

cw for review: ableism
I really enjoyed Adam Cohen's history of the supreme court which is why I picked this up. This, however, was extremely disappointing. While I do think this was a pretty solid history, it was very obviously from an abled point of view. The entire time I was reading it my internal monologue was shouting/demanding/pleading for Cohen to acknowledge that it is bottom line unacceptable/immoral/illegal/criminal/evil for someone to be sterilized against their will. He framed it as a tragedy of a person being purposefully but inaccurately categorized as an "imbecile" (in the words of the book and history) and rightfully asserts how this was a part of a larger eugenics project but!!! never did he say that forced sterilization is horrendous in and of itself. He framed the tragedy as if it was only tragic because Carrie Buck was inaccurately deemed disabled. What happened to Carrie Buck was a tragedy and it would have been so regardless of her ability status. Eugenics is immoral, wicked, and unethical regardless.

[Nicole R · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since starting law school (and even before that), I have been obsessed with constitutional law and the Supreme Court. I think it is fascinating to read their rulings, see how cases build upon each other, and to read about individual justices and how their personalities can shape a SCOTUS era.

This last year, I learned about Buck v. Bell (1927). SCOTUS found constitutional a Virginia law that allowed "imbeciles" to be sterilized. Why? Well, the story is interesting, complex, horrifying, and was a role model for Nazi Germany.

In a nutshell, eugenics was all the rage. There was a faction of scientists (I use that term loosely because they were not real empirical research scientists) who believed that "feeblemindedess" was hereditary. That unwed mothers were feebleminded, that criminality was passed in genes, and that we had to prevent these people from reproducing for the betterment of society. What it boiled down to what that poor, white people were discriminated against, (Black people were not included in this group as much mainly because other efforts were ongoing to oppress them. That is another story for another day.)

So, Virginia passed a law and created a test case to go to SCOTUS, and they chose "feebleminded" Carrie Buck. But what the author brings to light is that more than just an injustice was done; it was a collusion among rich, privileged, white men to blatantly make up "facts" and lie to the court in order to get their way. It is atrocious. It is a disgrace to the legal system.

The author tells the story of the major players: Strode, the lawyer for the state; Dr. Priddy, the original defendant as the director of the colony for the feebleminded and epileptic; Laughlin, eugenics enthusiast; Justice Holmes, author of the majority opinion; and Buck herself.

I was intrigued by all of the players, but particularly by Holmes. He is often venerated in the legal world, especially with his work on free speech. But he got this decision wrong. He is famously quoted as saying, "three generations of imbeciles is enough."

My biggest complaint of the book is that parts were very repetitive. And not just rehashing the same information, but the author seemed to have cut and pasted some sentences in multiple locations. Also, the conclusion did not flow at all and felt like he wrote it as a stand-alone summary and then just threw it into the back of the book.

Overall though, this was a brilliant look into one of our country's darkest Supreme Court decisions. A decision, by the way, which has never been overruled and is still "good law."

[Jessaka · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading bill Bryson's book, Une Summer America1927, I decided to read this book on eugenics. Bryson claimed that Germany got the idea to make a Super race of people by Learning from Americans. Well, They began their program in 1907, and we began ours in 1910. Perhaps Germany learn somethings from our program, but they had already started it.

The idea was to sterilize men and women so they could not Give birth to people who were feeble minded, blind, had other health conditions, And we're Evil. Then they would breed Each other in order to have a superior race of people. You can't breed humans Like you can animals, so this didn't work. Not that it works that well with animals either.
There Was much uproar in America over this at the program was slowly canceled, ending around 1,980.
And guess who is behind this? Racists. The catholic church was the 1st to complain, Then other people, and many states did not implement eugenics. So over the years it was slowly phased out. Prisoners,were about the last two be safe from being sterilized. Of course we all know that a doctor in TheTrump Era living in Florida was sterilizing Mexican women who were crossing the border into their State. Now, why he didn't talk about the Sterilization of Other races, I do not know, but I have a feeling that it happened. After all, it was racist who were behind the program.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

A deeply unsettling and ominously relevant review of the American eugenics movement, an all-too-often forgotten and ugly injustice which I have to confess I had little idea of the scope of before reading this book. While the actual discussion of the Supreme Court decision itself seemed a little under-researched, Cohen does a good job at outlining the sweep of this cause through the individual stories of the people involved in this groundbreaking case. Furthermore, Cohen does excellent work in placing the movement and Buck v. Bell in particular in the context of the institutional failures of civil society to protect individual rights and to safeguard the powerless against the interests of the powerful.

For a chapter of history that often goes unread, there is a lot in this book that provides a new perspective on events of our time, whether in the explicit connection Cohen makes about state power as applied to heredity in the age of CRISPR, the troublingly familiar stories of ugly reactions of elites to demographic change in America, or just in the somewhat understated reminders of the importance of vigorous, skilled, well-funded public defenders and the need to recognize that a society is only as morally upright as its treatment of those it despises.

Well worth your time.

[Cindy Leighton · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are unaware that the Supreme Court in 1927 upheld the constitutionality of sterilizing persons the government deemed "unfit" - and the way this power was used to sterilize almost exclusively poor women and men, often without their knowledge, often with ridiculous "evidence" of their "immorality" or "imbecility" - then read this book. Or read stephen Jay Gould's Mismeasure of Man to understand how such wrong headed "science" was believed and used to create horrific public policy because it reinforced racist elitist ideas and fears. Scientists are, after al, products of their culture and human.

I teach US History in high school and spend a great deal of time on Buck vs Bell and the impact in general of the eugenics movement on immigration policy and of course the horrific sterilizations. I was disappointed this book added little to my knowledge - EXCEPT the awesome parts about Oliver Wendell Holmes I of course was familiar with his "three generations of imbeciles is enough" majority opinion, but had no idea he had entertained the necessity of infanticide; that he upheld disenfranchising black voters and basically continuation of slavery in the south. The vehement racism and contempt for the poor and lesser educated is dripping in his writings. "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind."

Often the writing is stiff and formulaic. Every person is introduced with a little background info, and then the " ... Was born in.... In... To.... Into a family from.... And way too much detail about their family background- without really tying it in to show why this is relevant - sounds more like I did all this research I just want to make sure it doesn't go to waste.

Much of the information in this book has been presented in many previous books and adds little interpretation or insight that is new. I was about ready to put the book aside when I got to the terrific parts about OWH - this was new and fascinating info. Cohen is at his best when he is explaining court cases and explaining the decisions. I gave the book four stars only because I hope Cohen will reach a new audience who is unfamiliar with the heartbreaking details surrounding Carrie Buck as well as thousands of others sterilized against their will. My students are usually shocked to learn how much the Nazis were inspired by our eugenics movement. Mostly it is important to understand how "science" is a culturally embedded activity and scientists are human.

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

American history is full of injustices. Forgetting these injustices adds insult to injury. Adam Cohen reminds us of one of these injustices—a shocking case of legal shenanigans—with Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck. In 1927, the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of the forced sterilization of Carrie Buck in Buck v. Bell. In reading this book, I was shocked to discover that the ruling has not been overturned...

Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found Adam Cohen’s Imbeciles to be a excellent summarization of the Supreme Court’s 1927 Buck vs. Bell ruling, along with the key players in this case who helped turn involuntary sterilization from a rather elite fringe cause into widespread federal law.

First of all, I’d like to state what this book is not. It is not a sensationalized, jaw-dropping account of the horrific atrocities Carrie Buck and others like her were forced to suffer through, due to grossly exaggerated claims (and many times, downright falsehoods) about “hereditary mental defects” they supposedly had. It is not an overtly biased book in support of eugenics, but it doesn’t remind us how awful eugenics is, either.

This is undoubtedly an academic book, and while the subject matter may be fascinating for many, many will also not enjoy this book due to the way it’s written. What I can’t understand is how exactly those who reviewed this book negatively would have written it differently.

It’s a book about a Supreme Court judicial decision. It’s going to be academic, it’s going to be “dry.” If you’ve never read a Supreme Court opinion and either don’t understand or don’t care for legalese, then it’s a safe bet you won’t like this book.

Seriously. I’m just confused by all of the people who hated it because it was “too dry.” There were also people who hated the author for not talking more about Carrie’s side of the story (even though the author explicitly states that “the names of most of the sixty to seventy thousand victims are lost to history. Unlike Carrie and Doris, many never even got the grim satisfaction of being told what their government had done to them.” He also states that the information available on Carrie and especially throughout the trial itself is either extremely limited or, for the latter, nonexistent).

It’s because he’s writing about a Supreme Court decision and from a legal standpoint. Someone complained that he “repeatedly reminded us that he was a lawyer” but I actually do not believe this was mentioned once in the text. Unless you’re counting the “about the author” section, lol. And of course it’s important to list his credentials there because, well... you want the research and writing to have credibility.

I feel like people wanted it to be from a biographical perspective, and that’s obviously something the author not only can’t do, but isn’t trying to do. The book was amazingly well-researched and all of the “needless details about the white men who oppressed Carrie and took away her rights” were actually very much-needed. If you’re trying to establish a line of reasoning for how these highly influential people could support such a heinous law, it’s actually extremely important to understand their backgrounds and world views.

Given that pretty much all of them were born into influential families of high intellect, or came to be associated with people of high intellect through their own pursuit of higher education, it’s honestly not all that surprising to learn that people like this might favor a law in which they felt would make America a “stronger nation” (intellectually, physically, morally). These are people who have been told their entire lives that they’re superior to the rest of the population. It’s important to have that context to better understand why these individuals might see eugenic sterilization as a process which ultimately benefits society as a whole.

I did take one star off, however, because although I felt like some repetition might be necessary on occasion for the general audience (people complaining that it’s too boring) Cohen did take it a bit too far. Repeating key points throughout the book is sometimes necessary, but certain things were indeed repeated that a) weren’t key points and b) mentioned only a page or two earlier, making the repetition unnecessary.

Otherwise, I highly recommend this book for people interested in controversial legal decisions (not just controversy itself). I’m not stating that people are somehow “feeble minded” for not enjoying this book, because I know I wouldn’t particularly enjoy it if it dove too much into the eugenics science. You won’t enjoy reading a book written from a legal angle if you have no experience reading legal works, just like you won’t enjoy reading a book written from a scientific standpoint if you’re not well-versed in the science that’s being discussed.

However, it’s important to do your research on books before you read them (or at least the basics). If the book had been marketed as a “shocking expose of the trauma mass sterilization caused”, then people would be justified in their complaints. But since it’s not marketed that way, there’s really no excuse to hate a book simply because it’s not tailored to a mass audience.

I personally loved the book and had the opposite problem of many of the negative reviews: rather than having a hard time picking it up, I had a much harder time putting it down once I started. I was fascinated by how everything played out, from start to finish. The conclusion does indeed sum up where we are today in the eugenic sterilization battle, and the fact that the ruling was indeed never overturned and that many courts still cite this ruling in their decisions well into the 21st century (another complaint in reviews - that the author didn’t mention what happened after the ruling... when he clearly did).

I believe I’m getting repetitive now, lol. Let me just state again that I highly recommend this book, if you want all of the details from a legal standpoint to fully understand how this bill became federal law. If not, there are probably shorter videos on YouTube and such that will sum this case up for people who desire a more personal, exciting approach as opposed to a lengthy legal analysis.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buck v. Bell is right up there with the worst Supreme Court decisions in US history - Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson, Korematsu ... I haven't read an extended history of this before - but now I've read Cohen and this was unforgettable. Along with a detailed biography of Carrie Bell (a woman of normal intelligence), this is a study of eugenic sterilization across American history, a social history of the Progressive era, a study of the misunderstandings of human intelligence under social Darwinism, and screed about the misuses of the judicial system. Cohen's analysis of courtroom testimony by the prosecutor and Bell's defense attorney was fascinating and distressing to read - I had not realized that Buck v. Bell was a sort of test case akin to the Scopes trial, and that Bell was truly was not defended - that the ruling(s) were a fait d'accompli. The book is capped with two scathing chapters about Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr that will forever change how I think of that man.

[Bob Costello · Rating 1 out of 5]

I find it completely amazing for a book that purports to be a history of American Eugenics that it does not mention the name of the leading American eugenics organization, Planned Parenthood. PP's leader Margaret Sanger, one of America's eugenics leaders in the 1920s & 1930s, only gets two sentence in Cohen's book. What a white wash of history.

[Melissa Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is incredible and a must read . I'd call anyone who doesn't read it an "Imbecile", but I'd never lower myself to their level. For non-fiction, historical non-fiction, human rights advocates, history lovers, and anyone with a beating heart......read this.

I think it's obvious and fair of me to say that at a certain point with some ARC's you have to begin skimming the story even though you're hanging on every word and don't want to, however the release date was March 1, 2016 and it's time I mark it as read. What I did read from the beginning, every single word on every single page is unbelievable. Believable, of course because it happened, but unbelievable, disgusting, shameful, heartbreaking, eye opening and a subject of extreme high interest to me. Looking at the date and for the sake of getting some thoughts out there for the author and publisher I've skimmed, read full chapters, skimmed and so on.

There's much to say on many levels regarding this topic. About what happened then to Carrie Buck, her mother, the hundreds of thousands of others and to feel so connected to these people, especially Carrie, right from the first page caught me off guard. I thought maybe this was going to be a difficult read, lengthy and dry, but it was so far from any of those three. This story gets inside you deeply. You want to turn the clock back and change it. Change what they (so many people and people I never ever would have expected), did to Carrie Buck and the hundreds of thousands of others. To my horror, one of the places where the events from this story took places is right here in Vineland, New Jersey which is about an hour from me. People whom I spent a lifetime thinking were great people, inventors, presidents, etc., I now see in a light so incomprehensible and disgusting of their ignorance. People I looked up to as "heroes" and the places in which I knew of or have been to and loved are now places which have left my heart scarred.

The sad part is, and this will bring much debate, there are things going on today which really aren't all that different. The only difference is, is that it's done in a more "Civilized and humane way" by corrupt politicians and big Pharma. I'm not even going there right now, but if research, I mean heavy and in depth research is done, it's blaringly obvious.

With regards to this book and the time in which these atrocities took place, I'm fascinated to have learned what I didn't know before and thankful for the lessons. Hell, I highlighted, bracketed and took notes all over this book and I do not write in books if I can help it. There have been a few this year which I've done so and this one needed it. Is my knowledge of what took place then going to change the world today? Maybe not, but maybe it will help in one area in which I've been a part of for most of my life. I'm thrilled to have had a chance to have read this and learned about it. I'm grateful for that and to know that my 27+ years of research on another topic which is very close to this topic will probably help me add this to my educating on another topic that's passionately close to my heart in helping others.

Carrie Buck, Her Mother and countless others were labeled horrifically and unjustly by a system and people shamefully corrupt and ignorant. By the elite who could not/cannot even today, look at every human being and see.....a human being. They were branded like animals and worse. Their human rights, dignity, children were denied to them and in the instance of Carrie Buck hers was taken from her completely which is bad enough, but to whom they gave her child to......I still sit here hearing the echo of the *gasp* sound I made when I read it. There were many parts which I cried and one part in particular I cried with anger, but I also smiled and I want to post that paragraph, but for a few reasons I can't. One, it's and unfinished proof and two, it would take that away from other readers of this incredible book.

I will never look at some people and places the same again and that breaks my heart. Maybe someday that will change because I guess it sounds silly to hold such contempt and (do I say the word I never say, yes), 'hatred' towards people and places in which these things happened long ago, but it doesn't change the fact that there's still a lineage of people who pass down the same ways of thinking and doing, so it will take a long time for me to let that anger pass. It and Carrie Buck will always be in my heart. Never even knew the beautiful girl and the many others, but they will be with me forever after reading this.

Hatred, entitlement, ignorance, and the elite have no room in my world and I hope to whomever or whatever you believe in that those qualities never have a home in yours. Love, acceptance, understanding, compassion and caring are just some of the morals and qualities we should all live by and this book isn't one of those ways. Read it, please. Read it and see what people like Carrie Buck go through with no way out, learn from it and create change for good in this world. If you know another is being treated like this DO something!! It doesn't have to be plain as day for it to be happening still. It is right in front of millions who turn a blind and uneducated eye to it so stop!, open your eyes and help people!!!

Fantastic, fascinating and wonderful book (sad as the topic is), so please, pick a copy up and read it. Thank you so very much to #PenguinPress the author #AdamCohen and to #Goodreads for the First Reads Program for allowing the opportunity to read this book. Although I did skim as time was passing, I read enough to post the above and I'm not putting down until I've gone back and read every page and every word. Thank you so much for the educational book this is and one that holds your interest deeply.


Product Details from Amazon.com
Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher: Penguin Press (March 1, 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1594204187
ISBN-13: 978-1594204180
Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.4 x 9.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)




Amazon purchase link:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594...

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[Ross Blocher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imbeciles tells an important and sad story about the eugenics movement in the US in the early 20th century. It centers around Carrie Buck, a young woman who was used as a test case to raise a Virginia sterilization law up to the Supreme Court. The plot was successful, with Buck vs. Bell legalizing forced sterilization in 1927 in an 8-to-1 decision. Amazingly, that ruling has never been overturned.

Carrie had been labeled a "Middle grade Moron", which was something of a technical designation for the "feeble-minded" in a system that included idiots (below 3-year-old intelligence), imbeciles (between that of a 3- and 7-year-old), and morons (between that of an 8- and 12-year-old). She had also given birth out of wedlock, had the bad fortune of being poor, and had a mother also deemed feeble-minded. Her daughter, too, was labeled as having below-average intelligence. The superintendent of the "Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded" felt that she was the strongest case to put forward: a young woman who was over-sexualized and would pass along her defective "germplasm" by creating more children if she did not stay at the facility at great cost to the tax payer. Their argument was that it was in everyone's best interest, including Carrie's, to be sterilized with a salpingectomy (removal of the fallopian tubes). As famed Supreme Court judge Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. said in his majority opinion, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."

Aside from the terrible prejudice involved in these eugenic considerations, there were numerous factual errors and outright deceit on the part of Carrie's handlers. She had completed 6th grade with decent grades, and from all accounts was a woman of average intelligence who never received a full education. She and her mother were supposedly evaluated with an early version of the Binet-Simon intelligence test, but the test was culturally biased and the results were never presented in court (and may not have even existed). Her daughter, Vivian, was less than a year old at the time, and could not have been judged to be of low intelligence. Far from being overly-sexualized, Carrie had been raped by a visiting member of her adoptive family. The family decided to throw her in an institution for the feebleminded rather than face embarrassment. In court proceedings, Carrie and her teachers were never given a chance to speak on her behalf, and her supposed defenders said that she wanted the operation. In truth, she was told that she was getting an appendectomy, and didn't know until she was an old woman the reason why she could never have more children. The attorney assigned to defend her was a childhood friend of the colony's superintendent, and a eugenicist himself.

These are only some of the horrors described. Adam Cohen spends a lot of time providing the backgrounds of the primary figures in this case and the history US eugenics movement as a whole, and also the legal climate that led to this decision. A lamentable number of prominent Americans were in favor of forced sterilizations (of up to 15% of the population), and public sentiment was bolstered by its justification of racism and anti-immigration policy. The Nazis pointed to numerous US state laws (and the Buck vs. Bell decision) as excellent templates for their own eradication programs. One shocking aside was that, decades later, documentation surfaced showing the US's rejection of Otto Frank's desperate pleas to emigrate to the US (he was the father of Margot and Anne Frank). Another shocker was that California became the most prolific performer of sterilizations, having removed the reproductive faculties of over 20,000 people. The practice was never outlawed at the federal level, but slowly lost support in each state, dwindling until the last forcible sterilization in 1981. In Oregon, of all places.

There are many more interesting elements to this story, and I recommend it to anyone who finds the topic interesting. It is a substantial book that takes a while to read. I could fault it for jumping back and forth in time, being rather repetitive, and going into too much detail about certain figures... but overall it is an effectively told story of huge importance.

[Louis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adam Cohen’s Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck sheds new light on the United States Supreme Court’s Buck v. Bell decision, as well as the overall history of eugenics in the United States.

Although Buck v. Bell is rightly regarded as one of the most egregious decisions ever handed down by the United States Supreme Court, digging below the surface it becomes evident that it is even worse than it appears. Among the other abhorrent aspects of the decision is the fact that Carry Buck was never afforded due process. Furthermore many of the facts used to justify her sterilization were simply false.

For instance, those pushing for Carry Buck to be sterilized claimed she had become pregnant as the result of moral degeneracy—in reality it was the result of being raped by a relative. Additionally, the criteria for involuntary sterilization relied on the amorphous concept of “feedblemindness”, relying on intelligence tests that were subjective and of questionable validity. Cohen also suggests that Buck was actually of normal intelligence.

The most troubling aspects of all may be that eugenics was a mainstream idea at the time. Many people, including those normally associated with the Progressive Era such as Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, were in favor of it. In his capacity as Chief Justice, Taft supported the majority opinion upholding involuntary sterilization. Furthermore, the author suggests that the United States’ sterilization laws were a major influence on the Nazi policies of sterilization and genocide.

The most pertinent question of all, posed by the author, is whether eugenics could return. Buck v. Bell has never been overturned and given the racial and class hysteria that drove the rise of eugenics, it probably cannot be ruled out. However, one hopes the eugenics era is a chapter of history that remains closed for good.

Cohen's book is a relatively easily read that presents the legal nuances of the case in a non-technical manner. Above all, this book is worthwhile read for anyone interested in a largely forgotten era of American history, especially those who hope to learn from the past.

[Conor Ahern · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've always been intrigued by the case of Buck v. Bell. I did my undergraduate degree in history at UVA, and focused on American history in the South, specifically in the past Century. As someone who figured he would one day end up in law school, and Constitutional law seeming far more majestic in undergrad than in law school, I paid special attention to seminal American case law during my undergraduate studies. Carrie Buck, the plaintiff in this case, went to school at Venable Elementary School, a magnificent Palladian building where I often voted and more often passed on tippled walks to frat houses. Buck's story is somewhat incidental to the setting of this book, but it is tragic and important to know: after having been raped and gotten pregnant thereby, Ms. Buck was sterilized by the state of Virginia for having "loose morals" and for being "feeble minded."

These were the rough categories (they also lumped in epileptics, a group whose stigmatization seems even more bizarre than the others in retrospect) that somehow defied substantive due process analysis over the years and resulted in 60,000-70,000 Americans being sterilized--most of them against their will, many of them without their knowledge--in the Twentieth Century in the United States. Carrie Buck wasn't even of low intelligence, and neither was the only daughter she ever had, but the justifications never really mattered to anyone who supported eugenics, a slippery pseudoscience that prospered in the United States and gave Hitler and his ilk some of their most reprehensible and destructive ideas about racial purity and inspired their histrionics over civilizational decline.

I think my favorite feature of this book was the deserved savaging of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., a towering walrus-visaged elitist whom we are instructed to adulate as law students. Holmes' legal writing is held up as some sort of Olympian standard, and legal writing instructors practically swoon over the supposed brilliance of his prose. But I could never get it out of my head that he wrote this case--including its famous epigram that "three generations of imbeciles [was] enough"--and from this book I learned that he was not only proud of his role, but drew energy from it! What a paternalistic ghoul, and what an object case in the lack of justice afforded to the poor and marginalized, even from amongst the vaunted heroes of our judicial system.

[Rebecca McPhedran · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the true story of Carrie Buck who was the first woman in the United States to be sterilized legally. It chronicles the life of Carrie, and all of the lawyers and chief justices that had a hand in taking her ability to make decisions about her own body.
It was a gross miscarriage of justice. Her court appointed lawyer was actually rallying for the side of the eugenicists. The eugenics movement was a crazy time in the United States when scientists and intellectuals lobbied for people of the lower classes to be sterilized based on their intelligence levels. People who were uneducated, alcoholics, transient or prostitutes were institutionalized, and sterilized to protect the genetic integrity of the country. Many times they were sterilized against their will, or without knowledge of what was actually happening to them. The eugenics movement was so popular, it is a widely held belief that Adolf Hitler used some of the ideas from the prominent scientists of the movement in his plan to exterminate the Jews.
This was a very well-researched book. I felt like the author did an amazing job, trying to get all of the perspectives from all of the different players within this landmark court case. The subject matter is deeply disturbing, and I felt ashamed of another part of our country's history.

[Ctgt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eye opening and at times scary book about of the rise of eugenics in America at the beginning of the 20th century. It's never a good thing when Nazi Germany patterns their own sterilization program after those in United States.

After several setbacks in the courts, eugenic supporters in Virginia crafted a law that they hoped would set the standard and survive legal challenges all the way to the Supreme Court. They basically used Carrie Buck as their test subject, ordering her sterilization and then using dubious science and at times outright fabrication to push the case through the court system. Unfortunately for Carrie, eugenics was all the rage at the time and had many prominent adherents including former president Teddy Roosevelt and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. The law was upheld by the Supreme Court.

Of course the obvious(and scary) question is who do you sterilize and who decides? A favorite term was the feeble-minded. What defined feeble-mindedness? Good question. Depends on who you talk to, anyone from the mentally challenged, epileptic, criminals, alcoholics, dependents(the poor) , women considered to be excessively interested in sex, the blind and the deaf. Initially the sterilizations ran about 50/50 male/female but after a few years the number of women sterilized increased to 67%. The practice was used on so many poor white southern women that the procedure earned the nickname Mississippi appendectomy. Called that because Carrie Buck was told she was undergoing an appendectomy not sterilization. In fact she never realized what had been done to her until much later in life after she had been married twice. When told of the procedure she and her current husband both broke down and cried, they had been trying to become pregnant for years not knowing that Carrie was unable to bear children.

Plenty of information here but I wasn't real fond of the way it was structured, it jumped around quite a bit and spent way too much time on the background of Justice Holmes.

6/10

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

WHAT A FASCINATING SUBJECT.

“Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” (p. 270)—Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

EUGENICS IN AMERICA?  Government forced sterilizations of the feebleminded right here in the good ole U. S. of A.?  Yessiree—right here in River City.  Perhaps as many as seventy thousand, over the years. Court sanctioned; all legal and tidy like. 

And who knew? Sadly, many of its victims knew least of all what had been done to them.

Adam Cohen’s deeply researched, extensively footnoted, non-fiction offering, Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck, is incredible. Although at times densely detailed and hard to follow (a bit of a slog), at others—particularly the last three chapters—an anthem, a spotlight, of illumination on the very dark, very scary, extremely seductive ideas of eugenics.

How tempting would it be (was, and is) to be able to virtually rid society of feeblemindedness, drunkenness, addiction, and indolence—and a whole menu of ‘social defects’—all at the flash of the surgeon’s scalpel? If only the ends could justify the means…

How scary to think about in the 21st century, at the dawn, perhaps, of even designer babies.

Recommendation: Never more timely a read. Highly recommended for all who missed this chapter in high school American History.

“It [eugenic sterilization] was an idea that had strong appeal in America, particularly during the 1920s, when the middle and upper classes felt threatened by mass immigration, urbanization, and other forces that were profoundly disrupting the social order.” (p. 321)

Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition, 403 pages

[Britt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a psychologist so the history of the treatment of those with mental or cognitive disabilities has always fascinated me. The practice of forced sterilization is particularly cruel and was still in use till fairly recently. This book focuses on how eugenics, which became reviled after Hilter took a liking to it, was considered a very forward thought by many scientists in the 1800s and 1900s. It tells the story of how the States started to pass laws to force basically anyone deemed undesirable unable to have children, including epileptics, drunks, blind and deaf people, "immoral" people, etc. It was a class and race war that targeted the poor, the disenfranchised, the "weak," and immigrants. The story of Carrie Buck is important because she was the first case for sterilization in Virginia under their new law--her crime being that she grew up poor and was likely raped at 17 having an "undesirable" child. Her case makes it to the Supreme Court. Her story is an important one to tell and Cohen does extensive research to piece it all together. However, the book is very long and goes way into eugenics history for me. We don't need 200 pages on it--we get it, man. Then he focuses on all the men that took part in making the decision to sterilize Carrie. I know this kind of just reflects how it was in real life, but this is a chance to give Carrie the voice she never got and I was really sick of chapter upon chapter focusing on the men. Overall, well researched and interesting story, but I had my organizational issues with it and thought it too lengthy.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book, not just for the Carrie Buck aspect of it, but for the interrelated history.

With the controversy and debates over immigration today, it's interesting to take a look back to the early 20th century when there was a move to keep Italians, eastern European Jews and other "undesirables" from entering the U.S. because they were inferior in a number of ways, and they may even manage to pollute the US gene pool.

Did you know that during the Nuremberg Trials the Nazis used policies in the US -- and the Carrie Buck case itself -- to justify their crimes?

And, unless you've done extensive research on him, throw out everything you think you know about Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. This may make you think even more about how important the choice of a Supreme Court justice really is.

Adam Cohen explains these and many more related issues so well it's almost like reading a novel. It shines a light on a very dark time in US history that should be a must-read for people interested in history, and especially human rights.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in preparation for an interview with the author.

[Erin Cataldi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Utterly horrifying and captivating. Author, Adam Cohen, digs deep to shed light on America's horrifying obsession with eugenics by outlining the supreme court case of Carrie Buck, a young girl who was declared "feeble-minded" and sterilized. At the turn of the twentieth century America's elite were infatuated with the idea of strengthening the American race by practicing eugenics on those undesirables that society wanted to get rid of: imbeciles, criminals, people with physical and mental defects, epileptics, sexually promiscuous women and more. Nazi Germany used America's eugenics rhetoric, research, and court cases as a model for their racial cleansing plan. By the time it was finally considered faux pas and barbaric, more than 70,000 American's had been sterilized, most without their consent or knowledge. Meticulously researched (although sometimes a little bogged down with details on key figures), this book is a scary piece of America's past and very timely as bigotry continues to rise again.

[Celina Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow this is a great book. It's absolutely chilling to read about the institutions that are in place to protect American citizens completely turned against a group of people without accurate evidence. And nobody even batted an eye! Then these ideas transported themselves across the Atlantic to influence Nazi Germany. Some of the parts kinda dragged on, especially about certain character's backgrounds. However, it was easy to read and a page turner. For a history book, it really hooked me. Definite read!

[Mel Foster · Rating 5 out of 5]

You should read this book. Here are 9 reasons:
1. SCIENCE AND POLITICAL AGENDA. It will help you understand ways that past 'scientists' have allowed their agenda to control their research, conclusions, and advocacy as they attempt to coerce others to follow their agenda. Many of the men pushing for eugenics and eugenic sterilization had PhD's in Zoology, Anthropology, and other related fields. But you will find yourself agreeing with Pennsylvania governor Samuel Pennypacker, who wrote as explanation for his veto of a state involuntary sterilization program, "It is plain that the safest and most effective method of preventing procreation would be to cut the heads off the inmates, and such authority is given by the bill to this staff of scientific experts...Scientists like all men whose experiences have been limited to one pursuit...sometimes need to be restrained. Men of high scientific attainments are prone...to lose sight of broad principles outside of their domain...To permit such an operation would be to inflict cruelty upon a helpless class...which the state has undertaken to protect..."

2. AMERICA AND NAZISM. It will show you that Americans were at the forefront of the global eugenics movement and some had significant agreement with and even influence on Nazi ideology and practice via Madison Grant, Harry Laughlin, and others. You will understand that Nazism and the Holocaust were not a result of the exceptional evil of Germany, but a moral flaw deep in Western Civilization of the time.

3. BIGOTRY AND BIG GOVERNMENT. It will show the deep bigotry of the Supreme Court and other national government leaders in the early decades of the Twentieth Century. Not only their bigotry, but their capacity to cede great swathes of civil rights to the power of the state. I read with my computer at hand, searching up the various notorieties such as justices James Clark McReynolds & Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr, and Senators Ellison DuRant Smith (SC) and Robert Reynolds (NC). I knew Holmes was an eccentric with little concern for individual rights. I did not realize until this book just how deep and dark was that tendency in him, so deep that he suggested there was value in infanticide, and also wrote a friend, "Doesn't this squashy sentimentality of a big minority of our people about human life make you want to puke?"
Consider the raw truth that Ellison DuRant Smith could serve a combined 39 years in the House and the Senate--in the 20th Century--while making such statements as
"Cotton is king and white is supreme" and "Keep the Niggers down and the price of cotton up."

4. PROGRESSIVISM'S DARK SIDE. It demonstrates the dark but significant underbelly of the "progressive era"--a time when women gained the right to vote, workers gained the 8 hour workday, Native Americans became US citizens, but people in high places were working to identify "undesirable races" and individuals and stop them from reproducing or entering the country, all while lynching of black Americans and overt anti-semitism were at an all-time high in America, reaching even to Supreme Court justices.

5. IMMIGRATION POLICY. You need to understand the blatant racism behind the immigration restrictions enacted in the 1924 Immigration Reform Act, which remained largely intact till 1965, and still exerts a shadow on immigration policies today.

6. FEMINISM. You will see how a young lady was controlled her whole life by people around her because of their fear that she might reproduce, people including the couple that "took her in," her doctor, her supposed lawyer, and the man whose rape caused her to be seen as a morally weak. She was not an exception, unfortunately, but a type of her time. Victims can all too easily become re-victimized by the justice system, or other paths of government control;

7. EDUCATION and "FEEBLE-MINDEDNESS." The Binet-Simon test was designed to help identify students who needed help in the classroom with content, but it was misused in thousands of cases by scientists and social workers with an agenda to falsely label people morons, imbeciles, or idiots, whereby they could lose their rights. Heed the danger of relying too much on someone's favorite standardized test to produce results which fly in the face of common sense, but fit someone's political agenda.

8. PRECEDENT OF BUCK v BELL. Unlike several awful Supreme Court decisions of the past, such as Scott v. Sandford and Plessy v. Ferguson, Buck v. Bell has never been overturned.

9. READABILITY. Cohen has produced a book that is simultaneously accessible to a broad reading audience and excellently sourced. He spends the right amount of time giving insights into the character and personal lives of the people at the center of his story.

One pet peeve: No two chapters of a book should have the same name.

[Colin McEvoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I became very interested in reading Imbeciles after hearing Adam Cohen interviewed about the book on Fresh Air with Terry Gross. I found the subject completely fascinating and was amazed that I had never heard about this sad chapter of in recent American history, nor was I at all familiar with the Supreme Court case of Buck vs. Bell. Once I read the book, however, to be honest, I found that much of the most fascinating material had been well-covered in that Fresh Air interview. I know that sounds a bit overly harsh, especially considering that, on the whole, I did enjoy Imbeciles, and still find the topic it covers as fascinating as ever. But I found the pacing of the book left a bit to be desired, and I didn’t find it as engaged as I feel it should have been given its fascinating subject matter.

The book appears well-researched, and Adam Cohen certainly does a good job of portraying this as one of the most shameful decisions in Supreme Court history. I found it particularly interesting that this movement of the mass sterilization of the “feebleminded” came not from as a result of post-Reconstruction discrimination in southern states, but rather from progressives and intellectuals in the North who believed they were relying on modern hereditary science. It was also particularly shocking – and more than a little jarring – to learn that the United States not only predated Nazi Germany’s own eugenics policies, but that the Nazis were actually concerned America was surpassing them! Less surprising, unfortunately, is the fact that these forced sterilizations ultimately impacted poor communities; those citizens, like Carrie Buck, who were the least equipped to defend themselves, and should have expected protection, rather than ridicule, from the Supreme Court.

While I respect the amount of research Adam Cohen put into the book, and for shining a light on a topic that deserves to be better-known, I did find that Imbeciles tended to drag at times, and occasionally felt very repetitive, with Cohen repeating points that had been made in earlier chapters and, sometimes, even just a page or two earlier. Much of the book is spent on the biographies of people involved in the Buck vs. Bell case, such as the director of the colony where Buck was housed, the lawyer who took the colony’s case, and the leading national “expert” on eugenics who championed the movement. The details of these individuals’ lives was far less interesting that the political issue at the heart of the book, and it was sometimes a slog getting through those chapters.

Imbeciles picks up steam later in the book, when the Supreme Court and the case itself start to be featured more predominantly. In fact, one of the most interesting elements of the book for me was how different a light it casts on Oliver Wendell Holmes, compared to his usual perception in history. The book quite convincingly argues that Holmes’ reputation as a progressive champion of free speech is not quite a deserving one, and makes a credible case for how Holmes’ aristocratic upbringing and overly rigid view of the law could lead to him making the heartless remark that “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

For all its flaws, I still found Imbeciles to be a worthwhile read about a truly fascinating subject, and the obvious sympathy and respect that Adam Cohen feels for Carrie Buck, a woman who was profoundly wronged by powerful people and institutions of her time, certainly comes through in his writing.

[Harley · Rating 4 out of 5]

During the first half of the 20th century, the American government at various local and state levels authorized the sterilization of thousands of Americans. This book tells the horrific story of the American Eugenics movement and the attempt by progressives to purify the American bloodlines by removing feeble-minded individuals and people with epilepsy through sterilization. The core of the book traces the history of the passing of a sterilization law in Virginia and the individuals who worked to ensure that Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the law was constitutional.

Hitler and the Nazis used the work of the American Eugenics movement and the Supreme Court ruling on the Carrie Buck case to plan their own genocide and the elimination of the Jews. The Supreme Court decision was used to defend their war crimes during the Nuremberg trials.

The book also addresses the immigration law of 1924 which restricted the immigration of Italians and other southern European people in favor of immigrants from northern Europe.

Unfortunately, this book should have been a magazine article instead of a book. Too much of the book is repetitious and the author pads the story by adding short biographical information of the key players. I recommend that you read the first two chapters and maybe the last two. Skim the rest of the book if you wish.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book and I liked that it dove deep into the poor woman who was unfairly sterilized by the state of Virginia, but I feel like this book is essentially arguing that sterilization was wrong because they accidentally sterilized a 'smart' woman, rather than argue that all sterilization of all people no matter their intelligence is wrong.