This guide provides citations to books, printed materials, and related holdings on the topic of eugenics which can be found in the Indiana Division of the Indiana State Library. Several books from the general collections of the Indiana State Library are included as well.
Books
Eugenical Sterilization: A Reorientation of the Problem. New York : MacMillan Company, c1936.
Produced by the Committee of the American Neurological Association for the Investigation of Eugenical Sterilization.
613.94 A512e (General Collections)
Landman, J. H., Ph.D., J.D., J.S.D. Human Sterilization: The History of the Sexual Sterilization Movement. New York : MacMillan Company, c1932.
Includes a brief discussion of sterilization in Indiana on p. 54-56
613.94 L258h (General Collections) [Also available online at HathiTrust]
Popenoe, Paul, and Roswell Hill Johnson. Applied Eugenics. New York : MacMillan Company, 1918.
575.1 P826a (General Collections) [Also available online at Gutenberg.org]
Popenoe, Paul, and E. S. Gosney. Twenty-eight Years of Sterilization in California. Pasadena, Calif. : Human Betterment Foundation, 1938.
613.94 P826t (General Collections)
Rentoul, Robert Reid. Proposed Sterilization of Certain Mental and Physical Degenerates: An Appeal to Asylum Managers and Others. London : Walter Scott Pub. Co., 1903.
HV4989 .R42 1903 (General Collections) [Also available online at Archive.org]
Rentoul, Robert Reid. Race Culture; or, Race Suicide? (A Plea for the Unborn). London : Walter Scott Pub. Co., 1906.
HV4989 .R42 1906 (General Collections) [Also available online at Archive.org]
Rice, Thurman B., A.M., M.D. Racial Hygiene: A Practical Discussion of Eugenics and Race Culture. New York: MacMillan Company, c1929. [Also available online at HathiTrust]
Written by an Indiana University professor and chairman of the Indiana Eugenics Committee. This book is a discussion of heredity and genetics to inform the reader on good and bad human stock, inbreeding, racial poisons, differential birth rates, etc. with the view that once informed the public will support new marriage laws and other means of preserving "best germ plasma."
Ind. 575.1 R497r [Also available online at HathiTrust]
Rice, Thurman B. A Collection of Sparks From a Public Health Anvil. Indianapolis, Ind. : Indiana State Board of Health, [1930?].
"Published heretofore in the Monthly Bulletin of the Indiana State Board of Health and herewith presented with the compliments of Wm. F. King, M.D., Indiana State Health Commissioner." This is a collection of columns written by Dr. Rice, many of which relate to eugenics.
Ind. 614 R497c
Saleeby, Caleb Williams. Parenthood and Race Culture: An Outline of Eugenics. New York : Moffat, Yard and Company, 1915, c1909.
575.6 S163p (General Collections) [Also available online at Archive.org (1909), (1916, c1909)]
Whitney, Leon F. The Case For Sterilization. New York : Frederick A. Stokes Company, c1934.
613.94 W619c (General Collections) [Also available online at Archive.org]
Weeks, Genevieve C. Oscar Carleton McCullock, 1843-1891: Preacher and Practitioner of Applied Christianity. Indianapolis, Ind. : Indiana Historical Society, 1976. Author of the "Tribe of Ishmael" study.
Ind. 922 M133w [Also available online at Archive.org]
Family Histories
Around the turn of the twentieth century, scientists studied several extended families for several generations to prove that criminality, insanity, and pauperism were genetic traits found in "bad stock." Several of these histories are found in the General Collection. One, McCulloch's "Tribe of Ishmael" was a study of a family in the Indianapolis area. The Clipping file, Indianapolis - Tribe of Ishmael, contains an undated article by Nicole Hahn Rafter, which discusses the significance of these studies.
Danielson, Florence H. and Charles B. Davenport. The Hill Folk: Report on a Rural Community of Hereditary Defectives. Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y. : Eugenics Record Office, c1912.
575.7 D186d (General Collections) [Also available online at Archive.org]
Estabrook, Arthur H. The Nam Family: A Study in Cacogenics. Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y. : Eugenics Record Office, c1912.
575.7 E79d (General Collections) [Also available online at Archive.org]
Estabrook, Arthur H. The Jukes in 1915. Washington, D. C. : Carnegie Institution, c1916.
595.6 E79j (General Collections) [Also available online at Archive.org]
Estabrook, Arthur H. and Ivan E. McDougle. Mongrel Virginians: The Win Tribe. Baltimore, Md. : Williams & Wilkins Company, c1926.
575.6 E79m (General Collections) [Also available online at Archive.org]
Goddard, Henry Herbert, Ph.D. The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness. New York : MacMillan Company, c1912.
575.6 G578k (General Collections) [Also available online at Archive.org]
Winship, A. E. Jukes-Edwards: A Study in Education and Heredity. Harrisburg, Pa. : R. L. Myers & Co., c1900.
Ip 575.1 or 575.6 W777 (General Collections) [Also available online at Archive.org]
Articles
"Eugenic Sterilization in Indiana." Indiana Law Journal, Vol. 38, no. 2 (Winter 1963), pp. 275-289.
(Ind. 347.05 I385) [Also available online at Maurer School of Law Digital Repository]
Goddard, Henry H., Ph.D. "Sterilization and Segregation," Indiana Bulletin of Charities and Correction, 91st quarter (Dec. 1912), p. 424-428.
(Ind. 361 I385b) [Also available online at ScholarWorks Indianapolis]
McCormick, C. O. "Is the Indiana 1935 Sterilization of the Insane Act Functioning?" Journal of the Indiana State Medical Association, Vol. 42, no. 9 (Sept. 1949), pp. 919-920.
(Ind. 610.5 J86i) [Also available online at Internet Archive]
Rafter, Nicole Hahn. "White Trash: Eugenics as Social Ideology." Located in Clipping File, Indianapolis - Tribe of Ishmael. Journal or date not identified.
Bulletins of the Eugenics Record Office, Cold Spring Harbor, 1911-1913. (575.6 E87b General Collections)
- No. 1 - Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness [Also available online at HathiTrust]
- No. 2 - The Study of Human Heredity [Also available online at HathiTrust]
- No. 3 - Preliminary Report of a Study of Heredity in Insanity in the Light of Mendelian Laws [Also available online at HathiTrust]
- No. 4 - A First Study of Inheritance in Epilepsy [Also available online at HathiTrust]
- No. 5 - A Study of Heredity of Insanity in the Light of the Mendelian Theory [Also available online at HathiTrust]
- No. 6 - The Trait Book [Also available online at HathiTrust]
- No. 7 - The Family History Book [Also available online at HathiTrust]
- No. 8 - Some Problems in the Study of Heredity in Mental Diseases [Also available online at HathiTrust]
- No. 9 - State Laws Limiting Marriage Selection Examined in the Light of Eugenics [Also available online at HathiTrust]
- Report No. 1 - The Eugenics Record Office at the End of Twenty-seven Months Work [Also available online at HathiTrust]
Indiana Laws
Made sterilization of inmates in state mental health facilities compulsory but was ruled unconstitutional by the Indiana Supreme Court in 1921, because it violated procedural due process under the fourteenth amendment of the federal constitution because it failed to give the patient an opportunity for a hearing.
Ind. Acts 1907, ch. 215 [Also available online at HathiTrust]
Similar to the 1907 law except that it provides for a thirty day notice giving the inmate and his guardians time to prepare a defense, if desired.
Ind. Acts 1927, ch 241 [Also available online at HathiTrust]
Further stipulates that whenever an application for the commitment of any "idiot, imbecile or feeble-minded" is made, the physicians are to certify to the court as to whether or not the applicant is cacogenic, or whether his/her debility is due to bad genes.
Ind. Acts 1931, ch. 50 [Also available online at HathiTrust]
Similar to the 1931 law except that it refers to applications for the commitment of insane persons.
Ind. Acts 1935, ch. 312 [Also available online at HathiTrust]
Thesis Hall, Stephen Ray. Oscar McCulloch and Indiana Eugenics. [microform]. Ann Arbor, Mich. : University Microfilms, 1993.
Clipping Files
- Eugenics
- Indianapolis - Tribe of Ishmael
Newspaper Index Subject Headings
- Eugenics
- Rice, Dr. Thurman B.
- Sterilization
- Tribe of Ishmael
IN MF 3/26/2026