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Title The Lynchburg story : eugenic sterilization in America / directed by Stephen Trombley and produced by Bruce Eadie
Published New York, NY : Filmakers Library, 1995
Alexandria, VA : Alexander Street Press, 2011

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Description 1 online resource (1 video file (51 min.)) : sound, color
Series Filmakers Library online
Summary 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
Notes Originally released as DVD
Title from resource description page (viewed May 24, 2011)
Credits Director of photography, Paul Gibson; production assistants: Adrien Zubrin, Jon Goldberg, Daniel Hodges; music, Robert Lockhart; film editor, Peter Miller
Audience For College; Adult audiences
Notes English
Certificate of Merit, San Francisco International Film Festival, 1994
Banff Television Fest., 1994
In Filmakers library
Subject Eugenics -- Virginia -- History -- 20th century
Involuntary sterilization -- Virginia -- History -- 20th century
Eugenics.
Involuntary sterilization.
Virginia.
Genre/Form Documentary
History.
Documentary.
Form Streaming video
Author Eadie, Bruce