| Description |
240 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
| Contents |
Prologue: an intellectual seduction -- The justice, the governor, and the dictator -- The brain trust -- Thoroughbreds -- Heat and love -- White trash -- Skinner's trial -- The Supreme Court in 1937 -- Science in a foreign mirror : 1937/1941 -- Deciding Skinner -- Epilogue : failures of modern memory |
| Summary |
"In the 1920s and '30s, thousands of men and women were sterilized in America. Believing that criminality and mental illness were inherited, state legislators passed laws calling for the sterilization of "habitual criminals" and the "feebleminded." Finally, a man named Jack Skinner became the test case in fighting sterilization laws - and the popularity of American eugenics - all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court." "A colorful and heroic cast of true-life characters populate this extraordinary legal and social drama - from the inmates themselves to their self-taught back-country lawyer, Claud Briggs, who took on their case; and "Alfalfa Bill" Murray, the eccentric, demagogic good-old-boy governor of Oklahoma, who sought to advance his state by using the threat of sterilization to drive out criminals." |
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"Combining sharp legal analysis with engrossing narrative, Victoria F. Nourse explains the consequences of this landmark decision - increasingly vital today as ever more genetic information becomes widely available - and vividly shows the danger of letting scientific authority determine the law."--BOOK JACKET |
| Notes |
Formerly CIP. Uk |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Subject |
Skinner, Jack T., -1977 -- Trials, litigation, etc
|
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Skinner, Jack T., -1977.
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Involuntary sterilization -- Law and legislation -- Oklahoma.
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Involuntary sterilization -- Law and legislation -- United States.
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Eugenics -- United States -- History.
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| LC no. |
2008013140 |
| ISBN |
9780393065299 (hbk.) |
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0393065294 (hbk.) |
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