Admiral Wieland
Ph.D. Student, U.S. History
TRACING EUGENICS IN INDIANA
My name is Admiral S. Wieland and I am a second year PhD student in U.S. History. My research interests are rooted in the Progressive Era (roughly 1880-1920), and the eugenic programs of the Midwest. In particular, I'm interested in the criminalization, medicalization, pathologization, incarceration, objectification, and dehumanization of and experimentation on othered people who exist within the nexus of race, gender, class, ability, sexuality by the state, particularly in the name of "betterment." Presently, I'm researching Indiana's eugenic program and the forcible sterilization of incarcerated men, particularly at the Jeffersonville Reformatory/Indiana State Prison South, by Dr. Harry C. Sharp. For this project, I plan to help update and add to existing digital resources and scholarship created by IUPUI and the Indiana State Archives surrounding Indiana’s compulsory sterilization law enacted in 1907 and finally repealed in 1974.