FROM THE CASE FILES - RECONSTRUCTING A HISTORY OF INVOLUNTARY STERILIZATION

Although it is well-known that numerous jurisdictions in North America adopted legislation in the first half of the twentieth century allowi ng the involuntary sterilisation of persons diagnosed as 'mentally def icient', analysis of its implementation has rarely progressed beyond t he examination of the legislation and the aggregate data presented in official reports. In this paper we analyse the case files of the Eugen ics Board for the province of Alberta. The primary sources contained i n these files reveal something of the hand of officialdom: clinical re ports, diagnoses, test results and 'patient' history. The files allow glimpses of the individual stories of those who were sterilised Much m ore directly, they present the case made for involuntary sterilisation from professional, often custodial perspectives. Thus, they afford us a richer understanding of the culture which sanctioned the practice o f forcible sterilisation.