Junior League of Augusta & Nora Nixon
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The Summerville News announces the Georgia state legislature passed a bill legalizing eugenic sterilization for those considered likely “to procreate a child or children who would have a tendency to serious physical, mental or nervous disease or deficiency.” March 4, 1937.
Courtesy of the Georgia Newspaper Project, Georgia Historic Newspapers.
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Architectural drawing of the Georgia Training School for Mental Defectives in Gracewood, Georgia.
Courtesy of Kennesaw State University Department of Archives, Rare Books and Records Management, Gregson and Ellis Architectural Drawings.
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Architectural and interior design plans for the dormitory building at the Georgia Training School for Mental Defectives in Gracewood, Georgia.
Courtesy of Kennesaw State University Department of Archives, Rare Books and Records Management, Gregson and Ellis Architectural Drawings.
Eugenics gained a foothold in Georgia in the 1910s when women’s organizations and medical associations successfully campaigned for legislation mandating sexually segregated public institutions for those deemed mentally “unfit.” One such women’s organization was the Junior League of Augusta, who would become strong proponents of eugenics through their work, organizing health clinics and milk drives for children living in poverty. Believing that poor women were burdened with unwanted children who exacerbated their financial struggles, the League opened Augusta’s first birth-control clinic under the direction of Nora Nixon. Nixon would become a leading advocate of the eugenics movement while attending lectures on the subject at the University of Georgia and while volunteering at the Georgia Training School for Mental Defectives at Gracewood. After encountering “feeble-minded persons living in appalling conditions” at Gracewood and hearing that “feeble-mindedness” was an inherited trait at university lectures, Nixon became committed to legalizing mandatory eugenic sterilization. Nixon and her fellow League members traveled throughout Georgia petitioning politicians and organizing lectures for civic groups in order to gain support for laws that would eliminate reproductive potential among people considered mentally “defective.” Believing cognitive disabilities to be genetic indicators of social inferiority and an economic burden on public resources, the League actively promoted laws enforcing compulsory sexual sterilization and Georgia became the last state in the nation to make eugenic sterilization legal in 1937.