Ry Marcattilio-McCracken is an associate director for research at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. He is also an adjunct professor of history at Oklahoma State University.
An important contribution to the large corpus on eugenics but especially to the expanding niche of case studies of the application of eugenic ideas in particular contexts. Marcattilio-McCracken's book provides a well-documented and contextualized case study that demonstrates how pseudoscientific theories of eugenics were reified into policy and translated into action, fundamentally altering the lives of innocent girls. Deemed 'incorrigibles' by the state, the girls were denied the ability to reproduce--a fundamental human right. --Marsha L. Richmond, coeditor in chief of the Journal of the History of Biology