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George H. Lawrence, Some Factors Concerning Sterilization, Based upon a Study in Orange County, North Carolina (1947).Open the sourceAll sources
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- Civil rights era · 1945–1975
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The State Eugenics Board begins a county-wide study of mental illness and disability in Orange County
The North Carolina Eugenics Board chose Orange, a county of about 24,000 people that it judged typical of the state, to measure how many residents had been labeled mentally ill or mentally deficient, with an eye to its sterilization program. Field secretary George H. Lawrence gathered the records of the board, state hospitals, Caswell Training School, the draft board, school group tests and the county welfare and health departments.
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The eugenics study counts Orange County draft rejections on mental grounds
Of about 6,000 Orange County men aged 18 to 38 registered for the draft by August 1945, 2,431 were accepted and 1,460 rejected; 622 of the rejections, 42.3 percent, were for a mental condition, and 357 of those were classed as mental deficiency. Lawrence warned that 133 of the 357 had simply failed the minimum intelligence standard, a category he said often stood in for illiteracy.
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The eugenics study gives group intelligence tests to Orange County elementary pupils
As part of the Eugenics Board study, every elementary school child in the county was to be group-tested; of the first 2,900 tested, 489 (just over 15 percent) scored below 70 and 111 scored 60 or under. Lawrence conceded the tests had been built and normed mainly on white children and might not be valid for Black pupils.
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The eugenics study finds 48 sterilizations among the Orange County residents it has recorded
Outside the draft rejections, the study had compiled records on 336 county residents aged 18 to 38 by spring 1946, classing 233 as mentally deficient and 88 as mentally ill. Thirty-three of the 336 had been sterilized under Eugenics Board orders and 15 more had been sterilized for physical reasons on the county welfare department's recommendation.
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Eugenics Board field secretary George H. Lawrence publishes the Orange County sterilization study
In the North Carolina Medical Journal, Lawrence argued from the Orange County figures that mental deficiency ran highest among poor, rural and Black residents, and he urged doctors to recommend sterilization to such patients and refer them to the county welfare superintendent, who filed the petitions. He wrote that the board sought wider use of the existing law rather than mass sterilization.
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Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 4, 2026.
