Capacity in the hall is limited, so please RSVP by submitting this form.
The SLC’s mission is to provide a unique living laboratory that educates and encourages sustainable practices in daily life, and we believe that understanding the history of this living laboratory is important to achieving our mission.
The third presentation in this series is “Fairview and Oregon’s Radical Eugenics Program in the Twentieth Century”, presented by Kimberly Jensen, Professor of History and Gender Studies at Western Oregon University.
The Oregon State Institution for the Feeble Minded (OSIFB), renamed Fairview in 1933, was at the center of the state’s eugenic sterilization program in force from 1917 to 1983. This presentation will provide an overview of eugenics in Oregon and the nation and Oregon’s broad eugenic categories related to “feeblemindedness” and “degeneracy” that targeted people of color, gender nonconforming people, people who challenged social norms, and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We will consider how state-coerced sterilization impacted OSIFB and Fairview residents, including policies about parole and discharge, and how the institution’s hospital became a destination for dozens of girls and young women who were inmates of the Oregon State Industrial School for Girls (later Hillcrest) for their own coerced sterilizations between 1926 and 1951.
Kimberly Jensen received her Ph.D. in U.S. and women’s history at the University of Iowa and is professor of history and gender studies at Western Oregon University. She is the author of Mobilizing Minerva: American Women in the First World War (University of Illinois, 2008), Oregon’s Doctor to the World: Esther Pohl Lovejoy and a Life in Activism (University of Washington, 2012), and Oregon’s Others: Gender, Civil Liberties, and the Surveillance State in the Early Twentieth Century (University of Washington, 2024) and a number of book chapters and articles. Several articles have been recognized with awards including the Charles DeBenedetti Prize in Peace History, 2019-2020 and the Joel Palmer Award from the Oregon Historical Quarterly in 2008 and 2018. Jensen works to make history accessible to diverse and broad audiences as a member of the executive and editorial boards of the Oregon Encyclopedia.
Personal webpage https://kimberlyjensen.net/
WOU webpage https://wou.edu/wp/kimjensen/
Oregon’s Others: University of Washington Press https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295752587/oregons-others/
This is a free event, but we welcome donations to help support events like this and the ongoing work of the SLC. You can donate online or at the event.
Capacity in the hall is limited, so please RSVP by submitting this form.
We are still finalizing details for other presentations in the Willamette Valley History Series; in the meantime check the SLC events page for updates and sign up to receive email updates