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Doctor Albert Priddy (1865-1927) was the superintendent and leading physician at the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded from 1910-1927. He strongly supported the eugenics movement and during his time at Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded carried out many unauthorized forced sterilizations. Many of the patients Priddy operated on were considered insane or morons, when in reality little evidence supported this other than Priddy's own behavioral evaluations, citing things such as promiscuity and low IQ. He is best known for his involvement in the case Buck v. Bell, in which the practice of female sterilizations in mental institutions was called into question.

Albert Priddy
Born	1865
Died	1927
Occupation	Physician

Childhood-Early Career

Albert Sydney Priddy was born in 1865 in Virginia. Little is known about Priddy’s childhood and upbringing. What is known is that Priddy completed his physician’s training at the young age of twenty years old. After this he began his career as a doctor, taking early interest in the field of Eugenics. Priddy spend the few decade and a half of his medical career building his reputation as an innovative and brilliant surgeon. He learned more about mental illness (still a widely unmapped area in America the time) during his time as a physician at the Virgina Asylum at Marion. Priddy also gained some political skills during his two terms as a delegate to the General Assembly. Due to his renown status Priddy was often called as an expert witness in insanity cases. In 1910 Priddy was chosen to be the superintendent of the new state colony, the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded.

Main Career

As superintendent Priddy was given full authority to pursue his eugenic ideas. He described his patients at the colony as basically the bottom of the barrel of society, labeling them as “insane, pitiful, mentally defective and epileptic.”  Priddy himself felt those who were feebleminded were a “blight on mankind” and treated patients according to his distaste for them, using the colony as a means to both stow away and decrease the feebleminded population. He felt it was his personal mission as a state physician to deal with the social issues created by individuals who came to the colony. He did this by first separating the female and male patients, then to proposing sterilizations to ensure these "morons" could not reproduce thus creating more of the problem. In 1911 Priddy made his first call for a sterilization law for all prisons and charitable institutions. He asked lawmakers to restrict marriages of the insane, and permit legal sterilizations for the benefit of all society. He continued to advocate for sterilization, and after a1916 statute was created (which allowed surgery designed to benefit the “physical, mental or moral” condition of inmates") Priddy started sterilizations of female members of the colony. However Priddy’s actions did not go unnoticed.

Mallory Lawsuit

In September 1916 Virginia resident George Mallory filled several suits Priddy and the Colony after his wife and two daughters were forced into the colony against their will while Mallory was away from the home. The local authorities claimed the home was prone to exposing the chidden to immoral influences and without contacting the father decided to put the children in the *Children’s Home Society while Mrs.Mallory and her two eldest daughters would be sent to the Virginia Colony. It would be there that as superintendent Priddy performed a sterilization on Mrs.Mallory. Finding out about this news George Mallory first filed two suits for the writ of *habeas corpus to release the two older children which were successful. Mr. Mallory’s third suit however was on damages to his wife and their family after Priddy performed a claimed unwarranted sterilization without Mrs. Mallory’s knowledge of what the operation was. Priddy’s defense argued the operation was necessary for Mrs.Mallory’s health and that without it she would have surely died from a pelvic related disease. Priddy also cited the 1916 state as cause for such action, and the jury ended up siding with Priddy.

Later Career

Following the his win in the Mallory case, Priddy continued campaigning for legalized sterilizations and had a bill introduced to the General Assembly for this purpose which was unsuccessful. In 1919 Priddy enlisted the aid of his lawyer colleague Aubrey E. Strode to help him draft bills protecting physicians in future suits like the Mallory Case. Both were enacted in 1920 but did not achieve Priddy’s goal in specific legislation on sterilizations. Priddy again went to Strode for help in creating another bill, which this time specified legal sterilizations for the insane and was enacted in 1924. Sterilizations were fully legal, yet Priddy wanted to ensure another Mallory case couldn’t follow from this bill. He proposed a test case to expose any flaws in the bill and prepare litigation. Strode proposed how he would argue the case to the Colony Board who agreed to see this “test case” through as a precautionary measure. Priddy chose the proposed sterilization of Colony member Carrie Buck for the case.

Buck V. Bell

Strode was chosen as defense council representing Bell another physical at the Colony, and Irving P.Whitehead was chosen as council for the plaintiff on behalf of Carrie Buck. In this case, Priddy played a major role as an expert witness. He gave extensive testimony both to Buck’s psychological state and her behavior at the Colony. Priddy gave a full length history of Buck’s lineage, pointing out to the jury that her mother was also a member at the Colony who had been deemed insane. Priddy also told he jury that Carrie Buck’s young daughter showed early signs of feeblemindedness as well. As the eugenics movement at the time was highly based in passing down traits of mental illness, this was substantial evidence. However, what wasn’t made aware to the jury was that most of Priddy’s evidence was not backed with real facts but his opinion alone. The defense attorney for Carrie Buck, Irving P. Whitehead was another colleague of Priddy and chose not to call any witnesses, instead offering little defense. As a result the colony won, but this case caught public attention and in 1926 petitions succeeded in bringing the case to the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court Appeal

Priddy died shortly after the first trial, and therefore physical John H. Bell took over as superintendent and head of the Colony. After Priddy passed that the case was sent to the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals in 1926. In May of 1927 the court ruled that Carrie Buck should be sterilized in an 8-1 vote. Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. stated that “three generations of imbeciles were enough.” Since then the truth about Priddy’s orchestration of the trial in work with both Strode and Whitehead emerged, as well as the knowledge that many of his claims against Buck were unfounded. The state of Virginia has apologized for this ruling in recent years, but the ruling still stands.

Impact

Since the Buck v. Bell Trial Albert Priddy has come to be known as a central figure in the American Eugenics movement and also in the political and scientific world. After the case was over, it enforced the acceptance of sterilizations for decades. Priddy's involvement in the case showed how valuable and instantly validated expert testimony was treated at that time. His use of graphs and charts swayed the jury into agreeing that sterilization was the only way to better society was stopping the expansion and reproduction of morons in society. Priddy’s passion for advancing the eugenics movement sheds light on the scientific approach to this idea. Priddy’s history has been researched by Professor Paul A. Lombardo from Georgia State University, and in his published works have alleged the role Priddy played in orchestrating a win from the start in the the Buck v. Bell case including his fabrication of evidence, and bias of association with opposing council.

References

Category:Eugenics in the United States