# Joseph DeJarnette

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American physician and activist (1866–1957)

Joseph DeJarnette Director of Western State Hospital In office 1905–1943 Personal details Born (1866-09-29)September 29, 1866 Spotsylvania County, Virginia, U.S. Died September 3, 1957(1957-09-03) (aged 90) Staunton, Virginia, U.S. Spouse Chertsey Hopkins ​ (m. 1906)​ Relatives Daniel Coleman DeJarnette Education Virginia Commonwealth University (MD) Profession Physician

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Part of a series on Eugenics in the United States States States California Minnesota North Carolina Oregon Law Court cases Buck v. Bell Skinner v. Oklahoma Madrigal v. Quilligan Poe v. Lynchburg Training School & Hospital Stump v. Sparkman Doe ex. rel. Tarlow v. District of Columbia History Institutions American Birth Control League American Eugenics Society Eugenics Record Office Race Betterment Foundation Human Betterment Foundation Society for Biodemography and Social Biology Pioneer Fund Human Betterment League Heredity Commission AASPIM General Jukes family Average Young American Male (1921) The Relf Sisters Oneida stirpiculture Selective Reproduction of Slaves Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924 Literature Books The Kallikak Family (1912) The Passing of the Great Race (1916) The Rising Tide of Color (1920) Eugenics manifesto (1939) The Bell Curve (1994) Journals Annals of Eugenics Proponents Academics Harry H. Laughlin Joseph DeJarnette David Starr Jordan Edwin Katzen-Ellenbogen Charles Goethe Charles Benedict Davenport Gertrude Crotty Davenport Frederick Osborn Madison Grant Edward Alsworth Ross Charles Van Hise Politicians Guy W. Bailey Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr. Related Scientific racism Social degeneration theory Social purity movement Feeble-minded Racial nationalism "Race suicide" Sterilization of Latinas Sterilization of Native American women United States portal Category Index v t e

**Joseph Spencer DeJarnette** (September 29, 1866 – September 3, 1957) was the director of [Western State Hospital](/source/Western_State_Hospital_(Virginia)) (located in [Staunton, Virginia](/source/Staunton%2C_Virginia)) from 1905 to November 15, 1943.[1] He was a vocal proponent of [racial segregation](/source/Racial_segregation) and [eugenics](/source/Eugenics), specifically, the [compulsory sterilization](/source/Compulsory_sterilization) of the mentally ill.[2][3]

## Early life

Joseph DeJarnette was born on his family's plantation, *Pine Forest*, in [Spotsylvania County, Virginia](/source/Spotsylvania_County%2C_Virginia) to parents Elliott Hawes DeJarnette, formerly a Captain in the [Confederate Army](/source/Confederate_Army) and [Evelyn Magruder DeJarnette](/source/Evelyn_Magruder_DeJarnette). The DeJarnettes were descended from French [Huguenot](/source/Huguenot) immigrants who settled in Virginia during the colonial period and had been prominent Virginia [planters](/source/Planter_class) for generations. An earlier Joseph DeJarnette had founded the "Spring Grove" plantation in nearby [Caroline County](/source/Caroline_County%2C_Virginia) in 1740, built a home about a half mile east of the modern Mattaponi River Bridge (Route 301), served as a local road overseer (as had his son Joseph Jr.) and debt collector, and came to own about 5000 acres between the Mattaponi River and Maracossic Creek.[4] That Joseph's second son (this man's uncle), [Daniel C. DeJarnette](/source/Daniel_Coleman_DeJarnette_Sr.) (1822-1881), had been the first family member to achieve political prominence, for he had served as one of Caroline County's representatives in the [Virginia House of Delegates](/source/Virginia_House_of_Delegates) in 1853 and later in the [U.S. House of Representatives](/source/U.S._House_of_Representatives) as well as the [Confederate Congress](/source/Confederate_Congress) during the [Civil War](/source/American_Civil_War). His maternal grandfather [Benjamin Henry Magruder](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Benjamin_Henry_Magruder&action=edit&redlink=1) (1808-1885) was also a prominent Virginia lawyer and legislator.

During this man's career, two distant relatives served in the [Virginia House of Delegates](/source/Virginia_House_of_Delegates), and were thus partly responsible for funding various state institutions at or with which Dr. DeJarnette worked. R.L. Dejarnette (1861-1922) represented [Halifax County](/source/Halifax_County%2C_Virginia) where the earlier Joseph's son James had settled after receiving land grants for his Revolutionary War Service. [Edmund DeJarnette](/source/Edmund_DeJarnette_(politician)) (1897-1966) served in the Virginia House of Delegates representing nearby [Hanover](/source/Hanover_County%2C_Virginia) and [King William Counties](/source/King_William_County%2C_Virginia).

## Early career and personal life

After graduating from the [Medical College of Virginia](/source/Medical_College_of_Virginia) in 1888, Dr. DeJarnette practiced at the [R. E. Lee Camp Confederate Soldiers' Home](/source/R.E._Lee_Camp_Confederate_Soldiers'_Home) in Richmond for a year before joining the staff of the Western Lunatic Asylum in Staunton. The asylum was renamed "Western State Hospital" in 1894. On February 14, 1906, he married a colleague, Dr. Chertsey Hopkins, a physician at Western State Hospital, as he was advised that being a married man was necessary for career advancement. She continued to practice medicine following the marriage and the couple had no children.[5]

## Career

In 1906, DeJarnette worked with [Aubrey Strode](/source/Aubrey_Strode) and [Albert Priddy](/source/A._S._Priddy) to establish the [Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded](/source/Virginia_State_Colony_for_Epileptics_and_Feebleminded) in [Lynchburg](/source/Lynchburg%2C_Virginia).[6]

A devout [Presbyterian](/source/Presbyterian), DeJarnette supported the [temperance movement](/source/Temperance_movement).[*[citation needed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed)*] He believed that sterilizing people with certain traits that he believed to be hereditary would prevent these traits from being passed on to future generations.[7] "To this class of the unfit belong the [insane](/source/Insane), the [epileptic](/source/Epileptic), the [alcoholic](/source/Alcoholic), hereditary criminal, the [syphilitic](/source/Syphilitic), the [imbecile](/source/Imbecile) and the [idiot](/source/Idiot), and none of these should reproduce," DeJarnette wrote. "If proper steps be taken, the unfit can be made to grow annually smaller, and finally disappear entirely from our registers."[7]

In the early 1920s, DeJarnette, began lobbying intensively for the Commonwealth of [Virginia](/source/Virginia) to pass a compulsory sterilization law. He became so frustrated with his opponents in the [Virginia assembly](/source/Virginia_assembly) that he said "When they voted against it, I really felt they ought to have been sterilized as unfit."[8] When [E. Lee Trinkle](/source/Elbert_Lee_Trinkle), a longtime political colleague of Strode and supporter of the eugenics movement, was elected [Governor of Virginia](/source/Governor_of_Virginia) in 1922, DeJarnette achieved an influential political supporter for his campaign. In order for the bill to pass the legislature, the men focused on changing public sentiment by broadening the public’s knowledge of eugenic science and the laws of hereditary defect. Governor Trinkle released a report on the critical financial condition of the Commonwealth. Within the report, Trinkle reported that one of the largest contributions to Virginia’s dire financial state was the increased spending on institutionalizing what he called "defectives". Trinkle advocated the compulsory sterilization law as a cost-saving strategy for public institutions that had experienced growth in the incarceration of what he referred to as feeble-minded and defective populations. Trinkle added that legalizing sterilization for the insane, epileptic, and feeble-minded persons would allow these patients to leave the institutions and not propagate their own kind. Virginia's "Eugenical Sterilization Act," was signed into law by Trinkle on March 20, 1924. DeJarnette testified against [Carrie Buck](/source/Carrie_Buck) as an expert witness in the important eugenics case *[Buck v. Bell](/source/Buck_v._Bell)*, in which the [United States Supreme Court](/source/United_States_Supreme_Court) affirmed the constitutionality of Virginia's eugenics law, in a case that has been questioned since but never expressly overruled.[8]

In 1932, DeJarnette opened a self-supporting, semiprivate mental hospital for [middle-income](/source/Middle-income) patients, adjacent to Western State which the General Assembly named the [DeJarnette State Sanatorium](/source/Dejarnette_Sanitarium) after him. In 1933, when [Adolf Hitler](/source/Adolf_Hitler) rose to power as [Chancellor of Germany](/source/Chancellor_of_Germany) and established a zealous eugenics program, DeJarnette watched with interest and praised [Nazi eugenics](/source/Nazi_eugenics) policy. In 1934, he begged the General Assembly to extend Virginia's sterilization law stating; "the Germans are beating us at our own game and are more progressive than we are."[9]

In 1938, DeJarnette compared the progress of [eugenics in the United States](/source/Eugenics_in_the_United_States) unfavorably with that in [Nazi Germany](/source/Nazi_Germany), stating "Germany in six years has sterilized about 80,000 of her unfit while the United States with approximately twice the population has only sterilized about 27,869 to January 1, 1938 in the past 20 years... The fact that there are 12,000,000 defectives in the US should arouse our best endeavors to push this procedure to the maximum."[8]

DeJarnette was also a poet of sorts. He wrote a poem entitled *Mendel's Law: A Plea for a Better Race of Men*, which he read in public on a number of occasions.[10] An excerpt follows:

This is the law of [Mendel](/source/Gregor_Mendel), And often he maken it plain, Defectives will breed defectives, And the insane breed insane. Oh why do we allow these people To breed back to the monkey's nest, To increase our country's burdens When we should only breed the best?

In 1943, State Hospital Board board removed him as superintendent of Western State due to concerns over his [autocratic](/source/Autocratic) leadership style and the decrepit condition of the hospital. He remained in charge of the semi-private DeJarnette Sanatorium until 1947 and continued to advocate eugenics after the [Nazi Holocaust](/source/Nazi_Holocaust) was exposed at the end of [World War II](/source/World_War_II).[9]

## Death and legacy

DeJarnette died in 1957 and was interred next to his wife, who had predeceased him, in her family cemetery in [Bath County, Virginia](/source/Bath_County%2C_Virginia).[9]

The [DeJarnette Sanatorium](/source/Dejarnette_Sanitarium), opened in 1932, was named for him in his lifetime. In the 1960s, after his death, the name was changed to The DeJarnette Center for Human Development. It was converted to a children's mental hospital in 1975, at which time it ceased to be a private enterprise, and the state of Virginia took over operation of the facility. In 1996, a new complex known as the DeJarnette Center was constructed. Although eugenic sterilization continued in Virginia until 1979,[11] by the turn of the 21st century eugenic ideas were no longer considered [politically correct](/source/Politically_correct) and were being widely rejected as [pseudoscience](/source/Pseudoscience). This has significantly harmed the reputation of DeJarnette and other 20th century eugenicists whose ideas were once considered scientific and progressive. In 2001, the Virginia General Assembly renamed the Dejarnette Center the [Commonwealth Center for Children and Adolescents](/source/Commonwealth_Center_for_Children_and_Adolescents) due to Dr. DeJarnette's involvement with eugenics.[9]

## See also

- [Racial Integrity Act of 1924](/source/Racial_Integrity_Act_of_1924)

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-virginia_1-0)** ["Western State Hospital"](https://web.archive.org/web/20150801124036/http://www.wsh.dbhds.virginia.gov/history.htm). Virginia.gov. Archived from [the original](http://www.wsh.dbhds.virginia.gov/history.htm) on August 1, 2015. Retrieved June 8, 2015.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-EV_2-0)** Dorr, Gregory Michael. ["Joseph Spencer DeJarnette (1866–1957)"](http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/DeJarnette_Joseph_Spencer_1866-1957). [Encyclopedia Virginia](/source/Encyclopedia_Virginia)/[Dictionary of Virginia Biography](/source/Dictionary_of_Virginia_Biography). Retrieved March 9, 2015.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** ["The Free Lance-Star - Google News Archive Search"](https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=StVNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=uYoDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3510,1557962). *news.google.com*.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** Virginia Lee Hutcheson Davis, Tidewater Virginia Families Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc 1989) pp. 294-295 as well as historical marker

1. **[^](#cite_ref-5)** ["DeJarnette, Joseph S. (1866–1957)"](https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/DeJarnette_Joseph_Spencer_1866-1957). *encyclopediavirginia.org*.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-bruinius_6-0)** Bruinius, Harry (2007). *Better for All the World: The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and America's Quest for Racial Purity*. New York: [Vintage Books](/source/Vintage_Books). [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-375-71305-7](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-375-71305-7).

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-News_Leader_7-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-News_Leader_7-1) ["DeJarnette's ugly, complicated legacy"](https://www.newsleader.com/story/news/local/2014/03/22/dejarnettes-ugly-complicated-legacy/6753737/). *The News Leader*. Retrieved October 28, 2018.

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-eugenics_8-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-eugenics_8-1) [***c***](#cite_ref-eugenics_8-2) ["Eugenics in Virginia"](https://web.archive.org/web/20110810225813/http://www.hsl.virginia.edu/historical/eugenics/4-influence.cfm). Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, [University of Virginia](/source/University_of_Virginia). Archived from [the original](http://www.hsl.virginia.edu/historical/eugenics/4-influence.cfm) on August 10, 2011. Retrieved August 2, 2011.

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-encyclopediavirginia.org_9-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-encyclopediavirginia.org_9-1) [***c***](#cite_ref-encyclopediavirginia.org_9-2) [***d***](#cite_ref-encyclopediavirginia.org_9-3) ["DeJarnette, Joseph S. (1866–1957)"](https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/DeJarnette_Joseph_Spencer_1866-1957#start_entry). *www.encyclopediavirginia.org*.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-10)** Joseph DeJarnette. ["*Mendel's Law*"](https://web.archive.org/web/20110811010249/http://www.hsl.virginia.edu/historical/eugenics/exhibit4-3.cfm). Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia. Archived from [the original](http://www.hsl.virginia.edu/historical/eugenics/exhibit4-3.cfm) on August 11, 2011. Retrieved August 2, 2011.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-11)** ["Virginia Eugenics"](https://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/VA/VA.html). *www.uvm.edu*.

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