Carrie Buck and Emma Buck, 1924

Carrie Buck and Emma Buck, 1924

Carrie Elizabeth Buck was born in Charlottesville in 1906 and placed with a foster family at age three. Her foster parents took her out of school after sixth grade to perform housework for them. In 1923 she became pregnant after her foster parents' nephew raper her. The family had her committed to the Virginia State Colony for the Epileptic and Feebleminded after her daughter was born in March 1924. Under a state law, she was sterilized in 1927 and released from the colony. She married twice, and family and friends later denied the accuracy of her diagnosis. Carrie Buck Eagle Detamore died in 1983.

1924

Arthur Estabrook Papers, M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, University at Albany Libraries.

Photograph