Lombardo will consult for Canadian eugenics project
February 11, 2011
ATLANTA -- Georgia State University College of Law Professor Paul A. Lombardo has been named as a consultant to the Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada, a project based at the University of Alberta (Edmonton). The five-year project (2010-2015) is funded by a $1 million grant from the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Its goal is to clarify the impact of the 20th-century eugenics movement in Canada, with particular focus on the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, both of which passed involuntary sterilization laws.
Lombardo joins a thirty-member team that includes scholars, archivists, advocates, and members of the disability community from across Canada, as well as people who endured sterilization under provincial laws. The project will assemble material such as historic documents, oral histories, and related materials, and eventually it will make them available as part of an online archive.
"As the only American on the Canadian team, I’m genuinely honored to be asked to contribute to this important project," said Lombardo.
Lombardo was asked to participate in Living Archives because of his expertise in the history of eugenics, as well as his experience assembling what is currently the most extensive online resource in this area, the Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. Lombardo’s essays accompanying that archive can be found at http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/.