Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded

The Virginia State Colony for the Epileptics and Feeble Minded was a state run institution for those considered to be “Feeble minded” or those with severe mental impairment. The colony opened in 1910 near Lynchburg, Virginia in Madison Heights with the goal of isolating those with mental disabilities and other qualities deemed unfit for reproduction away from society. The colony was the home of Carrie Buck, the subject of the landmark Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell.
The colony was authorized by a 1906 bill written by eugenicist and social welfare advocate Aubrey Strode, in collaboration with eugenicists Albert Priddy and Joseph DeJarnette. The colony received its first patients in 1911 and by the end of the calendar year had more than 150 men who suffered from epilepsy, a condition of social abhorrence. Colonies like the Virginia State Colony had been established in order to separate the disabled from criminal populations, for example, many of the first inhabitants of the Virginia State Colony had previously been housed in prisons and state hospitals. Originally, only men could be patients of the colony, but after roughly one year of operation, superintendent Albert Priddy allowed women into the colony who were diagnosed as feeble-minded. In accordance with the change in potential patients, the colony changed from its original name, the Virginia Colony for Epileptics to the Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded in 1914.

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