A 12-year survey, developed by an independent team of social scientists, studied "good" and "bad" families in the state and listed those which it determined needed to be eliminated.
The report was circulated among policymakers at the time and led to the passage of a 1931 sterilization law. The law resulted in the sterilization of several hundred poor, rural Vermonters, Abenaki Indians and others deemed unfit to procreate.