New book details 'troubling history' of eugenics in Texas
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Eugenics, or the pseudoscience of human breeding, reached the height of its notoriety in the early 1900s but never truly disappeared, according to a new book that examines the influence that the debunked movement had on Texas.
“The Purifying Knife: The Troubling History of Eugenics in Texas,” written by Michael Phillips and Betsy Friauf, was published this week. It examines the history and influence of eugenics in the state.
Co-author and former history professor Dr. Michael Phillips spoke with KXAN about the book on Wednesday.
"We had mixed feelings doing this book, because this comes in a time when there's so much dangerous rejection of science in terms of vaccines, in terms of climate change and other issues," Phillips said.
Phillips, who earned his doctorate in 2002 at the University of Texas at Austin, has focused his work on the history of racism in Texas. His first book "White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841–2001" published in 2006 and built off his UT Austin thesis.
His and Friauf's research began in 2014.
"Although there were a lot of victims on the way to this science becoming marginalized, the scientific method ultimately did work, and mainstream science did reject it," he said. "Eugenics was accepted all across the political spectrum from the very conservative to what were called progressives then, who were the forerunners of liberals today, and it was just accepted scientific wisdom."
Before science moved past eugenics, 36 states passed laws enacting some of the movement's ideas. This included forced sterilization of people deemed "unfit" -- at least 60,000 people were victims of these laws.
Texas was one of 12 states that didn't pass eugenics laws, Phillips said.
"Cotton growers in Texas and the big landowners were very much in favor of immigration, because they wanted to exploit Mexican workers as underpaid labor in their fields," he said. "Eugenicists were very anti-immigration. So [Texas] had a powerful economic interest that was afraid that if eugenics became law, that immigration from Mexico would stop and that would drive up the cost of their labor."
Fundamentalist Protestantism, which had become a force in Texas politics in the 1920s, was also opposed to eugenicist ideas derived from Darwin's theory of evolution.
Phillips said that he sees the emerging pro-natalist movement as a home for discredited eugenics ideas -- a natalist conference at UT Austin in March featured speakers who self-described as eugenicists, he said. But also leveled criticism at the environmental movement of the 1960s and 70s for allowing eugenicists.
"I think natalism is easier to sell than outright explicit eugenics. I think a lot of times, modern eugenicists describe themselves as pro-family," Phillips said. "But in the 1960s and 1970s ... there was a real panic about the world becoming overpopulated. And they really pushed for birth control policy, but they always focused on Africa, Asia and Latin America. It was always places where people of color lived that they wanted to control population."
He warned that people should look critically at anyone who claims the existence of biological differences between racial groups or who believe IQ should determine if a person should be allowed to reproduce.
"There's an assumption that somehow, 'smarter,' whatever that means, is better. And I don't think that necessarily bears up in history," he said. "People who had ethics, emotional intelligence, a sense of the need for community, may not have scored well on IQ tests, but they function better in and help contribute to a better society."