Retrograde Reads: the ‘purifying’ impulse never left Texas

From the small town of Littlefield, Texas, just northwest of Lubbock, Arthur Duggan launched his 1931 campaign for U.S. Congress with a creative — if chilling — solution to the crime problem: stop making criminals.  

“Our present method of ‘reformation’ is working on the symptoms instead of the disease,” he argued in his congressional platform. “Let’s begin at the other end … and in a few years the problems will be solved.”  

Duggan’s proposed cure was eugenics, and he was not alone. At the time, other Texas scholars and newspapers like the Dallas Morning News supported his efforts. Duggan’s story, exhumed from dusty archives, is one of dozens revealed in “The Purifying Knife: The Troubling History of Eugenics in Texas.”  

The new book hails from historian Michael Phillips and writer Betsy Friauf, a literary husband-wife team who went through hell and back to make this book possible. The novel builds upon Phillips’ prior work in “White Metropolis” to uncover a Texas where, as the authors write, “Monsters haunted the imaginations of some of the most educated white Texans … Versed in the latest ‘race science,’ these well-read Texans pictured a host of those they demeaned as inferior … banding together to overthrow elite rule.” 

Monsters haunted the imaginations of some of the most educated white Texans … Versed in the latest ‘race science,’ these well-read Texans pictured a host of those they demeaned as inferior … banding together to overthrow elite rule.

— Michael Phillips and Betsy Friauf, “The Purifying Knife: The Troubling History of Eugenics in Texas.”

“The Purifying Knife” is passionate, macabre and a book you will find yourself going back to over and over again. Each page is filled with an endless stream of citations that would make someone interested in doing their own deep dive into this subject weep with joy. At the same time, the prose itself keeps you hooked throughout the entire book. You would have never guessed it took over a decade to write this book — but a lawsuit, a global pandemic and a firing nestled inside that time all prolonged the process. The Retrograde interviewed both authors on their work with this book.  

Phillips and Friauf tracked eugenics’ rise in Texas from better baby contests at the State Fair — where 500 babies were measured and judged like livestock for a blue ribbon — to its prevalence in the halls of UT Austin, UT Arlington and Rice University. You can feel Phillips and Friauf’s shock at the fact that their own alma maters, UT Austin and Arlington, served as focal points within the Texas eugenics movement. Their book, however, centers on a profound historical mystery: despite overwhelming support from politicians, academics and media, Texas was one of the few states that never passed a eugenic sterilization law. 

While forced sterilization programs in states like California and Virginia are well-documented, Phillips and Friauf’s research fills a critical void. How could it be that in a state known for its racial violence, did this powerful, racist scientific movement fail to enact its most extreme legislation?  

The answer, they discovered, was not a rejection of racism, but a collision of competing prejudices and power structures. The authors explain that a major reason for this was that wealthy landowners, reliant on Mexican labor, clashed with eugenicists who hated immigration. In this case, “greed beat racism,” revealing a battle between racists rather than a victory over racism itself. 

In this case, “greed beat racism,” revealing a battle between racists rather than a victory over racism itself.

But “The Purifying Knife” argues that the defeat of sterilization laws was not the end of eugenic thinking. The ideology simply rebranded, persisting in new forms long after World War II. 

“The eugenics movement went to a new phase,” Friauf said. “They rebranded it advocating not for [forced] sterilization, but ‘voluntary sterilization’ where doctors would … bully women into having these sterilizations.” 

Phillips and Friauf said that, today, modern eugenicists are out in full force with popular alt-right media figures working to normalize ideas like white supremacy while billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel who pursue transhumanist breeding projects are securing more control over the government. The fear of “inferior” populations documented in this book is something the authors say never went away.  

The fear of “inferior” populations documented in this book is something the authors say never went away.

“We have public figures like JD Vance promoting what’s called natalism,” Friauf said. “And Elon Musk is pretty explicit as a eugenicist; he advances the great replacement theory which is repackaged eugenics, and Trump said immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of America.’ They are quite open about it today.” 

Eugenics also isn’t simply a national issue; the elite of Texas continue to support it, according to Phillips. Texan industry moguls like Harlan Crow fund programs across the state which hire white supremacists that explicitly call for sterilization.  

“The modern example that’s really hair-raising is Harlan Crow,” Phillips said. “He has funded something called the Salem [Center] at UT Austin [which] hired a man [who] was saying, ‘we really need to bring back this idea of sterilization.’” 

The persistence of eugenicist thinking and difficulties in revealing its past as Phillips and Friauf document in their book is not merely historical; it manifested in their own decade-long struggle to bring this story to light. Friauf said that they faced regular delays as a result of their day jobs, the pandemic and the secrecy, which Phillips had to maintain around the project because of an unsupportive university administration. 

“Michael had to basically hide what he was doing from his college for a variety of reasons, reasons which culminated in his firing from Collin College,” Friauf said.  

Phillips was fired from Collin College in May 2022 after confrontations over his anti-Confederate speech and support of masking during the pandemic. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a national free speech watchdog organization, sued on behalf of Phillips during a time in which they considered Collin the “epicenter of censorship” in Texas. FIRE attorney Katlyn Patton said she was baffled by the school’s willingness to blatantly violate the First Amendment.  

“How many more lawsuits will it take, and how many more payouts will taxpayers have to shoulder, before Collin College leaders realize that the Constitution applies to them too?” Patton said.  

A jury ultimately ruled against Phillips. Phillips said that this was one of the most difficult times in his life, further complicating the research process as university support for research suddenly disappeared. Phillips and Friauf said that their struggles for free speech in Texas, though draining, would not deter them from their work.  

Phillips said that as the dust of the lawsuit was settling, he received a surprising call from Andrew Graybill, the director of the Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University. Graybill told Phillips that he had heard of his ordeal and wanted to support the book project. Friauf said that this is how Phillips received his senior research fellowship at the Clements Research Center, which finally allowed Phillips the chance to return to the creation of the book and to continue travelling across the country to unearth the history displayed in his book. Phillips said that there were alarming parallels between his own firing and the academic environment in Texas that he and Friauf found in their research. 

“One reason it took so long for this backlash to eugenics to occur is scientists from that era … worked in an environment with no diversity, no equity, no inclusion,” Phillips said. “We are speeding back towards those times with recent legislation in the state. We’re recreating the same bad, toxic academic environment that allowed eugenics to thrive and suppressing the voices that dare to stand against it.” 

We’re recreating the same bad, toxic academic environment that allowed eugenics to thrive and suppressing the voices that dare to stand against it.

— Michael Phillips, historian and co-author of “The Purifying Knife: The Troubling History of Eugenics in Texas.”

Those interested in the history of Texas, eugenics, discrimination and its modern manifestations will have an excellent time with this book. Eugenics isn’t simply some skeleton in the closet: Phillips and Friauf show that now more than ever we need to be familiar with the history of this “science gone wrong” which has started to reemerge.