Pure America

Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia

By: Elizabeth Catte

Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin

Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

Between 1927 and 1979, more than 8,000 people were involuntarily sterilized in five hospitals across the state of Virginia. From this plain and terrible fact springs Elizabeth Catte's Pure America, a sweeping, unsparing history of eugenics in Virginia, and by extension the United States. Virginia's 20th-century eugenics program was not the misguided initiative of well-meaning men of the day, says Catte, with clarity and ferocity. It was a manifestation of white supremacy. It was a form of employment insurance. It was a means of controlling "troublesome" women and a philosophy that helped remove poor people from valuable land. It was cruel, and it was wrong, and yet today sites where it was practiced like Western State Hospital, in Staunton, Virginia, are rehabilitated as luxury housing, their histories hushed up in the service of capital.

As was amply evidenced by her acclaimed 2018 book What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia, Catte has no room for excuses; no patience for equivocation. What does it mean for modern America, she asks here, that such buildings are given the second chance that 8,000 citizens never got? And what possible interventions can be made now, repair their damage?

©2021 Elizabeth Catte (P)2021 Tantor

Read this!

An honest account of the complicated eugenics programs of Virginia—from confinement, commitment, medicinal procedures, and the relocation of peoples. Should be a required read, especially those living in Virginia.

Outstanding and smart

She is not afraid to call monsters what they are and I can’t wait to see what she does next. Powerful and purposeful.

Highly recommend

This book is well researched, written and performed. It's a (sad) commentary on how much of our country's history is hidden

Highly recommend this book

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about the heartbreaking and extensive history of eugenics in the US. You won’t believe this is real at first because it is so unjust and evil- not to mention a part of history that I have never learned anything about in my 37 years. The book is very interesting, provides a lot of detailed information, and really does a moving job of telling the individual stories. I think this is especially valuable history to learn in the current political landscape.

Hillbillies & Indians gardened the Shenandoah

The author told a compelling tale, but left out something big. Scots Irish burned & farmed the same mountain balds kept open by Native Americans on the Blue Ridge. When they were removed from the land, the open fields were forested over. Biodiversity plummeted.

Hillbillies were doing something very clever, very wise—too complex for Progressives either then or now to understand. They were gardening the wilderness.

Goes Off Topic

Talks about statues, racism, government grants, tax credits, Elizabeth Warren, capitalism, Trump, white guilt, and what not in what appears to be a way to pad for time. It ignores birth rates, abortion numbers and its historical relevance to the discussion, and plenty more. But we get to hear an hour about mountaineers and another big chunk of time on some story about Catte talking to a publisher, talking about blankets, and her partner. Yay!

This happens repeatedly. I think I heard more about Catte’s partner and daily driving around Virginia than actual history. I’m surprised Catte didn’t add in a portion of how an idea arrived because Catte was on the toilet pushing out a turd and was reminded of something.

I could write a better and more informative book in a day while looking at Wikipedia. Really poorly done. What history is here is good and mostly accurate but, overall, it reminds me of a dump. It’s a turd of a book with a slight coating of real eugenics history.

Performance is okay. Most things are pronounced correctly. Literally this books only saving grace.