Keepers of the Flame

In the 1970s Barry Mehler started tracking race scientists and he noticed something funny: they all had the same funding source. One wealthy man was using his incredible resources to prop up any scientist he could find who would validate his white supremacist ideology—and make it seem like it was backed by a legitimate scientific consensus.

“Keepers of the Flame” is Episode 3 of Innate: How Science Invented the Myth of Race, a podcast and magazine project that explores the historical roots and persistent legacies of racism in American science and medicine. Published through Distillations, the Science History Institute’s highly acclaimed digital content platform, the project examines the scientific origins of support for racist theories, practices, and policies. Innate is made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.

Hosts: Alexis Pedrick and Elisabeth Berry Drago
Senior Producer: Mariel Carr
Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez
Associate Producer: Padmini Raghunath
Audio Engineer: Jonathan Pfeffer

“Innate Theme” composed by Jonathan Pfeffer. Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions.
 

‘The American Breed’: Nazi eugenics and the origins of the Pioneer Fund, by Paul Lombardo 

The Funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund, by William Tucker

The New Eugenics: Academic Racism in the U.S. Today, by Barry Mehler 

The Phil Donahue Show 

Superior: The Return of Race Science, by Angela Saini