Of Better Blood is an outstanding piece of historic fiction that tackles the horrific and mostly forgotten history of the eugenics movement in the early twentieth century here in the United States.
The main character is a sixteen year old polio survivor, Rowan Collier, who is engulfed in the firestorm against “the unfit.” The eugenics movement, dedicated to racial purity and good breeding, was winning support throughout the USA in the 1920s. Institutions were allowed by state law to sterilize the “feeble-minded,” the disabled, ethnic minorities, and even poor, white unwed mothers. Local eugenics councils set up exhibits at county fairs with “fitter family” contests and propaganda. After years of being confined to hospitals due to her polio damaged legs, Rowan is recruited to play a born cripple in a county fair eugenics exhibit. But an outspoken and tough carnival worker, Dorchy, makes friends with Rowan, and helps her discover her inner strength and bravery. The two teen girls escape the fair and end up at a summer camp on an island run by the New England Eugenics Council. When they discover what is happening to the children, Rowan takes on the mission to find a way to stop the horrors on the island, but she is at serious risk of befalling the same fate.

There is so much historical truth presented in this novel that the reader may actually think it is a biography. The author, Susan Moger, provides an “Author’s Note” at the end describing how one of her own relatives was a victim of the 1916 polio epidemic that swept across America, and tells of the reaction of the family. Moger also provides historic information on the American Eugenics Society, and shares how this movement influenced Adolph Hitler when he wrote of eugenics in Mien Kampf.