← The History Chicks : A Women's History Podcast
The History Chicks : A Women's History Podcast
Elizabeth Packard
01:58:23
In 1860, Elizabeth Packard was committed to a mental institution by her husband - for YEARS - for the crime of speaking her mind . This practice was completely legal at the time, and she had no mechanism by which to free herself from confinement - despite the fact that she was completely sane. Her three-year ordeal would turn her into a powerful activist on behalf of rights for both the mentally ill and for married women, who at this time had few legal protections against those that would oppress them.
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- [00:01]
Becca
Welcome to the History Tricks where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.
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Samantha
And here's your 30 second summary. Elizabeth Packard's husband punished her for speaking her mind by committing her for years to a mental institution, something that was fully legal at the time. After her release, she dedicated the rest of her life to advocating for the rights of the mentally ill and of married women. The end. Lets talk about Elizabeth Packard. But first let's place her into history. In 1860, Abraham Lincoln campaigned for the US presidency and received a letter from an 11 year old girl named Grace Bedell telling him he would look better with a beard. He took her advice, grew a glorious facial topiary and won the presidency. The duchies of Parma, Tuscany, Modena and Romagna voted to join the Kingdom of Sardinia and a major step toward the ultimate unification of Italy. The covered gimlet screw with a T handle was patented and would later become known as the Corkscrew or in Italian the Cavatapi. I'm so glad I learned that after nearly 10 years of evading capture while leading enslaved people from the U.S. south into freedom in the north and Canada, Harriet Tubman conducted her final mission on the Underground Railroad. Born this year. Lizzie Borden, Annie Oakley, Jane Addams, Grandma Moses and the founder of the US Girl Scouts. Juliet Gordon Lowe died this year. Charles Goodyear, famous for the vulcanization of rubber. And Phineas Gage, an American railroad construction foreman who became a famous subject for mental health researchers after an accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely through his head. He survived afterward but curiously exhibited a completely different personality. And in 1860, Elizabeth Packard was committed by her husband to an insane asylum for speaking her mind and not obeying him unquestioningly. A three year ordeal that would turn her into an activist for the rights of the oppressed. Hello and welcome to the show. It's just me today. Susan is away preparing for our fabulous trip to Italy. Betsy Parsons Ware was born in ware, Massachusetts on December 28, 1816. The oldest of the three surviving children of Reverend Samuel Ware and Lucy Strong. Parsons wear and I'm sorry to say there's not a lot of information about mama. I will tell you. She had a mother named Mindwill King. That's pretty amazing. She married for the time extraordinarily late at 31 and was renowned for her skill in domestic affairs. Now because her husband was a gregarious man and the household had company nearly all the time, she got used to feeding a random and indeterminate in number crowd on the spur of the moment. Remember how we talked in the Martha Washington episode, how a lot of times in those days, before hotels and highway rest stops, the generally accepted lodging, if you were of a middle to high social class, was the most prominent man in town's house. I am so interested in the economics of that. By the way, how does the grocery bill get paid? Lucy was famous for her cooking, speaking of groceries and her husbandry of resources, and was generally beloved by all the new heroes. She was also known for being a sensitive soul who would burst into tears at the drop of a hat and took things very seriously, felt things very deeply. Now, in this time and age, it just. I mean, it just is what it is, right to me. But in Victorian times, do you remember when Ma Ingalls said that an adult should never let their feelings show on their face? That's kind of the prevailing wisdom. If you're not a little kid, you need to be keeping your emotions down in check. Well, so she's in that society, but has kind of a modern sensibility, and as such her temperament was regarded as vaguely mentally unstable. You'll read that her bouts of tears began after a particularly intense revival meeting in which she went to the front and was saved. Take that with a grain of salt. People were just looking for an explanation. Here is a possible one, as far as I'm concerned. I'm sorry to say that before Betsy was born, Samuel and Lucy suffered the loss of four children right in a row before their first birthdays. And as much as this happened, and that it was a fact of life, I can't think the parents of days gone by were any less attached to those infants. So after this repeated trauma, this fifth pregnancy must have been a source of great anxiety and dread, and I imagine a dread that wasn't ever over because when Betsy was only two, her younger brother died, too. Ultimately, out of eight pregnancies, Lucy and Samuel would end up with three children, a daughter and two sons. Now, I think I'm on Lucy's side in this manner, the same way I was with Mary Todd Lincoln. Like we can say, oh, she cr. Cries all the time, she's mentally unstable, but, you know, they both lost child after child, and in Mary Lincoln's case, her husband was killed right in front of her. So trauma, human trauma, is real. And no one in this time got any real treatment for any of this kind of stress. On a lighter note, everyone else in her life did focus on the fact that Lucy was an exemplary wife. She was a valued member of the community. Well thought of. Her virtues were extolled, etc. Papa Samuel was a Congregational minister, one of the most respected and honored people in the town. He was also the only surviving son of an extraordinarily rich man who at the time was still alive. But there's a certain sense of self confidence that comes from knowing you'll never actually have to live on any income that you earn, isn't there? He was an indulgent father. Betsy in particular was the apple of his eye. And they had a very close relationship. Despite her extreme youth and her female nature, Betsy was allowed to sit in on the informal salons that took place in their house downstairs with all her father's learned and argumentative guests. And among an ever changing tide of opinions and assertions on political topics, religious topics. There was a lot going on during this period. Branches of American Christianity were fracturing over questions of doctrine big and small. Women's rights were bubbling under the surface. Abolition had come to the forefront. The country had just wrapped up the War of 1812. We're less than four decades from the American Revolution, so that's in living memory. And all the divisions that began there are still around in some form. I don't know for absolute certain, but based on her future erudition, we can almost guarantee that she was taught the three Rs at home as a small child. And then when she was 10, an assorted amount of things happened. Her papa retired and the family moved to the city of Conway, Massachusetts. And enlightened Papa enrolled his daughter at the Amherst Female Seminary, a sort of pricey private school where she studied Greek, Latin, French, algebra, botany, history, literature, orthography, writing, geography, philosophy. Her teachers there sent back reports to her parents that young Betsie was the most extraordinary student in their school, praising her intelligence and her drive. Elizabeth would later say she received the same education as both of her younger brothers, which is a vote in Papa's favor. As far as I'm concerned. That was not a common situation. Betsy was also known as a seeker of knowledge and would read voraciously. As she got older, she was allowed to participate in the conversations downstairs in the receiving room as her father continued that habit of receiving learned colleagues of an evening. Even though he was no longer the highway rest stop in a small town. He loved that give and take and the exchange of ideas. And Betsy was exposed to that from the time she was born, really. And now that she was growing into a young woman, she absorbed and processed the views of the world that were passing through her house on a Daily basis. When she was around 12, her grandpapa died, leaving an enormous fortune to her father. And out in the world an aunt died, leaving a family of orphan cousins that were distributed among the extended family. So sent to the warehouse hold was cousin Angelina, almost exactly of an age to young Betsy, for whom she developed a lifelong bond. Like a sister, they were the closest of friends. After leaving school at 16, Betsy, who now began to call herself Elizabeth, began to teach small children in a little neighborhood dame school. And when she was 19, she began to exhibit alarming symptoms. Violent headaches, delirium. Her eyes could not tolerate light noise, began to make her cry. She was very confused. She was very forgetful. The diagnosis in the 19th century, of course, was, quote, brain fever. But modern historians think she literally had meningitis, which is a bacterial or viral infection. The fluid and membranes around the brain and spinal cord are involved. These membranes are called meninges, a real and dangerous disease. This is the one you always try to get your college freshmen vaccinated for before they go live in the dorm. So in this era where they did not understand about viruses and bacteria, what did they think caused brain fever? Overwork, too much mental effort. Some blame may even have been placed on her father's liberality in distributing education to his impressionable daughter, and I quote, a great man of the day. When minds of limited capacity attempt education, there is an inevitable breakdown in the facility of that mind. Not cool. Well, they immediately hit her with those old standards of historical medicine. Bleedings to the point where the patients have anemia, purges, which means you are a pooping and things to make you throw up the poison, all of which, of course, only make you more miserable and weak. And after three weeks of all of these stellar treatments having no effect at home, surprisingly, Papa made the decision to sign her up for treatment at a nearby hospital, the Worcester State Hospital, considered to be the absolute state of art in treatments for diseases of the it. So it's a disease of the lining of the brain, which is in your head. So obviously you have to go to a mental institution. You know, keep in mind, as far as we know from here, she had a physical illness which today would be treated with antibiotics or antivirals. It's very dangerous to leave meningitis untreated. Thus her three weeks in an almost coma, and she'd been tortured by the medical interventions of the day. And now she's being committed basically to a mental institution. Her father had to fill out a form. Perhaps only a formality, they said, but the hospital required A legal form that said, among other things, and I quote after a full hearing in the matter, Elizabeth Ware is a lunatic, so furiously mad as to render it manifestly dangerous to the peace and safety of the community that she remain at large. I mean, I can only assume her father thought he was doing the right thing in his explanation about why she'd gotten into the state, though he mentioned perhaps she'd laced her corset too tight and that she had exerted her mind too much in the course of her daily labors. The treatment in the hospital largely consisted of copious amounts of drugs, including opium, mercury and morphine, but not, of course, antibiotics. They had not yet been invented. Her poor, tortured body had to overcome both the disease and the treatment for that disease. The doctors wrote in her file, Elizabeth is very pleasant and has considerable excitement of the nervous system. She is occasionally disturbed. You know what she's the most disturbed by? The fact that her father, who she loved and trusted and thought that he valued her intelligence, had committed her to a mental institution and was allowing these doctors to torture her. She actually, like I would do, blamed the doctors and their treatment for her decline. I mean, yes, she's disturbed at having been tortured. The last report of the doctor said this. Elizabeth left the hospital this morning in a very favorable state. Her mind was free from insanity. Her. Her health has been restored and all operations of the system are going on favorably. Her mind has improved rapidly. She is an interesting and intelligent girl. Nevertheless, as far as they were concerned in this time frame and for her illness, she had belonged in a mental institution. She, upon her return home after six weeks, found that she viewed her father as an antagonist. Now, someone who did not, in fact, have her best interest at heart, definitely someone who has betrayed her trust. And now she has this committal on her, as they say, permanent record that will become important later. Can I please say that? The term brain fever also covered an enormous range of other real maladies, from depression to anxiety to encephalitis and the aforementioned meningitis, to vaguely unsavory female behavior. You could be slapped with this label if you had an irregular menstrual cycle. Too much novel reading could untether a young woman from reality and cause brain fever over attachment to one's children. Grief, the eating of too much meat. Life is a minefield. When you have too vague of a term, you can end up conveniently roping in anyone to a diagnosis that you feel might need a little bit of directional change. See, of course, the other common diagnosis, hysteria, from HYSTERA. Which is Greek for uterus. So Elizabeth is back in the bosom of her family for a number of years, although with, of course, a giant and warranted chip on her shoulder now, and had grown up into an extremely attractive and lively young woman, attracting great interest from the young men of the town. But she discouraged their attention specifically, none of them had met her standards and wrote in her later writings, I shall rule myself and if I ever get a husband, which article I never yet had the good fortune to get, but I'm sure I shall sometime, I shall only rule myself to obey my husband, because it will be my pleasure to do so. When she reached the age of 22, which was near but slightly above the average age of marriage in this time in the United States, in the east, she received an offer of marriage. This man, Theophilus Packard Jr. Was 15 years older than she, and he was the son of a famous Congregational pastor, a man who had actually helped to found both Mount Holyoke and Amherst Colleges and was known as the Sage of Shelburne. Super famous, let's say, an eminent man. And Theophilus, by the time he comes into our story, is the oldest and only living son of this man. Grandpapa Packard was a man of some contradictions. While actively and openly a proponent of education for both men and women, he also was deeply, deeply religious in a Calvinist sort of way, which to my understanding is. I don't want to call it defeatist, but let me quote Theophilus Jr quote. I grew up exposed to everlasting ruin. The principles of selfishness. For the principles which reigned in my heart, my mind was called sinful, absolutely and completely depraved. There seems to be. This is me talking again. A lot of humans are garbage that have to fix themselves in order to get into heaven. Is that fair to say? It's very harsh, that's all. It's very, very strict philosophy. And there was a lot of pressure on Theophilus to be both worldly successful and spiritually successful. He grew up as a result, this is my opinion, quite hypochondriacal, which, had he been a woman, of course, might have sent him straight, you guessed it, to a mental institution. But guess who he blamed. And I quote him again, two great and indulgence from an affectionate mother. His mother, his father's first cousin, by the way, was a great domestic manager, and that's where she placed her focus. His sisters were not educated to his level and were instead prepared for future lives as wives and mothers, which was, of course Very common. Our Elizabeth is one of the exceptions, not the rule. He was a solidly medium student, more along the lines of crossing things off than a passion. He also went to college. There were two traumatic events a couple of years apart that seemed to shape him and his mind. The death of his only brother, 16 year old Isaac, which he witnessed, and it was shocking. And then his attendance at a revival sent him into a tailspin. I'm not going to get too far into it, but he had a mental breakdown. For about a week he isolated himself, crying and fasting. And when he came out of that week of self punishment, he decided that he had been born again. His happy pastor. Papa, this is Grandpapa. Packard sent his son to the Princeton Theological Seminary, which was currently in the midst of an impending schism in its doctrine. The old school believed the way was the way, the end. And the new school thought, well, other people also can get to heaven by different paths. Other Christians can be saved. To which the old school said, nope, that itself is heresy even thinking about it. And I tell you one thing this man Theophilus did not need was doubtless or controversy. And he decided to align strictly with the old school faction. No gray areas, etc. And in 1826, when our Elizabeth was 10 years old, Theophilus was authorized to preach to the masses. This is when he met Elizabeth's papa. Joining the coterie in the receiving room, he was able to take over from his father in his father's congregation, which was a big honor. And religion became all important to him. Theophilus Packard reminds me so much of Mr. Collins from Pride and Prejudice. He decided he'd reached a proper age and that a minister should have a wife, and asked his friend Samuel Ware if he could court his daughter Elizabeth for the purposes of marriage. That was it. Including the actual main character being named Elizabeth. Ah, so technically, they had at least been familiar with each other since Elizabeth was 10 years old. But of course she saw him more as a minister friend of her father's. This attention came as a complete surprise. But you know, his father was famous and a known man. There was enough money. His reputation was solid. He was intellectual. Her father seemed to approve. There was not a lot of love in the case, but again, this often was. If we're speaking in Pride and Prejudice terms again, it was more like a Charlotte Lucas situation. I desire a good home. This was a good position for her. He'd bought a house with some acreage a number of years ago. He was a man of property, and you'll read. There was pressure in the case from her parents to get married. And I don't know that pressure is the right word. I think if you're looking at things academically, like mathematically, is this a good match for her? Her father agreed that it was. Her mother, more emotionally based, worried that this was a mismatch. But she didn't put her foot down and she kept her concerns to herself. After a courtship question mark of only two or three months, which basically consisted of them sitting on opposite sides of the fireplace and looking at each other, Theophilus and Elizabeth were married on May 21, 1839. She was 22. I just want to give you a quote from something that Theophilus said in his diary about this, which is the most Mr. Collins thing ever. And I quote, this year I entered the married state and left my father's house, which had been my pleasant and Happy home for 37 years, to live in my own house nearby. Did you ever want to know what was going through Elizabeth Bennet's mind during the entirety of Pride and Prejudice? Guess what? You can now listen to her internal monologue on Audible's new Pride and Prejudice. This Audible original Pride and Prejudice is an intimate performance that will have you falling in love with the Jane Austen classic all over again.
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Becca
Pride and Prejudice stars a full cast including Marissa Abella as Elizabeth Bennet, Harris Dickinson as Mr. Darcy, plus Marianne Jean Baptiste, Will Poulter, Bill Nighy, and Glenn Close as Lady Catherine de Bourgh. I love this adaptation. It's vibrant, it's modern, and there is a new score on it. So it's a brand new adaptation of a beloved classic, Pride and Prejudice.
- [20:30]
Samantha
Whether you're fresh to Pride and Prejudice or want to revisit a cherished favorite, you're in for a new and delightful listening experience. Listen to the brand new Pride and prejudice@audible.com janeausten our Elizabeth is now a wife and I am so interested in the way this was worded. Although the new pastor's wife had quite extraordinary powers of the mind, her domestic accomplishments could not be faulted. Which reminds me of Lillian Gilbreth. Despite the fact that the bride has advanced degrees, she is nevertheless an attractive woman. I mean, like, there have to be one or the other. Anyway, Elizabeth planted extensive flower gardens, productive vegetable patches, and a fruit orchard. She was famous in town for her taste in fashion, able to advise the townswomen on their own clothes, made all of her children's clothes, was considered the best seamstress in town, and took pride in creating her husband's dignified and respectable appearance through her careful tailoring and maintenance of his wardrobe in the church, Elizabeth, as the pastor's wife, took control of children's activities and taught the littlest children at Sunday school. She visited the sick. She received women of the congregation into her house for afternoon events. She hosted visiting ministers with every appearance of domestic tranquility and comfort. She sort of lived to serve, but at this point took pleasure in all of these duties. They were something she'd grown up seeing her mother do. And, you know, not to put too fine a point on it, these activities were greatly rewarded by societal accolades. She took satisfaction in these things. I mean, you know what? I just canned some jalapenos that I grew with some garlic that I grew, and I'm feeling like Martha Stewart. So I get it there. There is nothing wrong with domestic accomplishments at all, and I am glad she had that satisfaction. Three years after her marriage, their first child, a boy of course, named Theophilus after his father, but called in the family toffee, which I love, was born. And then over the course of the next 16 years, she had five more children, five sons and one daughter who was also named Elizabeth, but everyone called her Libby. From all accounts, she was a creative and loving mother. When you have a lot of children, you sort of have to have schedule. And so she regimented things in a fun way. You know, you do your chores first and you play. Then we have some lessons and we have dinner and then you can play until it's time to go to sleep. And she had a very modern reward system. You could earn points on this chart she had hung up on the wall. By trying to do the right thing, openly volunteering to do a chore that isn't your regular chore, assisting your younger siblings, et cetera, you get a point, but if you're disobedient, you get six points taken off. It's a big deal. The worst behavior in the house was to speak crossly to each other. That would be the first thing that gets you that six point demerit that was hard to make up. Yikes. And everybody looked forward to their prizes they would get by reaching the end of the chart, she thought carefully about what each child would really like and got him things like books they'd been looking forward to, pocket knives, a new doll. Whatever they were interested in, she knew individually, and she would have them ready. Their father, on the other hand, brought his Calvinist religion, naturally enough, into the house. He told his children their souls were doomed, that they needed to repent that they were brought into the world as sinners. It's called the doctrine of total deprav. And while Elizabeth did not contradict her husband for being brought up in the society in which she had been brought up, she thought, well, I'm young and my husband is wise, and his judgment is likely more developed than my own. But still, this treatment of her children, who to her mind were not in fact born evil, set up a contradiction in her mind that began to chip away at her religious beliefs. Her children were afraid of their father, no doubt, but she taught them to respect him. Theophilus, however, was convinced that his wife didn't understand that he was the ultimate boss of the house. It was a sticking point with him, that she thought they were in a partnership and she was supporting his decisions out of her own will instead of the fact that he was the boss. It's a fine distinction, but it irritated him disproportionately. No, you're not choosing to go along with me. You are required to go along with me by God, by nature, and by me. The congregation that he served was also experiencing a similar reform to Elizabeth, a more humanist approach to religion. And Theophilus, with his gloom and doom philosophy, was getting to be too much. He was increasingly falling down the deep end of strictness, and they didn't 100% appreciate being badgered and called names from the pulpit. Theophilus thought it was wise to move somewhere and start over. Such was the turmoil, and after a couple of forays into other states in the Midwest in which the congregations thought he was too strict for them. But they sure loved Mrs. Packard, and they hustled the Packards on. The couple finally settled in Mantino, Illinois, near Theophilus, Sister Sybil Dole, and a congregation that at last had the same strict Calvinist outlook on human life that Theophilus had grown up with and had dug farther into, accepted him. He had found his people. As for the married couple, though Theophilus and Elizabeth were growing further apart, she could not get over the doctrine of total depravity. She thought it went against all common sense and the evidence of her own eyes. She thought her husband was misguided to hold onto it so tightly, not only just because it was wrong in itself, but because it had prompted their dismissal from congregation after congregation. It wasn't aligning with the world. And Theophilus, never a man to see the gray area, wrote to a friend, quote, my wife is unfavorably affected by the tone of society and zealously espouses all new notions and wild vagaries that come along. Meanwhile, Theophilus tried to shut down the public library because it would be a bad influence. So that's how conservative he was. She went to visit some cousins for a number of months. These, oh, Angelina, we talked about her before. They were spiritualist, which is like the polar opposite of Calvinism. And Elizabeth came home so excited about all these new ideas that she was trying to integrate into her own personal theology. She felt as happy as could be. She felt like she'd expanded her mind, you know, that there was a friendly God out there for her, et cetera, that she was developing a relationship. It was about that time that she gave birth to her last child, little Arthur. She was 41. Her oldest children were 14 and 16. Now, as to her new philosophy and frankly, her happiness, Theophilus, of course, was absolutely horrified once he discovered what his wife had brought into his house and was talking to their tween and teen children about not just religion either, but violent opposition to slavery, like Good Trouble, as put forth by the activist John Brown, was also something she felt was necessary. Something that to me is quite concerning, I think, and even surprising. Grandpapa Packard was a activist in this realm. He actually petitioned, actively worked to keep Texas from being admitted into the Union as a slave state. So he comes by that naturally. And also after a trip into the slave state of Kentucky, Theophilus Jr. Husband Theophilus was so shocked by the conditions, the reality of slavery, that he himself wrote articles that were abolitionist in nature. So it's not the concept he disapproves of, it's her degree of. Of activism and the fact that she didn't address it the same way he did. It's so troubling to me. Like he. He really does not see any gray areas. She even openly disagreed now with the way that her husband chose to bring their children up to be afraid of their natural human spirit, and began not to support him within the house and to push back on some of his extreme tactics. Not only that, in his absence, on a visit to his widowed mother, Elizabeth, who was always charming, made friends everywhere. People really liked her, able to attract friends and acquaintances quite easily. She was asked to be in charge of the adult Bible class and she brought with her into the Calvinist Bible class a lot of the new principles she'd learned on her holiday. It's a big mistake. Theophilus and one of his deacons thought that it would be great to start an active campaign against her in the congregation which if you're a member of the congregation, has to be completely confusing. But they thought they would debate her and trap her in a contradiction, like a gotcha, see how much of a dumb, dumb she is, she doesn't know why, have you been listening to her, etc. Elizabeth was very excited about this, thinking they were finally going to engage in the kinds of conversations and debates she'd witnessed in her father's household. We're going to have a debate of ideas. No, they were not. And since they couldn't derail her, quote, embarrassing behavior by demeaning her, she was too intelligent to be trapped. I'm just saying they put forward the idea that Elizabeth Packard, due to her strong opinions and her non deference to her husband's wishes as a woman, was actually insane. Unknowingly, Elizabeth compounded this belief by standing up one day in a church service and asking to be released from the Congregational Church so that she could join the Methodists across town whose viewpoints more aligned with her belief system. And so she has, in Theophilus's mind, emasculated him in front of his employers, in front of his flock. If he can't even handle his household and control his wife, how was he to be a shepherd of lost souls? Now there was another factor that Elizabeth didn't know about. Her husband had serious financial problems. He was about $120,000 in modern money in debt and he had to do the dance no matter what, whatever was going to make the money. And her open disagreeing with him put him in danger. Her leaving the congregation might inspire others to leave. Such was her magnetismo. And powerful men were behind the scenes trying to censor what was being said out of his church. Theophilus had to roll over for monetary self interest. The thing is though, I'm thinking, what if he had just sat her down at the dining room table and told her honestly what was going on. She might not have liked it. But you know, can't you see how his actions might have at least encouraged her to be a little more careful? Or at least she could make a calculated decision about everything. But he did not value her reason enough to even appeal to it. He instead, he and his deacon began a whisper campaign around town. Mrs. Packard was going downhill. She was losing her mind. You know, she'd been committed before and it's just coming out now. If only I'd known before we got married. There was even a town meeting in her house. Poor 16 year old Isaac, her second son, heard everything. He was so Shocked that his father was talking about sending his mother to a mental institution. He'd been forbidden by his father from even speaking to his mother. The older brother, Toffee, was working as a postal clerk outside of town. He was 18. The two oldest boys kept up a correspondence, worried about what was happening in the house. And Toffee advised his brother to start his own whisper campaign in town that his mother was being mistreated. Get the Methodists in on it if you can. The shopkeepers, anyone friendly, try to get them on her side. And so that's what poor Isaac did. What a brave dude, man. What a brave dude. And of course, Elizabeth talked to her friends about what was happening in her house, too. And for Elizabeth, though daily life under a microscope, I mean, a hundred microscopes, was getting increasingly horrible. Every single thing she did was judged, reported on, and regarded as yet more evidence of madness. No matter what it was. Her husband was her open antagonist. I would definitely say love had turned to loathing. In 1860, when Elizabeth was 43, Mr. Packard decided to make his move. He'd got his ducks in a row with the Whisper Whisper campaign. He'd gotten people looking at her behavior with great suspicion. He convinced a couple of doctors to write certificates of insanity. And he carefully got all the children, on different pretexts, out of the house. Some were staying with relatives. Isaac was asked by his boss to do an errand out of town. Georgie, the seven year old, was lured out of the house with the promise of candy. And on June 18, 1860, the county sheriff arrived at the Packard home to take Elizabeth into custody. She asked to be allowed to dress as she knew that as a woman whose appearance was in disarray would be judged as a mad woman for real disarray was a symbol of insanity. She also knew she couldn't really resist because if she screamed or protested, there again, evidence of madness. So the only recourse she had was to decline to walk herself and say if they wanted to take her, they had to carry her. She'd hoped to take with her her journals, her private papers that were hidden in her room so her husband wouldn't get a hold of them. But he was suspicious and sent a woman in to watch her dress. So she had no opportunity to save what might be incriminating paperwork. Poor little Isaac, 16 years old, had gotten wind of what was going down and had rallied his side to appear at the train station for her defense. The presence of all those people at the station made her husband very nervous, and he whispered in her ear, Won't you get up and walk? And she said, absolutely not. If you want to take me, you'll have to carry me while everyone's watching. Now, while she was waiting in the ladies lounge for the train to arrive, unbeknownst to her, the sheriff went outside and gave a speec to the people outside on the platform and told them this cold, hard fact. You may have heard, you may have even been told, that the Illinois state legislature had passed a law to require a public hearing before a person could be committed against their will. And they did. But there is one major exception. A husband, as head of his own household and legal identity of the married couple, could have his wife committed without either a public hearing or. Or her consent. Therefore, Elizabeth Packard's removal to an insane asylum was perfectly legal, and anyone who interfered with this would be arrested. And so, as Elizabeth was carried from the ladies waiting room to the train, the entire crowd stood silent. No one raised their voice, except one woman, a friend of Elizabeth's from the Methodist church, named Rebecca Blessing, ironically, who shouted, is there no man among you who can protect this woman? Well, all any oppressor needs is neutral parties who do not interfere. And they didn't. Off they went to the Jacksonville, Illinois insane asylum, where she spent the night in a little room on a ward while her husband was treated to dinner with the director and his family in another building. And the next day they met with Dr. McFarland, the director, and she was absolutely certain after talking to the doctor, he'd understand she was not insane and this was just her husband being dictatorial, and surely she'd just go home after their conversation, while the men had a conversation in another room and her husband came back in and Elizabeth tried talking to him, explaining the children would be bereft without their mother and surely they could get along and this was not worth it, etc. And when she looked over to see how her husband was taking her impassioned pleas, she discovered that he had simply fallen asleep. It was a done deal. And on the side of the asylum, I mean, the husband had doctor certificates asserting she was insane. The husband had ultimate authority within his house, and if he determined his wife in private acted insane, who was the asylum to go against him? It was absolutely not possible for her to convince this doctor, no matter what she said, there was no due process at all. As she later wrote, the use of my reason, rather than the absence of it, was the reason for my committal. In fact, in her paperwork, excessive application of body and mind was in her file. She was placed here for thinking. And again, if you're not careful, insane could pretty much mean whatever the authorities wanted it to mean. That's the thing. And there's no concrete definition of a term. Many people can be swept up. And so he left her there and she wrote, never had I seen him more radiant with joy. He literally blew her kisses as he got in the carriage to go home sick. Sick. They had been married 21 years at this point. And you know who else abused his wife of over 21 years? Our old enemy, Henry VIII. So I'm just gonna say, ooh, you just let me get my time machine. There's two of you now I'm gonna get a hold of with my taser. Well, Elizabeth was escorted back to her new home on ward number seven. The wards were separated by social class in this Victorian time. Grammar and fashion that was considered very important to not further disarray the minds. And it seems that many of the women in Ward 7 had shared Elizabeth's fate. They'd been put here by husbands or families for assorted reasons to get rid of them. There was one poor girl that had epilepsy and that was her sole crime. Their stories broke Elizabeth's heart. Cooler days are calling for layers at last. And my favorite little uniform slash outfit for going out and having fancy apple based cocktails with my friends are a knit dress with a cardigan, some tights and some boots. It's like my favorite thing. It'll go anywhere, up and down. And Quince is my go to for quality essentials that feel cozy and look expensive.
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Becca
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Samantha
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Samantha
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Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N c e.com chicks to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com chicks at the beginning, Dr. McFarland wrote amazing things about Elizabeth. And I quote, she is extraordinary. Her mental capacity and power. She has a charm of manner and taste in dress and very good judgment. He seemed to sympathize with her and wished to be a good friend. Well, surrounded by such women and with this intelligent man to talk to, a man who did not, in fact, tell her to shut up. Her first months in the asylum were not, except for the absence of her children, very troublesome to her. She was treated as a valued guest. She was given keys to the ward and to the outside door. The rules that everyone else had to go by were greatly relaxed. She had a liberty other patients didn't enjoy. And she wrote, any privations I may have endured at the beginning of my stay were nothing compared to what I had suffered daily from the behavior of my husband. True to form, true to her personality, Elizabeth quickly made friends, not only among the patients, but among the staff who seemed to view her as just as sane as she thought she was. Although the staff had limited powers to do anything for her, particularly a woman named Priscilla Hosmer, who was the director of the sewing room, who had great sympathy for patients. The patients were asked, the capable patients were asked to work in different departments of the asylum. Dr. McFarlane was a penny pincher and anything that the inmates could do, he would assign them to. There is a note that during Elizabeth's first stint here in Ward 7, they made a thousand pillowcases, almost a thousand chemises and dresses, 3500 shirts, 1500 socks and straight jackets for the whole asylum. Yikes. Isaac and Rebecca Blessing came to see her in the asylum and they brought a Dr. Shirley with them. And all three of them agreed that she was the sanest person they ever saw. And that's that. And they decided they were going to cause some trouble and they scheduled and held what was called a public indignation meeting, a meeting to talk about her situation and how bad it was. A meeting against Theophilus. They began a letter writing campaign to the governor, to the head of the church, to Dr. McFarland. They told her they were going to apply for a writ of habeas corpus, bring forward the body. She was to be personally brought before a judge. Unfortunately, this wouldn't work in her case because a writ of habeas corpus only applied to unlawful confinement. And as the sheriff explained to the people on the platform, her husband throwing her into asylum for no or some reason was perfectly legal with no explanation necessary. In July, a giant trunk of her clothes came from Theophilus, and he is the pettiest man. I'm telling you what she had asked for. Some specific clothes for specific occasions. I would like this to go to my church meetings. We're having Bible study and I would like to look nice or whatever. He purposely left out anything she had asked for and also made certain that he packed rotten fruit in the trunk so it would make everything stink and leave stains. Yes. She carefully looked through all the linings of everything in case her children had sent her a message. The only message she received was one from her daughter Libby that said, we are glad to hear you're getting better and hope you'll be home soon. So this was evidence that it was Theophilus's goal to turn her kids against her. He actually told her father and her two surviving brothers lies about her, and he told her they agreed with her committal. And I'm just telling you, all they did was take the word of Theophilus. No one came and checked, and there are so many catch 20 twos. She said, being sane, I can't be cured here. If you express a desire to go home, you're backsliding, because if you're really sane, you'd want to be cured, and then you can't go home until you stop grieving for your children who are at home. All you have to do is submit and admit you're insane, and I've done no wrong. And she couldn't make anyone hear her. She couldn't make anyone take her seriously. There was a principle called moral insanity that was really nothing more than eccentricity of conduct. You can be diagnosed as morally insane even if you weren't mentally impaired. An angry woman, for example, or an expressive man. Again, the broadness of the term moral insanity means you can apply it to anyone, your enemies, or in this case, inconvenient family members. Her husband's purpose in doing this to her is to break her, to make certain her spirit would be broken, to keep her humble. And then, of course, in Contrast, she saw Dr. McFarland, my kind friend. She described him how nice it is to meet a man who listens. I do so want to be Loved by somebody, she wrote. As she was out on her privileged walks around the grounds, she was surprised by women's voices coming from some of the other wards windows. They begged her for help. Mrs. Packard, Mrs. Packard, help us. And they outed McFarland and their horrible treatment and the things he allowed to be done to them. And now she's on the alert. Surely not her. Dr. McFarland. Wow, those ladies really were crazy. But you know, as she started looking around, she didn't see any actual treatment at all, I can tell you. Dr. McFarland regarded the quote, secret of treatment of insanity was mostly providing what he called the splint and bandage to a broken limb. So the mind had to fix itself. And all he was responsible for was, let's call it containment, restraint. Let me tell you in the background, so many more women were being committed than men for assorted reasons, that this hospital actually had gotten funding to build an entirely new ward that would house 150 more women. They debated building another ward for men and decided it wasn't necessary. They didn't have enough patients coming in. Again, mental treatment, opium and mercury, cannabis, something called conium maculatum, which is hemlock. And then the liberal dispensing of chloroform to keep people quiet. Toffee had saved his money as carefully as he could and had just now gotten enough to come see her. He is 18 now, but in this time and place he's not at his legal majority until 21. He had argued with his father and defied him and demanded that his mother be brought home. And his father threatened to disinherit him. Toffee and 16 year old Isaac were her virulent defenders, but they were powerless legally at this point. So what was happening with the neighbors, the Blessings? Turns out McFarland had been keeping her letters from her because her son and her friends had been writing to her all along and he didn't deliver them. She had been sending letters and he had kept them. All her eyes were opened, all her letters had never been delivered. And then one day, McFarland kissed her on the forehead. And her immediate thought is, fathers do not send their daughters here to have them treated so. And now she had to be on guard. There were also times his hand had lingered too long on hers or his hand on her back. Oh, this just gives me the shivers to think about how much power he had over all these women and how very, very powerless they were now. Elizabeth had a great ability, no matter where she was, to somehow end up in the Middle of a circle of friends. And she decided to start her prayer circle. We might call it a counseling session. They talked about more than religion here in this room, she wrote. We're free to think here at least, and I'm going to make the most of this. Now, the sewing directors remember that member of staff that was on her side. She warned her, if you ever wish to get out of here, you have to stop holding these prayer meetings. Elizabeth didn't get it. And the lady said, these are spy sessions only. He's taking down what you're saying and he's using it against you. He wrote, the superior, meaning him, takes full possession of the subject and their thoughts and then proceeds to modify the patient's thoughts to conform to reality. He's a very bad guy, by the way. Very bad guy. Her eyes were open about how duplicitous he really was. He was only pretending to be her friend. He was only pretending to be nice. He was only pretending not to be a complete despot. And only because she had had privilege up until now, she hadn't seen it, and it broke her heart. She wrote two documents. Number one, a defense of her sanity, and number two, an expose of McFarland's treatment of the other patients in the asylum. She told him, I will not suffer humans to be so abused as you do here without lifting my voice against it, and it will be heard. So you will repent or I will expose you. Do you not think that is supremely dangerous, given that this exact behavior is what got her into the asylum? I'm not questioning her thoughts at all. I'm not even questioning her instinct to get that out on paper. But I'm just thinking she is in an enormously rickety place right now. She made copies of them and pasted them on the back of her mirror in case somebody searched her room. But that the other ladies to whom she showed these documents were just freaking out and warned her this was going to be her undoing. She only listened to them halfway and decided she was just going to show McFarland the first one, the defense of her sanity, part of which said, and I quote, I, your sane patient, do hereby respectfully request that you forthwith give me an honorable discharge from the asylum. I have a legal and constitutional claim to my liberty as a citizen of the United States, having never said or done anything justly to forfeit it. But should you deny me my petition, will you please give me your reasons in writing for regarding and treating me as insane? What irrational behavior have you seen during the four months I've been under your intelligent observation, I am a martyr for the rights of opinion in women in this year 1860 in the boasted free America. Have you not reason to fear that my case represents a class of oppressed women who've been unjustly imprisoned here by unnatural men? Will you not dare to do right? Will you not dare to be our protector instead of our abettor in crime? I am fully determined never to return to my husband again of my own free will. He has forced me from home by means of false insanity. I shall not be guilty of the insanity of returning to such a protector. Make of me an example of one who dared to break the feathers of married servitude and forge her own existence. My husband has eradicated the only respect I ever had for him. Now I will tell you she gave Dr. McFarland far too much credit. He 100% ignored this letter, never even mentioned it. And she was going to go ahead then and deliver the second part. Her condemnation of him as a man, as a doctor, and as a Christian. You know, she decided that she had high status in this asylum and she was going to use her power and wield it for, quote, her sisters. She wrote that motives higher than my own self interest motivated me, or I could not have done it. And she gave him this scathing condemnation of his behavior and his character and how the asylum was run. And I quote, even a person with sound mind and a sound body could hardly come out of your program unharmed. But I arrived here saying, and I shall leave here sane, and I will one day make my sane report of everything I've seen here. The time for downtrodden and oppressed women to have their rights has come. Her voice and her pen are going to move the world. This is your last chance. Repent or be exposed. Now, his reaction was more like, oh, I see. You've infected the less intelligent patients of this institution with your ridiculous insistence that women have power. So now I will show you that you have no power. He decided to separate her from all the other ladies in Ward 7 who could very well go down the same path as their charismatic leader. Hey, guess who that sounds like. Just like her husband. Worried that the other members of his congregation would follow Elizabeth out the door and down the street to the Methodist church. He took her to the 8th Ward, and it was called the Maniac Ward. I'm sorry. I know. Maniac. Oh, that's not good. But that's what they called it. It was full of screaming, running women with their Black and filthy feet splashing through puddles of what turned out to be urine and excrement. Elizabeth was given no blankets, only a bucket. What's the bucket for? Oh. Oh, yeah. No more leaving. Give me your keys. And at night, the entire ward exploded in, weeping, cursing and screaming. What a soundtrack from what she had been used to the last few months. She wrote that that was the blackest night of her whole existence, that first night in Ward 8. But as she thought for hours and hours, she made a decision to not be defeated. She wrote something that I find very interesting. Circumstances belong to God. Duty belongs to the human. And I'm interested in that only because I think, you know, maybe you could apply that secularly as well. You were dealt whatever cards, but it's how you yourself play them that matter. Does that make sense? So in the morning, she woke up determined to make whatever impact she could on her situation. And she asked the attendant for. They were not allowed bathtubs down there, obviously. And she asked the attendant for soap and water and towels. And one by one, she was seizing the other occupants of the ward, calming them down and brushing their hair and washing their faces and washing their hands and talking to them gently. And MacFarlane came down in the morning thinking he was going to see a very broken woman, but instead found half a room of ladies who were cleaner than they had been in a number of years, and the other half waiting patiently in a line for Elizabeth's attention. And who should be in the middle of it all? Elizabeth herself. He was not very happy. His triumph was deflated, and he left and slammed the door. You know, once upon a time up in Ward 7, her focus had been on women like herself who'd been committed, that are otherwise sane and should not have been in this place. But now she saw a darker reality. She realized all the human beings under this roof should not be treated in this manner. She wrote, I do not regard an insane person as an object of reproach or contempt by any means. They're objects of pity and compassion. I regard insanity as the greatest misfortune which can befall a human being in this life. What respect their due from all the wars that they had daily won. They are also human beings with human feelings. Now, unless we get too touchy feely with violins and cotton candy clouds across a lavender sky or whatever. She was in a ward with women who actually had what we would even consider today to be definable mental illnesses. And in an unguarded moment, lulled by everyone's docility, she left Herself vulnerable to attack and was viciously beaten by one of the inmates to the point where the doctor thought she might lose an eye. She asked him to remove her from this ward. And not only did he not do that, he transferred in the most dangerous patient in the entire asylum, One that even the attendants were afraid of. Old Mother Triplet. And he ordered the attendants to always have this person sit by Elizabeth at meals, to sleep next to her at night. The first thing, quote, old mother triplet said to her, is, I will kill you. This woman, all dinner time would spit in Elizabeth's face and pour coffee in her lap or throw her dinner onto the ground. You know, when they served meat, they also provided knives to the patients. And old mother triplet would throw knives at Elizabeth. She was subject to violence from then on. Elizabeth would often wake up being dragged across the room by her hair or shaken violently. McFarland would not listen to anything she said. He would just walk away from her. And then he forbade anyone from giving her writing materials of any kind. She later wrote, can a just God behold these scenes and refuse to act? This is a place where insanity is made, not treated. She said, I believe it is Dr. McFarland's purpose now to fully make a maniac out of me by skillful use of the asylum's tortures. But you know what? He, in his sick way, already thought just by her having stood up to him in the first place, she was irredeemably insane. He also thought that when a patient thinks there is a conspiracy against them, that is a confirmation that you're insane. He wrote, sometimes patients can maintain their delusion of normalcy for months, sometimes years, until something reveals their true nature of insanity. And I'm like, this is truly. I. I can't even understand how sick this is. How sick Dr. McFarland is. Any justification for putting these people in prison, the amount of self congratulatory doublethink that these doctors have, it's not just McFarland, it's. It's widespread. You know, sooner or later, a patient would eventually develop behaviors that would convince even a layperson of their condition. I mean, literally, there is nothing Elizabeth can do to convince him. He marketed her to everyone outside of the asylum as someone dangerous, almost like Hannibal Lecter. So intelligent and charming that she could draw in the less intelligent patient and draw them down with her to their destruction. You know, there was definitely, and I'm not surprised by this, at least one point in which she was full of despair and really considered the final option. If you know what I mean. But then in her reflection, she says, God says I'm not to kill anybody, and I am somebody, you know? In fact, that's the core of her strength. Literally the rest of her life kind of crystallized into, I, a woman, have my own mind. I have my right to be in charge of my own life. I have the same free will as a man and I should be allowed to execute it. But here in this place, all she could control was her behavior. And she decided to channel her whole being into caring for and advocating for her fellow inmates, alleving whatever sorrow she can. She said that by helping others, her own troubles became bearable. I will always stand up for the oppressed. And she wrote later, Dr. McFarland, you cannot crush my spirit. There is nothing you can do to me. Believe it or not, shopping, planning and cooking food can be simple and stress free. I know, but it really can.
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- [62:44]
Samantha
Elizabeth was looking around and thinking how when she came to an asylum, this asylum, she thought it meant like a refuge in which places people might be cared for. And she was just certain that the only reason these asylums were allowed to operate in this way is because the general public had thought the same way she used to, that people were being, you know, carefully placed on a shelf for their own protection and that perhaps people didn't know what was really happening to their loved ones in these places. So she set a goal for herself, that she was going to start keeping a journal about what was happening, despite the danger. She scavenged a pen, she scavenged paper from other patients, because this is interesting to me, you know, she had been forbidden from pen and paper. And she looked around and noticed no one else had their pens and paper taken. The only paper Dr. McFarland was afraid of was the pen and paper when Elizabeth wielded it. So she felt like a power. My sentiments are going to be feared by those in authority. She decided that was going to be her life's work, to expose what was going on here and everywhere. In every asylum, she noted specific crimes. And I honestly, I'm going to limit how much I tell you about them, um, let's just call them near drownings, beatings, puddles of blood on the floor. Dr. McFarland said that everything that happened in the asylum was wholesome chastisement. And, you know, he turns more into a smooth tongue devil, I guess every second I hear anything that comes out of his mouth, it makes me burn with the. The fire of anger. Mrs. Hosmer worked hard to get her assigned to the sewing room. Mrs. Hosmer, the staff member. This doesn't seem like freedom, but it really, really was. And of course, she could say, she's my best seamstress, you know, I'm falling behind. I really need her skills. And Mrs. Hosmer looked the other way. When Elizabeth got hold of, you know, the brown paper wrapping, they would send the shirts out with the tissue paper they used for packaging material, a lot of that kind of stuff, newspapers disappeared in benefit of her task. And she also altered a hat of hers. It was a big bonnet. And made a hat that was basically layers of paper. Anyone that would ever pick up the hat would be like, what an astonishingly heavy chapeau this is. But no officials ever picked it up. It even considered it. But that's where all her papers were hidden. Super, super clever. She had a dream that she was trapped on a rock and across the bank of raging water, men acted like they were going to save her. And at the last minute, they decided it was too dangerous and they let her be. And so she kicked off her shoes in the dream and decided she had to save herself. And that's when she woke up and realized that's exactly what she had to do. There wasn't anyone coming to save her. She had to save herself. But how was she going to do this? She couldn't communicate with anyone. Her husband sent a letter that did get delivered to her, and she really only wanted to know about the children. Like, I don't care what happens to the husband, you know? When she left, her youngest child wasn't even two yet. Even one day missed of his company was breaking her heart. Her husband literally asked her, who do you think we should get to raise the baby? He was bad. He was a very bad guy. Now, reading between the lines, she discovered that her daughter Libby, the only girl in the house, of course, was stuck with all the work and was not going to school because of it. Isaac, at 16, wanted to go to war. It was 1861, and guess what was happening? The Civil War. And she wrote to him and told him not to go. If his father disapproved. That was the best she could do. Because I think if she told him not to go, her husband would have been incensed that she dared to give him advice. Who knows if Dr. McFarland ever even sent that letter? And Toffee, of course now 19, was certainly old enough to go to war too, if it came to that. So now there's a whole bunch of people on the outside to worry about acutely that she could not reach. The next year, Theophilus visited her, and she refused to see him. And Dr. McFarland told her, Mrs. Packard, do you really think this is the action of a sane woman to treat a man, a lover, a husband, with such disregard even though he had mistreated her? It's against nature. Are you kidding me? But you know what? That is another pathway by which women come into asylums. All over the country, they called it distaste for the company of the husband. It was a committable offense. A married woman could not own property, sign legal documents, enter into a contract, obtain an education against her husband's wishes, or keep a salary for herself if her husband let her work under the laws of the country, she was required to relinquish 100% of her wages to her husband. Husbands were supposed to be as deities to their wives. And. And the fact that she had distaste for her Lord and master was also considered evidence of her insanity. One of her attendant friends relayed something she'd overheard Mr. Packard say to the doctor. A sentence that this lady thought would really cheer Mrs. Packard up. He had told Dr. McFarland, and I quote, I have never seen such children attached to a mother as Mrs. Packard's are. It's impossible for me to wean them from her. Hooray. Mrs. McFarland at this point, even sympathized with Elizabeth. The most violent of patients, including old mother knife thrower, were removed from her ward. And she, Elizabeth, within the confines still of the 8th Ward, now had her own private room. The cook, always her friend, sent her treats whenever possible. In fact, the cook and her husband, who was a caretaker, had planned to leave the asylum. I'm sorry to say that would happen over and over where her allies would leave for greener pastures. They agreed, however, to take an article to the newspapers under their own name, since they were leaving, if Elizabeth would write it. She did write was an expose of what was happening in a mental institution. The cook and her husband did take it out to the paper, and it didn't get published in the paper's defense. There was a heck of a lot going on in the outside world with regard to the Civil War. I don't know if this didn't rise to the level of concern or if they were very, very concerned about libel, about being able to prove the claims that were stated in this letter. Anyway, that really excellent foray into the outside world came to nothing. Dr. McFarlane was frustrated that so far Elizabeth Packard had not revealed what he called the core of her mental instability. But he would get it out of her someday. Since he couldn't get it out of her by talking to her or punishing her. He had an inspiration. Perhaps if I supply her with unlimited paper, he would get her to reveal her internal instability. Over the course of the next year or so, she wrote 2500 pages. She called this book the great drama. And he kept telling her he would get it published in order to keep her writing it. He even offered to use his own money to pay. It was a big sensation around the asylum. Pages leaked out. There were all kinds of subjects in there, from the Civil War to women's suffrage to the asylum, to what is owed to humanity, to the purpose of the Holy Spirit. I mean, it went everywhere. Housekeeping, hints for all I know. Now, you know, rough drafts I have done NaNoWriMo, which is in November. You write a whole book, like 50,000 words and often stream of consciousness is the way to get your word count. You know, you have to write a lot and then you edit afterward. This is a first draft, so the fact that it's stream of consciousness and it doesn't have any coherent theme should not be regarded as evidence of mental instability. But yet you know the drill. It is. Dr. McFarland wrote, as there will always be some who would believe Elizabeth Packard was not insane. I wished her to complete her crazed writing, to probe her absurdity. On a quarterly basis, the asylum trustees met to review cases and determine who should be released from the asylum. And Elizabeth begged to make her own case to them. And to her great surprise, Dr. McFarland agreed. On the day of the meeting, Elizabeth dressed with great care. She went into the room. She can hold a room, and she made a great case. Her husband also arrived, unfortunately, and met with all of them separately. We all know by now he has no time offensive at all. And unbeknownst to Elizabeth, Dr. McFarland had determined that his life would be a lot easier if she was just out of his hair. The process of committal required a two year period to see if the patient was curable. The first, the first chance he got to just get rid of her was right now. It was embarrassing for him that he had not managed to, quote, cure her or even identify what was actually wrong with her. He was at a professional conference, in fact, and mentioned that to people. And they said, oh, you, you kept this woman for two years when you thought she was sane. And he's like, whoa, you know, bag this. I don't want to have this stone around my neck anymore. I'm done with this. This is just embarrassing, professionally and personally, and it's whatever. And he recommended that she be released from the asylum, although he insisted that when she was released, he would list her as incurable, so she could not ever be sent back to his institution. And also, of course, one last slam against her that would remain on her record to drag along with her like an anchor for the rest of her life. I do not know how she keeps encountering these men whose whole goal on earth it is to punish her and bring her down. Well, Elizabeth was adamant, though, during this meeting that when she was released, she would not be released in the care this husband. It was perhaps worse than the 8th Ward for real. He treated her poorly and she would not go back as subservient to a man like that. Ooh, that's unprecedented. And honestly, they didn't quite know the mechanism by which that could be accomplished. So whatever reason, they tabled their decision until the next meeting. But she was full of hope. And the next meeting she heard she was to be discharged. Hooray, hooray, I'm going to be released in June. Now, her cousin, Angeline Field is her married name. The cousin slash sister called on her. Yeah, McFarlane's like, she's going to be out of here. I don't care. Have some visitors. And Angeline said it was the buzz that Elizabeth was going to be released despite her husband's wishes, and warned her that Mr. Packard was scrambling around trying to find a second asylum to put her in straight from this one. When she was released, the challenge was he was short of funds, so that limited his scope a little bit. But he did find a state hospital where one of his friends was a trustee, and convinced the friend that since his wife was listed as incurable, that they would never let her be released. That they would keep her forever, ideally. And Dr. McFarland, unbeknownst to Elizabeth, had already written a scathing and damning doctor's affidavit that she was incurably insane. And he recommended that they take her. Yes. So cousin Angeline's warning really upset her. She was very worried. Now, she didn't know about Dr. McFarland and his betrayal of her. She decided that she would be safer in his asylum than out in the world, where Theophilus could get a hold of her and put her permanently into another asylum. She asked to stay longer, and as a little insurance, her son toffee turned 21 on March 17, 1863. And so, okay, I can never be released on my own recognizance, but I would like to change my male guardian, my male adult son could take responsibility for her. So she felt that the place that before had kept her confined against her will would now be her refuge, her salvation. You know, she very much misunderstood what was happening. All she knew was that they accepted Toffee as the male relation, as far as she knew, and he began paying for her to stay there. She thought she could be safe here and finish her book so that she could support herself when she was released. Not to her husband, you know, but what had actually happened was her fees had been covered by the state for a long time because Mr. Packard had been considered indigent. He no longer had a salary. More on that later. But Toffee had a full time job, and so he was charged for her upkeep. This did not mean, as she thought, that she was simply renting a room in the establishment until she chose to cease the arrangement. She's under the protection of Dr. McFarland. No, it was simply that the asylum could get some money from Toffee, so she felt safer where she was. But she was deluded. Her release was still scheduled for June. McFarland wasn't going to keep her. He did not want her there. And despite her assertion that she was a tenant who paid rent, nope, she would be discharged to her husband as scheduled. Up until the last minute, she was adamant that she wasn't leaving. Attendants packed her things, they carried her out the door. Dr. McFarland, after all this time and after all these emotional ups and downs, shook her hand and left the room. That's it. She had to be carried out to the bus, the omnibus, to join her husband at Theophilus. She and the attendants and her husband went in the bus to the train station where the attendants had come with to carry her in to the train. She thought that she may very well be directly on her way to another asylum. And that was not an unfounded supposition. She was terrified and very distressed. And she could not think what to do. She couldn't think how to escape when there was no one that she could appeal to for help. But little did she know. She had had some activists working in her corner when the train stopped. Who did she behold but her cousin Angeline and Angeline's husband, Mr. Field. She had found a refuge and she was not going to another asylum. It was a miracle. But you're here on one condition, said Theophilus. Listen to me closely. You will never see my children again. And he told Angelina and her husband, if she sees the children again, I will immediately put her into another asylum. And this time it will be forever. So she is never going to be free. She is always under the threat of her husband legally being able to commit her for life to a state institution. And now she could never see her children again. And that was the only real thing that was keeping her going all these years. She did channel her distress into a positive action. She wrote to all the patients families that she knew the name of, telling them how it was inside of the asylum. Surely you don't know. And at least in a couple of cases, the families horrified Cain and retrieved their family member. So, limited as the success was, she did make a difference there. And then she tried to publish her book. Now every publisher she approached was scared off from even considering her manuscript. An incurable mental patient as an author. Yikes. No. Also, it's 2500 pages of complete rambling. Also, it's like, what. What is this? And she discovered the truth of the book. That McFarlane never intended she should be an author. He was just getting her to write this book, to hang herself really with it. And he mocked it thoroughly everywhere. And all this confidence she had in this book that she thought was going to be published be her salvation was laughable. It was a giant blow. It was a giant blow to her confidence. And, you know, she'd never written a book before, and she didn't know how it went. And. And she doesn't know that first drafts are always kind of a mess. And. And she was very shocked. She had such confidence that she could support herself with her writing. And now she was in a tailspin again. Now she charmed her village, I will tell you. And they held a public indignation meeting against her husband and the asylum and also raised money for her, for supplies and to live. And that article that she had written that the cooks had taken out and submitted to the paper was actually printed in the local paper. It's called Appeal on Behalf of the Insane. And that was very gratifying. The public response to it was generalized horror at what she had endured at the hands of her husband. She decided to take a giant chance and go back to her house. After all, she missed the children to the depth of her being. And she came back home to her town with no fanfare at all. There's no one to meet her up the train, neither mob nor friend. But she did meet someone. A little boy was walking behind her on the train platform, and it was her son, George. She hadn't recognized him at first, and neither did he recognize her. But they had a reunion. He'd been 6 when she left, and he was now 10. Sure enough, it came out that her husband had been poisoning her children's mind against them. He was awfully reluctant to say anything bad about his father, who he was afraid of, but he was desperately happy to see her again. She met and had dinner with supportive friends, not going home quite yet. I'm happy to say they were true friends. You know, absence made no difference. I have some friends like that. You just take up where you leave off. She's been gone for three and a half years for an unjust reason. She's been through a lot. She's been through trauma. And these friends, over a cozy, comforting dinner in a welcoming environment, told her something very interesting. A year and a half ago, Theophilus's congregation had sort of imploded about Half the congregation had left and formed their own splinter church, irritated with his doctrine and also, in many cases, appalled at his treatment of his wife. The trustees of the church blamed Theophilus for this and asked for his resignation. Theophilus and his children were dependent on the kindness of friends in order to keep their house and have food on the table. Theophilus had no income and was fact in great amounts of debt. So really, Elizabeth had had an impact with her conversations before she left and she needed to be prepared for her husband to be, shall we say, less than receptive to her reappearance in the house. Mr. Blessing offered to come home with her as a buffer bodyguard, but she said she'd better not because it would infuriate her husband. The garden had fallen apart, of course, young Libby couldn't manage everything. The house was in a bit of disrepair and dirt, but it was home, nearly a castle, you know, after where she'd been. She walked in and saw her husband cradling this almost five year old boy in his lap. Her baby, who didn't know her at all. Don't worry, she said, we'll never be separated again. Just that sentence infuriated her husband. Georgie, who she'd met at the train station, and her daughter Libby were very happy to see her. But I'm sorry to say that the almost 16 year old Samuel had drunk his father's Kool Aid and was not only hostile to a mother he deemed insane and embarrassing, but participated in his father's campaigns. She began cleaning and tidying up, sure that her, you know, reassertion of her domestic sphere could not be disgraceful to him, that this is where he thought she belonged after all. Cleaning the kitchen, scrubbing the floor. But as far as he was concerned, the devil had come to live in his house and he would stand in front of her. You are not wanted here. She put a pot of water on the stove to heat so she could scrub the floor. And he took the pot of water off and dumped it in the sink. You shall heat no water upon my stove. He locked everything up, from the linens to her clothes to the food, to every supply possible and did not give her any keys. He ordered all the children not to mind her. He taught them she was truly insane and to be feared. The oldest two were working in Chicago. If only their influence could have been brought to bear in the house, things might have been a little different. The neighbors met to castigate him and he freaked out. They came over to remonstrate with him and he Freaked out, interfering in my personal home and family. But much to everyone's surprise, Elizabeth calmed the waters as best she could. She told the friends, thank you for coming. You know, you are good neighbors. I'm going to obey my husband, blah, blah, blah. She didn't want to be sent away again. This was an uphill battle. Theophilus really regarded her as the devil. He couldn't stand the sight of her. Even though Elizabeth was being pacifying within the house, she had tamped down the anger of the neighbors that had come to stand in the living room. Her friends were besmirching his name and calling him a despot and questioning his behavior. And then they had the temerity to call on his wife in the capacity of friends in his house with those words in their mouth, he got. Oh, he got incandescent. All he really needed was an excuse. And one day he got one. A set of keys went missing. And he not only stripped Elizabeth naked in order to search her bodily, he unearthed her whole room. And then he went out and dug up all the plants in the garden, just sure she had stolen his keys from him and hid them from him. And he was not going to have it. He couldn't find them anywhere, and he couldn't stand it. And so he locked her in the nursery and kept that key for himself. And then he went out on a ladder and nailed all the windows shut from the outside. No more communications with anyone. No one's coming over here. You are to eat. No more meals with the children. Your influence is going to be too bad on them. He had now turned to physical violence. He would come into her room and beat her. He wrote to Dr. McFarland and asked for her to be readmitted to the asylum. And McFarland wrote back. She was considered incurable. She's not allowed to come back. And so Theophilus determined he was, in fact going to send her to this large public asylum called the Northampton Asylum, and began his dossier. He collected up doctor certificates. After a couple of failures in which a doctor was called to meet her and declared her sane, he had someone disguise himself as a sewing machine salesman and engage Elizabeth in a conversation about religion. It was really a doctor. And he was convinced, due to her passion on that subject, that she was indeed mad. So everything was ready to go.
- [85:35]
Guest Singer
Ooh.
- [85:35]
Samantha
Theophilus was so sure of himself, he even let a couple of her friends in and a lawyer. Nothing can stop me. On Tuesday, January 12, 1863, a representative of the court came to the door and submitted to him, a writ of habeas corpus for his wife. Oh, you're exploiting one loophole. We're going to exploit another one. See, if Elizabeth had actually been committed to the institution, of course, no one could stop him. But he hadn't yet got her there. And she was at home with nailed shut windows, no fire in the freezing cold of January, and a door locked from the outside. So he was not acting as a concerned caretaker, but as a cruel husband. That's a fine line. But they got the writ of habeas corpus, and Theophilus was to bring his wife in front of a judge. At long last. He called her friends, intermeddlers, and then wrote angrily to a friend as though I was falsely imprisoning her. Ugh. Dude, can I please tell you right here? Elizabeth had taken those keys. She took the keys, she buried them in the ground outside her bedroom window for the purpose of making him lock her up somewhere so they could get this writ issued. It was a very long game. She had accidentally encountered some letters of his and realized what he had intended to do and knew she had to put a plan in place. And she had had to drop a letter out to a man. He walked by every day. He had permission to get water from the pump behind their house, came by every day around the same time. And she dropped a letter to him between the panes of the window to be delivered to a friend of hers. And he delivered it. And this friend, Sarah Hayslett, and her husband were able to get get that legal maneuvering in place. The writ specified Mrs. Packard was to be brought before judge Charles Star at his chambers three hours from right then in Kankakee, 12 miles away. And so Elizabeth put her shoes on. Are you secretly cleaning with microplastics? You might not think so, but if you're using detergent pods, your clean might not be as clean as you think. That's why we've made the switch to Blueland. Across all the cleaning products in our houses, their products meet the highest standard of clean. They're effective, yet gentle on our family and our planet. Blueland was also named an EPA safer choice partner of the year. From cleaning sprays and toilet bowl cleaner to dishwasher and laundry detergent tablets, Blueland's formulas are 100% microplastic free, made with certified clean ingredients, free from chlorine, bleach and harsh chemicals that are safe to use around my family. And I love not having to choose between the safe option and what actually gets the house clean.
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- [90:07]
Samantha
Outside of the courthouse, a large mob had gathered in support of her. And the judge convened a 12 man jury to sit in judgment. Which infuriated her husband greatly because he thought the crowd had influenced the judge to not just decide in a closed room. This wasn't supposed to be about her sanity. Everyone knew married women had no right to a trial before being declared insane. What was going on? A simple man to man case about treating his wife one way or the other way was now turned into this circus. He thought he'd have a worse chance with a jury that everyone got to tell the story to and the story would get out and it would get misconstrued and there were interferers everywhere. And he just got into a state, state. His plan was going to be derailed. And the trial began. Packard versus Packard, which lasted five days. I mean, this trial was considered one of the most remarkable that had been around in this day. You know, the papers in major cities were even covering it. Theophilus's lawyers produced witnesses from his family who testified that Elizabeth had argued with her husband and tried to withdraw from his congregation. These witnesses agreed with Theophilus that this alone was a sign of insanity. I actually have to wonder if Theophilus and his congregation were in a Little bit of a bubble, thinking people would agree that his religious views were the only way. And if she didn't agree with him, she was insane. Do you know what I mean? He was so sure that this would be the thing. Well, the record from Dr. McFarland's hospital stating that Mrs. Packard's condition was incurable. Now, when that was entered into the court record, that was stronger evidence. Elizabeth's lawyers responded by calling witnesses from the neighborhood who knew the Packards but were not members of Theophilus's family or church. And these witnesses testified they never saw Elizabeth exhibit any signs of insanity, discussing religion or otherwise. And in the pantheon of witnesses and sort of reading between the lines of their reactions, that first set of witnesses seemed, I guess I'm gonna say my famous word, cockamamie coached, maybe sticking to a line that they had been told to say. I can't exactly get to the sentiment I want. But as to the latter set of witnesses, Elizabeth's witnesses, they were genuine and passionate in her defense and had evidence and receipts. Not like a CVS receipt on paper, but like, girl, I got receipts. And it almost seemed like that first set of witnesses were there under a grudge and not because they wanted to see justice done, I guess. The differences in the group seemed apparent to the people that were there at the trial. The final witness was Dr. Duncanson, who was both a doctor and a theologian, an expert witness, and he had interviewed Elizabeth, and he testified that while not necessarily in agreement with all her religious beliefs, she was sane. He said, I do not call people insane because they differ with me. I pronounce her a sane woman. I wish we had a nation of such women now. A couple of days into this trial, Theophilus stopped attending. It was just his legal team on his side, and it was very curious. So he wasn't there when the jury left and everyone started. You know how you do. You get your coat, you start gathering your belongings. You know, the jury's not coming back for maybe even tomorrow or whatever. Well, what to their wondering eyes should appear was the jury. After only seven minutes of deliberation, people hadn't even left the room when they filed in. They were ready with their verdict. They decided the case in Elizabeth's favor. She was legally declared sane. And Judge Charles Starr issued an order that she should not be confined. Hooray. Vindicated. The crowd that had been avidly watching this case for five days burst into enormous applause. It was almost as if it had turned into a stadium. People were waving their handkerchiefs. Some ladies were crying. Some men were hugging each other. It was like an all skate of happiness. This Elizabeth said she had experienced great joy. At last the vindication of her assertion that she'd been sane this whole time. Well, I'm sorry to say her joy was short lived. She was handed a letter from her absent husband that rocked her entire world. He said in a very thinly veiled bit of revenge that due to her charm offensive or whatever she wishes to call it, due to the prejudice of the crowd against him, he had received threats to his life and in fear he had in fact left their home and had taken the children. Friends of Elizabeth's took her speedily back to her house. She banged on the door and a strange man opened the door. I live here now, he said. Theophilus had rented their house to another family. Theophilus had sold her furniture or taken it, had taken her money, had taken her her whole wardrobe of clothes and her children and had left the state. Ultimately he would be discovered to have moved the whole kit and caboodle to Massachusetts. Talk about a low point. A low point, she said. I have been thrown out into the cold world. So she at this point is 47 years old and has literally nowhere to go. Nothing on earth. Theophilus took every single bit of the marital assets. She appealed to the supreme courts of both Illinois and Massachusetts where he'd gone, but had no legal recourse because married women in these states at the time had no legal rights to their property or to their children. In fact, this is why she'd never wanted to file for divorce, an option that had come up repeatedly because the very first thing that happened in a divorce is that the women never saw their children again. Custody, full unalienable non visitation custody was given to the father while staying at some steadfast friends houses. Thank goodness for steadfast friends. She decided once again there was no one coming to save her and she had to save herself. She actually went to Chicago and got a publisher to publish in pamphlet form her work that called out Dr. Farland for his abuse of his patients. She literally had a thousand copies printed and sold them for 10 cents apiece. And then in order to finance the possible publishing of her book, she had an amazing idea. She was going to sell promissory notes for 50 cents. When the book comes out, you turn in this coupon and you get your copy of the book. And that's how she began her work of selling 12,000 of these promissory tickets all over Illinois. She'd go to a bookstore or to a post office and she would arrange that they would be the depot to which she would send the books to this town when they were done and could they go ahead and deliver copies to anybody that showed up with those tickets. She literally canvassed hotels and rooming houses and restaurants and churches telling her story and selling her tickets. And she was such a respectable looking lady that it was almost unbelievable. And you know, even if this story wasn't true, sure was a good story, it's probably going to be a good book. In fact, she successfully published many books, often large pieces of that 2, 500 page manuscript finalized and edited. And rather than sprinkle them through the rest of her story, I'm going to tell you some of the names here. Now you, you would not think they'd be such bangers, I'm here to be honest, but they're almost without exception bestsellers. They sold very well. Here's the one I'm the most fond of. The exposure on board the Atlantic and Pacific car of emancipation for the slaves of old Columbia engineered by the Lightning Express or Christianity and Calvinism, compared with an appeal to the government to emancipate the slaves of the marriage union. Volume one, Marital power exemplified or three years imprisonment for religious belief, Great disclosure of spiritual wickedness in high places, the mystic key or the asylum secret unlocked and the prisoner's hidden life insane asylums unveiled. Many of these can be read on Google books if you are so inclined. Now, with the beginnings of her success under her belt, she decided to go visit her father. He had remarried. She hadn't seen him in almost 11 years. And after her visit, her glorious, intelligent, wonderful visit, with shock, regret and a whole bunch of remorse, her papa realized his lack of support. He in fact had believed Theophilus tales about his daughter. He had repeatedly sent Theophilus hundreds of dollars for maintenance for what Theophilus had represented as hospital fees, which of course he never paid because they never charged him anything because he didn't have a job. So he kept that money for himself this whole time. Papa sent tart messages to his son in law, who literally was by now settled in the same town as he was. Kindly return my daughter's clothing and other belongings. I. I am now her protector. And you can have no further reason for keeping these from her. Ooh. And it was on her presence in this town, since she was famous, really started tongues wagging here against her husband. And not uniformly, but largely public sentiment was on her side, bolstered of course, by her father and her youngest brother. Austin's open support of her story. Theophilus found himself in the same situation he'd been in. Congregation after congregation. His parishioners, for lack of a better word, began to regard him with that dirty eyeball, you know, like, who is this guy that he would do such a thing? Papa offered her a permanent home in his house. Not only that, he rewrote his will in order to separate Theophilus from inheritance. I can't tell you the exact details of how he did it. 19th century law is not my forte, but he tied up an equal part of his fortune. He had three living children and a wife, and he tied up Elizabeth's portion so it would remain under her control and not that of her husband's. Theophilus was brought out of necessity, societal and financial, to bring the children to, quote, see their grandfather. And, of course, there was a glorious reunion at last. Another thread running through the next. Well, the rest of her life really was her work that she had pledged herself to do all those years ago in the scary, scary, dirty ward and the dark of night, in her worst depths of despair, her promise to herself that she would be the one to, free, quote, her sisters from bondage. And to that effect, she began, I guess what you'd almost call a directed lobbying campaign for both asylum reform and married women's rights. We already know she's supremely good in a room. Some people just really are. And, you know, she just selected more influential rooms in which to operate. She founded the Anti Insane Asylum Society, whose members lobbied senators and state representatives in Massachusetts, where she's currently living, and in Illinois, the location of her former torment. She bullied and badgered and charmed and reasoned and spoke and gathered signatures and supporters, and was so persistent and convincing that in 1867, the year she was 51, both states passed what was called a Bill for the Protection of Personal Liberty, which guaranteed, among other things, that all people accused of insanity, including wives, had the right to a public hearing, as well as language which required every member of such a person's family to be notified in writing, as well as two people of the accused's choice to be notified also so that a hearing could be held with witnesses to speak on behalf of the person that was in such jeopardy. Looking ahead a little, it turned out, 34 bills of assorted kinds were passed in various state legislatures, including the right for the asylum patients to receive and send mail, careful inspections of asylums, patients, rights to humane treatment informally. All of these began to be known as Packard's Laws. Well, under Packard's laws. We've got to inspect this facility, sir. Thanks in large part to the relentless efforts of Elizabeth, those revelations sparked major changes in how mental health care was handled across the state and later across the entire country. As for the specific asylum that had caused all of her own personal trouble, the Illinois legislature decided to take a closer look at what was really going on inside the asylum. How people were being treated and what the conditions were like. And what they found wasn't pretty serious gaps in care, you think? Questionable practices, huh? And clear signs of neglect. They solicited accounts from other former patients of Dr. McFarland's, and they painted a troubling picture. A place where patients rights were ignored, where it was hard to tell the difference between actual medical treatment and punishment. The Illinois Legislature recommended that Dr. McFarland be fired. But I'm sorry to say that by reputation or chicanery, or maybe just the slow moving machinery of reform, Dr. McFarland himself escaped with his reputation intact. He resigned from the original institution the year Elizabeth was 53, but opened another private one later, and in fact retained his reputation as a mental health expert to such an extent that in 1875, when our old friend Mary Todd Lincoln, Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, had been committed, her son, Robert Lincoln, literally summoned Dr. McFarland to examine his mother to determine whether or not she could be released. Guess what? Dr. McFarland said? No, of course she can't be released. But Robert took her out anyway. To his Credit, the year Dr. McFarland resigned, two years after her first successful mental health reform work, legislation was passed in Illinois and Massachusetts allowing married women equal rights to property and custody of their children. I will tell you, this specific legislation had been percolating for some time in the background. This is the bubbling groundswell in the upcoming women's rights movement. There are sympathetic members of legislatures all over the country who in fact had been gathering steam to advocate for this particular. This particular role. And I can only imagine Elizabeth's work tipped the balance in the states in which she operated, and then those states and their legislatures might have influenced those of other states. So it was kind of like the little pebble at the top of the avalanche. Upon the passing of those laws for married women's rights, Theophilus, who was significantly less financially stable than she, at last gave custody of their children back to her. The three youngest, Libby, Georgie and Arthur, came to live with her in Chicago. Samuel also lived with them. At one point, his house got destroyed by the Chicago fire. Yeah, so he came to live with Mama Too. But after how much time? Seriously, how horrible was Theophilus to have robbed the family of so much history and all their relationships? Honestly? 11 years separated when she was first taken to the asylum. And right now, part of the deal was that he would get unlimited visitation to his children. And she agreed to it. And her oldest son, Toffee, met his father at the door and said, now I'm paraphrasing. Look, you, this is mother's house. I won't have her mistreated here. She literally accepted Theophilus's presence in her house. She treated him as if he were just some. Some stranger that she'd invited in to get out of the cold. I mean, there was no love. But there was also no outward rancor in her manners and no emotion at all, really. She was so big in this. She didn't want to alienate the children from their father, who in some of their cases was the only parent they'd ever really known. I almost can't believe this. That's a measure of character. I read somewhere that she gave him an allowance, which is more than he ever did for her. I'm very, very sorry to say that Libby, the only daughter, was the one that paid the largest price for everything their family had been through. When she'd only been 10, she'd been loaded with the responsibility for everything in the house, the care of her younger brothers, and to be the emotional support of her father, who did not have another confidential friend. He relied too much on his daughter as she grew from a tween through her entire teenage years to now when she's 19. Poor Libby suffered from modern medical, forensic historians think probably depression, an unresolved trauma. Even though the ordeal was over, it had left a permanent scar. And the littlest child, Arthur, who really had never known his mother, never really warmed to her. And for, you know, 11 of his 13 years, he'd only known Papa. And his mom was in the asylum, you know, and Elizabeth let him go live with his father as the best for his own personal spirit. It didn't have to be this way. Imagine what their lives would have been if she'd never been sent away. But yet it was throughout the course of all these years and all her work. Of course, she had her detractors, some in very powerful positions. You know, think about all the centuries of medical wisdom. She was flying in the face of religious practices with regard to marital responsibilities and duties. She is responsible, shaking a lot of trees. She was definitely accused of stepping outside of her rightful sphere. People tried to smear her through various tactics. By taking her writing out of context or attempting to cast doubt upon the validity of the trial that had cemented the fact of her sanity in the first place. She was destroying the way of life of a large conservative slice of the country. And as such, her name and work were the subject of editorials and letters to the editor in papers all across the United States, in speeches in legislatures all across the United States. And what was Elizabeth's reaction to all of this? You can say what you want about my work because I am an advocate of free speech. So good. So good. As sort of her final act. A little bit of dessert. The cherry on top. Elizabeth was involved in the formation of the National Society for the Protection of the Insane and the Prevention of insanity in 1880, when she was 64. She did have a brief period in which she was able to enjoy her family, her grandchildren, and her freedom. Theophilus died in 1885. He is buried in the Elmwood Cemetery in Mantino, Illinois. Dr. McFarland died by his own hand in 1891 when he was 74. Elizabeth Packard died on July 25, 1897, at the age of 74 in a local hospital, leaving property worth $603,000 in modern money. Here's an excerpt from an obituary in the Boston Transcript newspaper. And I quote, it has been claimed that no woman of her day, except possibly Harriet Beecher Stowe, exercised a wider influence in the interest of humanity. She's buried in the Rose Hill Cemetery in Chicago with her dates in the word mother out of literally nothing but the delight of falling down this particular rabbit hole. Buried also in Rose Hill Cemetery, Oscar Meyer, Richard Sears, who founded Sears, and Mr. Montgomery Ward, who founded Montgomery Ward. I am very sorry to say that Elizabeth's only daughter, Libby, was in fact committed to the Illinois Eastern Hospital for the Insane by one or more of her brothers, where she died four years after her mother, who had actively worked to prevent that from happening while she was alive, and that both second son Isaac and youngest son Arthur died at their own hands in 1927 and 1936, respectively. You know, that is not how I wish to end this tale. After all her achievements and the reform she brought to so many of the vulnerable people in society, the situation in her own family had taken casualties, and her story faded very quickly after she was gone. So I am going to give you this revenge that is served very, very cold. After a Springfield, Illinois, resident named Miranda Bailey Peets began a petition drive, garnering hundreds of signatures on August 10, 2023. Illinois Governor J.B. pritzker renamed the mental health hospital in Springfield, Illinois, from the Andrew McFar Mental Health center, unbelievably, to the Elizabeth Packard Mental Health center in Elizabeth's honor. And that brings me to the end of the tale of Elizabeth Packard. And now it's time for media. Let me give you a few books. First of all, the private war of Mrs. Packard by Barbara Sipinsley. Secondly, the Woman They Couldn't Silence by Kate Moore. My library actually had this on Libby, so in audiobook form. And the author is British. And so I had to really refer refrain from saying Packard at certain points during the recording of this episode. This one, and maybe it's because I experienced it with the author reading it aloud. Seems a lot more passionate, uses a lot more explanation of how she might have been feeling at this time or that. And there's buzz about this particular book being made into a movie. I say go for it. I'm only surprised it hasn't been done before now. But, you know, we say that a lot. And the last one, Elizabeth A Noble Fight by Linda V. Carlisle. This book I actually got out of a little free library, which is one of the best inventions of modern times as far as I'm concerned. And I will give you a link to one of the books of Elizabeth herself on Google Books, which is an archival service for things that have gone out of copyright. And you can often read them online for free. But they're all there also as of right now, and this changes daily, of course, five of her books are on the Thriftbooks site site for purchase. They're all reprinted. Of course. We're not getting hold of original editions, but keep your eye out at estate sales. By the way, in 2007, a play by playwright Emily Mann was produced called Mrs. Packard, and I cannot find any video exactly, but I did find the script bound into a book. And it also looks like the script is available to be used by community theaters by license. So if you're inspired to put that show on, please let us know. There is an amazing WordPress blog called Packed With Packards. And you'll see articles. I mean, there's a whole bunch of unrelated Packards too, by the way, but you'll see articles on the entirety of Elizabeth's family, the religious struggles of Theophilus, the fame of Elizabeth's story, what happened to her children, and lots of little breadcrumb trails for you to follow for further study. And then on the website Inner Empty, there is a lovely illustrated timeline of the history of mental illness from ancient practice practices to modern advances. I would also like for you to listen to our episode on Nellie Bly, another reformer who went in this case as a journalist and embedded herself within the community in an asylum in an effort to expose what was happening within. And it always scared us that she depended on her publisher to be able to get her back out. Because now that we know how hard Elizabeth had it and how the absolutely sane could be living in an asylum for years, it was very scary that Nellie Bly put herself in that situation on purpose. Oof. So scary. And that will do it for today. If you learned something today, please tell a few friends about us, find an episode you think they'd really love, and direct them there. And sometimes you have to show people how to use the podcast app on their phone or leave a review for us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcatcher. Every single review helps new listeners find and I will mean to have the Pinterest board ready, but as you are listening to this, we're currently in Italy with 50 listeners. I know I'm recording this ahead of time and I have not yet packed and we leave the day after tomorrow. Actually, by the time I'm recording this, we leave tomorrow and I may run out of time, but I promise I will get it put together soon. I hope by now that I have eaten a few Corneto al pistachio, which is basically a big croissant with pistachio cream because I practiced how to say it a lot and that is almost the extent of my Italian. We would love to see you in the History Chicks Podcast Lounge, and here's how you find it. Just go to our Facebook page, the History Chicks, and click on the button in the middle that says Join Group. There are active conversations happening all the time and friendships are being cemented or made as we speak. Hope to see you there. And the song at the end is Drag Me down by a band called Conditional. This is the clean version, by the way. If you go out and find it on YouTube, just be cautious. See you next time.
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Guest Singer
About you I'm dancing out of my way to your will to get so it's okay no matter what you say you be I found when there's nobody else around but the tables are done when you love me, drag me down I sick and sad I'm dancing out of my way Let me do my thing and beat it I'm dancing out of my way hey I'm dancing out of my way. You're so full of all that I can't take It's a game no matter what you say you found when there's nobody else around but the tables are done when you love me, drag me down you that's right, you sh me down around when there's nobody else around when you love me, you drag me down when you love me, you drag me down yeah, you drag me down when you love me, you drag me down.