It has been a minute! I started this space about a year ago by playing catch-up on the books that I had already read in 2023, and I'm beginning 2024 in the same way. Illness, injury, a dozen or so holidays, and a move to a new home have all catapulted to the center of my family priorities, and I'm just now beginning to exhale for the first time since mid-October.
As a result of all of the tumult, I have resorted to listening to a lot more books in audio format. Sit-down reading time has been quite limited with all of the activity and appointments pertaining to the above excuses and, to be honest, my current hard copy selection is a slow moving one. In spite of its haunting and intriguing plotline, The Marble Faun is tough to get into. I believe I began it last fall, and am not quite halfway through it. (I'll get there...)
But audiobooks! While I'm certainly not new to this format (I've been listening to books since they were available on cassette), I haven't listened to a recorded reading of a book in perhaps a decade or more. I know I'm behind the times, but a couple of friends recently introduced me to the Libby app, and now I'm hooked. Months and months ago, one of these friends recommended that I read (listen to) a historical book about an individual whose name was entirely unfamiliar to me. Having never even heard the name Elizabeth Packard, I was not entirely certain what to expect...that is, until I read the book's description:
"...another dark and dramatic but ultimately uplifting tale of a forgotten woman whose inspirational journey sparked lasting change for women's rights and exposed injustices that still resonate today.
1860: As the clash between the states rolls slowly to a boil, Elizabeth Packard, housewife and mother of six, is facing her own battle. The enemy sits across the table and sleeps in the next room. Her husband of twenty-one years is plotting against her because he feels increasingly threatened -- by Elizabeth's intellect, independence, and unwillingness to stifle her own thoughts. So Theophilus makes a plan to put his wife back in her place. One summer morning, he has her committed to an insane asylum.
The horrific conditions inside the Illinois State Hospital in Jacksonville, Illinois are overseen by Dr. Andrew McFarland, a man who will prove to be even more dangerous to Elizabeth than her traitorous husband. But most disturbing is that Elizabeth is not the only sane woman confined to the institution. There are many rational women on her ward who tell the same story: they've been committed not because they need medical treatment, but to keep them in line -- conveniently labeled 'crazy' so their voices are ignored.
No one is willing to fight for their freedom and, disenfranchised both by gender and the stigma of their supposed madness, they cannot possibly fight for themselves. But Elizabeth is about to discover that the merit of losing everything is that you then have nothing to lose..."
What more could I add to that description? But what baffles me most is how have we never heard this story before?
If you read the book, you will clearly see that "Dr." Andrew McFarland is a monstrous asshole yet, from 1968 to 2023, he had a mental health center named after him in Illinois. (Spoiler alert: They justly renamed the hospital the Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard Mental Health Center in August 2023.) How? How is it possible for a man who openly accepted -sometimes encouraged- the physical and mental abuse of patients (I'll save the sordid details for the book) to be so renowned that it took us nearly two centuries to recognize that he should not have a mental hospital named after him? A man who once said that patients were never to be trusted, and who openly stole their mail? A man who willingly admitted people (women) to the institution who were not insane and attempted to hold them incarcerated indefinitely?
I'll tell you how. Andrew McFarland was powerful and celebrated. He was a doctor who answered to no one. He operated with impunity. He was white in mid-nineteenth century America. He was a man.
Whether you consider yourself a bra burner, a Mennonite, a raging lesbian who loves hiking a little too much, or a devout Muslim, one thing is true for us all. Women have been denied our own history. In the past couple of years, I have been poring over books and publications that tell the stories of women who, until that moment, were completely foreign to me. Sure, we've all heard of Susan B. Anthony and Nellie Bly, but how much do we really know about these women? A paragraph in a history book is hardly enough to explain. These are the names we glossed over in school for their contributions to society during their respective times, but do any of us know exactly how they changed their worlds -and subsequently ours- for the better? What did they change? How did they do it? What was the cost?
Perhaps another way of considering the question of how well we know our own history is to consider all of the names we can list of famous men of the past. Go ahead. Write them down. Now list the famous historical women. There's no comparison when it comes to sheer volume of one over the other. But let's take it a step further. How many of those people -men or women- were ostracized? How many of them were considered heroes? How do we view them today? Are they represented as bold world changers or as villains?
Elizabeth Packard had her flaws. In my opinion, the most glaring fault she had was to be too forgiving of those who had destroyed her life and viciously ripped her children from her. She was well liked by her community, an excellent homemaker, a doting mother, a devoted wife, and a cook of high praise - even Theophilus (her prick of a husband) said she had no equal. But perhaps all these learned men were right. She was, after all, a slightly different shade of Christian than Theophilus (he was Presbyterian, she attended the Methodist church), so she probably was insane and deserved to be locked up for life.
Crazy. Insane. Hysterical. Witch. All words that are almost exclusively applied to women throughout history, and even today.
I found myself able to identify with Elizabeth in so many ways. From the first pages of the book, I knew we had a lot in common: moms who fiercely love our kids and genuinely enjoy teaching them and watching them grow; a love of reading, writing, and intellectual discourse; mouthy and outspoken; compelled to defend the underdog; creatures of habit and routine, even in the face of darkness. We're both stubborn and stalwart Midwestern bitches who enjoy a good flex (readers will note her unwillingness to walk to her demise whilst still maintaining her dignity and propriety as defined by the time period). At the time of her incarceration, she was close to my current age. Even her diminutive stature, dark hair, and long features remind me of my own. I feel like we could have been friends were it not for the 170 years separating our births.
And yet, unlike me, Elizabeth lived in a time where women, minorities, and the mentally ill genuinely did not have a voice. Sure, it's an ongoing struggle that we all face today, but it pales in comparison to the norms of Civil War America. Once she finally got out of the asylum, she could not afford to go scorched earth. In order to enact the changes that she desired (amounting to dozens of legislative bills and laws at the federal level, as well as in numerous states across the country), she had to do so operating under the same set of rules and principles that existed prior to her imprisonment. The reality was bleak: one wrong word, one wrong look and she could be sent back to the asylum to wither and die, forgotten by family, friends, and history.
So why is it that I had never heard of her? I'm not a historian, but should that be a prerequisite for knowing about major players in history? Elizabeth Packard's track record certainly qualifies her as a major player. I had a public school education and attended a state university, but should I have to take a women's history course in order to learn about some of these people? Why? Aren't they important enough for regular history? Or is "regular" history reserved only for the history of presidents and generals and the occasional token woman? If that's the case, then maybe we ought to call them men's history classes. (Now now, don't be absurd.)
The Woman They Could Not Silence was nothing short of inspirational. Author Kate Moore masterfully crafts the book to read more like a novel than a biography, never suffering the reader (listener) to lose interest. The adversities Elizabeth Packard faced were noteworthy by any metric, and this "little woman" conquered every single one. I'm sure she struggled within herself and among trusted loved ones. I know she dealt with depression brought on by the realities of her existence. And yet she persevered eloquently and righteously, making real changes all over the country for the forgotten people who suffered in silence behind the iron doors of the asylums.
And Andrew McFarland? Well, that bastard continued successfully for a time before choosing that "same-day shipping to the Lord" (my friend's words, not mine). He hanged himself at the asylum where he worked. But he was the one with the mental health center named for him.
Until now.
