Elizabeth Packard
Elizabeth Packard | |
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Wrongful involuntary commitment | |
Movement |
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Spouse | Theophilus Packard |
Children | 6 |
Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard (28 December 1816 – 25 July 1897), also known as E.P.W. Packard, was an American advocate for the rights of women and people accused of
Life
Elizabeth Packard, born in
At the insistence of her parents, Ware married
Theophilus, however, held quite decisive religious beliefs.[13][7] After many years of marriage, Elizabeth Packard outwardly questioned her husband's beliefs and began expressing opinions that were contrary to his.[4] While the main subject of their dispute was religion, the couple also disagreed on methods of child rearing and managing family finances, as well as the morality of slavery, with Elizabeth defending abolitionist John Brown, which embarrassed Theophilus.
When Illinois opened its first hospital for the mentally ill in 1851, the state legislature passed a law that within two years of its passage was amended to require a
Elizabeth Packard spent the next three years at the Jacksonville Insane Asylum in Jacksonville, Illinois (now the Jacksonville Developmental Center).[4][19][7][20][21] She was regularly questioned by doctors, but refused to agree that she was insane or to change her religious views. In June 1863, due, in part, to pressure from her children, who wished her to be released, the doctors declared that she was incurable and discharged her.[14][5] Upon her discharge, Theophilus locked her in the nursery of their home and nailed the windows shut.[7][4] Elizabeth managed to drop a letter complaining of this treatment out of the window, which was delivered to her friend Sarah Haslett. Sarah Haslett in turn delivered the letter to Judge Charles Starr, who issued a writ of habeas corpus ordering Theophilus to bring Elizabeth to his chambers to discuss the matter. After being presented with Theophilus' evidence, Judge Starr scheduled a jury trial to allow a legal determination of Elizabeth's sanity to take place.[22]
Packard v. Packard
At the subsequent trial of Packard v. Packard,[23] which lasted five days, Theophilus's lawyers produced witnesses from his family who testified that Elizabeth had argued with her husband and tried to withdraw from his congregation.[4][24] These witnesses concurred with Theophilus that this was a sign of insanity.[14] The record from the Illinois State Hospital stating that Mrs. Packard's condition was incurable was also entered into the court record.
Elizabeth's lawyers, Stephen Moore and John W. Orr, responded by calling witnesses from the neighborhood who knew the Packards but were not members of Theophilus' church. These witnesses testified they never saw Elizabeth exhibit any signs of insanity, while discussing religion or otherwise. The final witness was Dr. Duncanson, who was both a physician and a theologian. Dr. Duncanson had interviewed Elizabeth and he testified that while not necessarily in agreement with all her religious beliefs, she was sane in his view, arguing that "I do not call people insane because they differ with me. I pronounce her a sane woman and wish we had a nation of such women."[25]
The jury deliberated for only seven minutes before deciding the case in Elizabeth's favor. She was legally declared sane, and Judge Charles Starr, who had changed the trial from one about habeas corpus to one about sanity, issued an order that she should not be confined.[14][4][26] As scholar Kathryn Burns-Howard described it, "we will never know Elizabeth's true mental state or the details of her family life."[14]
Life after the trial
When Elizabeth Packard returned to the home she shared with her husband in Manteno, Illinois, she found that the night before her release, her husband had rented their home to another family, sold her furniture, had taken her money, notes, wardrobe and children, and had left the state.[4][27] She appealed to the Supreme Courts of both Illinois and Massachusetts, to where her husband had taken her children, but had no legal recourse, as married women in these states at the time had no legal rights to their property or children (see Coverture). As such, the Anti-Insane Asylum Society was formed.[15]
Packard did not return to her former life, but became a national celebrity, publishing "an armload of books and criss-crossing the United States on a decades-long reform campaign", not only advocating for married
Packard petitioned the
Packard realized how narrow her legal victory had been, and that the underlying social principles which had led to her confinement still existed. She founded the Anti-Insane Asylum Society and published several books, including Marital Power Exemplified, or Three Years Imprisonment for Religious Belief (1864), Great Disclosure of Spiritual Wickedness in High Places (1865), The Mystic Key or the Asylum Secret Unlocked (1866), and The Prisoners' Hidden Life, Or Insane Asylums Unveiled (1868).[29][4][30] In 1867, the State of Illinois passed a "Bill for the Protection of Personal Liberty" which guaranteed that all people accused of insanity, including wives, had the right to a public hearing, as did Massachusetts.[5][27]
Packard also saw similar laws passed in three other states.[7] Even so, she was strongly attacked by medical professionals and anonymous citizens, unlike others such as Dorothea Dix, with her former doctor from the Jacksonville Insane Asylum, Dr. Andrew McFarland, who privately called her "a sort of Joan D'Arc in the matter of stirring up the personal prejudices". As such, Elizabeth's work on this front was "broadly unappreciated" while she was alive. She only received broader recognition, starting in the 1930s, by a well-known historian of mental illness, Albert Deutsch, and again in the 1960s from those who were "attacking the medical model of insanity".[4][21]
She died on July 25, 1897. In her obituary,
Scholarship and legacy
Scholars have written various books and articles about Elizabeth Packard. This has included articles by scholars Myra Samuels Himelhoch and Arthur H. Shaffer in 1979,
Emily Mann wrote the play Mrs. Packard, which premiered in May 2007. In Mann's play, Packard describes her life fully in the insane asylum; it is considered historically accurate.[41][42][43]
On August 10, 2023,
See also
- Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman – an unfinished novel about a woman imprisoned in an asylum
- Changeling – a film about a woman imprisoned in a mental hospital
- The Yellow Wallpaper - a short story noted for illustration of attitudes towards the mental and physical health of women in the 19th century
References
- ^ "Elizabeth Ware Packard (1816-97)". Science Museum. Archived from the original on April 18, 2019. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
- ^ Burns, Phyllis Doyle. "Elizabeth Ware Packard - Advocate for Rights of Women and the Mentally ill". Owlcation. Archived from the original on April 18, 2019. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
- Illinois University. March 29, 2019. Archivedfrom the original on April 18, 2019. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
- ^ S2CID 43179395.
- ^ a b c d e f g Lombardo, Paul A. (March–April 1992). "Mrs. Packard's Revenge". BioLaw. 2: 792–6 – via Academia.edu.
- OCLC 22596419.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Hartog, Hendrik (January 1989). "Mrs. Packard on Dependency". Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities. 1: 79–103. Archived from the original on July 1, 2019. Retrieved July 13, 2020 – via History Commons.
- ^ "Doctor M. Sweeney Thomsonian Physician". Vermont Phoenix. April 10, 1840. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
- ^ Carlisle 2010, pp. 27.
- ^ a b c d Carlisle 2010, pp. 28.
- ^ Carlisle 2010, pp. 52.
- ^ Brandman, Mariana (2021). "Elizabeth Packard (1816-1897)". National Women's History Museum. Archived from the original on February 25, 2023. Retrieved March 8, 2023.
- ^ LePine, Kristen (December 29, 2015). "Elizabeth Packard's Life Dramatized in Mrs. Packard". Historic Heroines. Archived from the original on April 18, 2019. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
- ^ New York Times. Archivedfrom the original on April 16, 2019. Retrieved March 8, 2023.
- ^ a b "How Victorian Women Were Oppressed Through the Use of Psychiatry". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on April 18, 2019. Retrieved March 8, 2023.
- ^ "Digital Highlights: Elizabeth Packard Ware, Asylum Activist". Medical Heritage Library. 6 June 2014. Archived from the original on April 18, 2019. Retrieved March 8, 2023.
- ^ Pouba, Katherine; Tianen, Ashley (April 2006). "Lunacy in the 19th Century: Women's Admission to Asylums in United States of America" (PDF). Oshkosh Scholar. 1: 95, 98, 102. Archived (PDF) from the original on July 1, 2019. Retrieved March 8, 2023 – via University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.
- from the original on April 18, 2019. Retrieved March 8, 2023.
- The Colorado Antelope. Colorado. Retrieved September 15, 2023.
- ^ from the original on April 18, 2019. Retrieved March 8, 2023.
- ^ a b c "Elizabeth Packard, Proposal and Annotated Bibliography". History of U.S. Mental Institutions- Courtney Collier. Archived from the original on April 18, 2019. Retrieved March 8, 2023.
- PMID 37066432.
- Cengage. Archivedfrom the original on May 21, 2023. Retrieved July 30, 2023.
- Chicago Daily Tribune. February 5, 1864. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
- Illinois Courts. Archivedfrom the original on June 1, 2023. Retrieved July 30, 2023.
- ^ Joinson, Carla (May 2012). "Introduction". The Perception and Treatment of Insanity in Southern Appalachia (Masters). East Tennessee State University. pp. 18–19. Retrieved September 15, 2023.
- ^ a b Harper 2014, pp. 53.
- ^ Packard, E. P. W. (Elizabeth Parsons Ware) (August 17, 1874). "Modern persecution, or, Insane asylums unveiled: as demonstrated by the report of the investigating committee of the legislature of Illinois". Hartford : Case, Lockwood & Brainard (printers and binders). Retrieved August 17, 2018 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ Harper 2014, pp. 54–58.
- U.S. National Library of Medicine. Archivedfrom the original on March 22, 2023. Retrieved September 15, 2023.
- ^ "Funeral of Mrs. E. P. W. Packard". The Inter Ocean. July 28, 1897. Archived from the original on April 30, 2019. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
- SSRN 406821
- ^ "The Private War of Mrs. Packard". Publishers Weekly. Archived from the original on July 30, 2023. Retrieved July 30, 2023.
- ^ "Elizabeth Packard: A Noble Fight". University of Illinois Press. Archived from the original on November 29, 2022. Retrieved July 20, 2023.
- ^ "The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear". Publishers Weekly. May 10, 2021. Archived from the original on May 22, 2022. Retrieved July 30, 2023.
- ^ Quinn, Annalisa (June 23, 2021). "A Woman Is Committed To An Asylum For Thinking In 'The Woman They Could Not Silence'". NPR. Archived from the original on May 19, 2023. Retrieved July 30, 2023.
- ISBN 978-0553803013.
- ^ Harper 2014, pp. 79–80.
- ^ Moore, Kate (June 22, 2021). "Declared Insane for Speaking Up: The Dark American History of Silencing Women Through Psychiatry". Time. Archived from the original on June 4, 2023. Retrieved September 15, 2023.
- ^ Rondinone, Troy (July 1, 2022). "It's About Control: Remembering a Mental Health Crusader". Psychology Today. Archived from the original on September 15, 2023. Retrieved September 15, 2023.
- ^ "Play Tells Tale of Woman Silenced for Her Beliefs". NPR. Archived from the original on April 18, 2019. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
- ^ Fickle, David. "Mrs. Packard". TheaterMania. Archived from the original on April 18, 2019. Retrieved March 8, 2023.
- ^ Gans, Andrew (May 4, 2007). "McCarter's Mrs. Packard — with Meisle and Parlato — Begins Performances May 4". Playbill. Archived from the original on April 18, 2019. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
- ^ Nowicki, Jerry; Parker, Molly (August 10, 2023). "160 years later, activist Elizabeth Packard honored in place of psychiatrist she exposed". Effingham Daily News. Capitol News Illinois. Archived from the original on September 15, 2023. Retrieved September 15, 2023.
- ^ McKinney, Maureen Foertsch (August 9, 2023). "He oppressed her, and state takes his name off mental health center". NPR Illinois. NPR. Archived from the original on August 9, 2023. Retrieved September 15, 2023.
- ^ "Springfield-based mental health facility renamed for Elizabeth Packard". Illinois Business Journal. August 9, 2023. Archived from the original on August 10, 2023. Retrieved September 15, 2023.
Further reading
- Carlisle, Linda (2010). Elizabeth Packard: A Noble Fight. ISBN 978-0-252-03572-2.
- Cooley, Thomas (2001). The Ivory Leg in the Ebony Cabinet: Madness, Race, and Gender in Victorian America. ISBN 978-1558492844.
- Harper, Leslie Ann (2014). "They had no key that would fit my mouth" : women's struggles with cultural constructions of madness in Victorian and modern England and America (Doctorate). University of Louisville. Retrieved September 15, 2023.
- Holmes, Melanie (2020). Manteno: Images of America. ISBN 9781467104487.
- Moore, Kate (2021). The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear. ISBN 978-1492696728.
- Norgen, Jill (2013). Rebels at the Bar: The Fascinating, Forgotten Stories of America's First Women Lawyers. ISBN 978-1479835522.
- Packard, E.P.W. (1864). The exposure on board the Atlantic & Pacific car of emancipation for the slaves of old Columbia, engineered by the lightning express; or, Christianity & Calvinism compared. With an appeal to the government to emancipate the slaves of the marriage union. Vol. 1. Chicago: The Authoress. ALT Link
- Packard, E.P.W. (1867). Marital power exemplified in Mrs. Packard's trial, and self-defence from the charge of insanity; or, Three years' imprisonment for religious belief, by the arbitrary will of a husband, with an appeal to the government to so change the laws as to afford legal protection to married women. Hartford, Connecticut: The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company. ALT link
- Packard, E.P.W. (1871) [1868]. The prisoners' hidden life, or Insane asylums unveiled: as demonstrated by the report of the Investigating committee of the legislature of Illinois, together with Mrs. Packard's coadjutors' testimony. Chicago, Illinois: J.N. Clarke. 1868 version
- Packard, E.P.W. (1874) [1868]. Modern persecution, or Insane asylums unveiled, as demonstrated by the report of the Investigating committee of the legislature of Illinois. Vol. 1. Hartford, Connecticut: The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company.
- Packard, E.P.W. (1874). Modern persecution, or Insane asylums unveiled, as demonstrated by the report of the Investigating Committee of the Legislature of Illinois. Vol. 2. Hartford, Connecticut: The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company.
- Packard, E.P.W. (1878). The great drama, or, The millennial harbinger. Hartford, Connecticut: The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company.
- Packard, E.P.W. (1886). The mystic key : or, The asylum secret unlocked. Hartford, Connecticut: The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company.
- Sigurðardóttir, Elísabet Rakel (2013). Women and Madness in the 19th Century: The effects of oppression on women's mental health (PDF) (Thesis). University of Iceland.
- Sapinsley, Barbara (1991). The Private War of Mrs. Packard. ISBN 978-1-55778-330-1.
- Wood, Mary Elene (1994). The Writing on the Wall: Women's Autobiography and the Asylum. ISBN 978-0252063893.