Declared Insane for Speaking Up: The Dark American History of Silencing Women Through Psychiatry
On a hot summer’s night in June 1860, the heavy door of the insane asylum clanged shut behind Elizabeth Packard and she felt all hope desert her. Because she was not mad. She was merely independent. Yet according to 19th century psychiatry, female independence was madness. Elizabeth, a housewife and mother of six, had simply stood up to her domineering husband.
