In 1860, Elizabeth Packard was a wife and mother of six when her husband did the unthinkable: he had her committed to an asylum.
Not because she was violent. Not because she was unstable. But because she questioned his strict religious views.
At the time in Illinois, a husband could institutionalize his wife without trial, evidence, or her consent. And inside the asylum, Elizabeth discovered the horrifying truth: many of the women locked away were not “insane” at all. They were wives who resisted, daughters who defied, women who refused to be silent.
Elizabeth did not break. She wrote in secret, observed carefully, and waited for her chance.
After three long years, she stood before a jury, defended her right to her own thoughts — and won.
But she didn’t stop there. Elizabeth published her story, exposed wrongful confinement, lobbied lawmakers, and helped change the laws so no woman could so easily be silenced again.
Elizabeth Packard’s courage cost her nearly everything, but it gave countless women the protection she herself had been denied.