Elizabeth Packard


Book Description

Elizabeth Packard's story is one of courage and accomplishment in the face of injustice and heartbreak. In 1860, her husband, a strong-willed Calvinist minister, committed her to an Illinois insane asylum in an effort to protect their six children and his church from what he considered her heretical religious ideas. Upon her release three years later (as her husband sought to return her to an asylum), Packard obtained a jury trial and was declared sane. Before the trial ended, however, her husband sold their home and left for Massachusetts with their young children and her personal property. His actions were perfectly legal under Illinois and Massachusetts law; Packard had no legal recourse by which to recover her children and property. This experience in the legal system, along with her experience as an asylum patient, launched Packard into a career as an advocate for the civil rights of married women and the mentally ill. She wrote numerous books and lobbied legislatures literally from coast to coast advocating more stringent commitment laws, protections for the rights of asylum patients, and laws to give married women equal rights in matters of child custody, property, and earnings. Despite strong opposition from the psychiatric community, Packard's laws were passed in state after state, with lasting impact on commitment and care of the mentally ill in the United States. Packard's life demonstrates how dissonant streams of American social and intellectual history led to conflict between the freethinking Packard, her Calvinist husband, her asylum doctor, and America's fledgling psychiatric profession. It is this conflict--along with her personal battle to transcend the stigma of insanity and regain custody of her children--that makes Elizabeth Packard's story both forceful and compelling.




Mrs Packard


Book Description

Emily Mann is one of our most urgently engaging, provocative and significant American playwrights.'' - Joyce Carol Oates ''Elizabeth Packard emerges as a vibrant, passionate force of nature.'' - The New York Times Illinois, 1861; Without proof of insanity, Elizabeth Packard is committed by her husband to an asylum. Based on historical events, Emily Mann's play tells of one woman's struggle to right a system gone wrong in this winner of the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award. Emily Mann is a playwright and director, now in her nineteenth season as artistic director of McCarter Theatre. Her award-winning plays have been produced throughout the world.







The Private War of Mrs. Packard


Book Description

International in scope, this series of non-fiction trade paperbacks offers books that explore the lives, customs and thoughts of peoples and cultures around the world. This is the story of 19th-century feminist, Mrs Packard.




The Prisoners' Hidden Life, Or Insane Asylums Unveiled


Book Description

"Mrs. Packard says that because she expressed 'obnoxious views' in Sunday School at the Old School Presbyterian Church in Manteno, Kankakee County, Illinois, her husband of twenty-one years and father of her six children, the Reverand Theophilus Packard, 'abducted' her and took her to the asylum and had her incarcerated (which was legal per Illinois statute of 1851). She faithfully recorded events of her imprisonment - for that is what it was - and declares that what happened to her was not uncommon. The conditions, attitudes and behavior she describes are dreadful and extreme - and not much improved twelve decades later" -- insert provided by seller.




Marital Power Exemplified in Mrs. Packard's Trial, and Self-Defence from the Charge of Insanity


Book Description

This book discusses about the marital power embodied in the trial of Mrs. Packard and the self-defense of the husband who was sentenced to three years imprisonment due to insanity or religious belief for the arbitrary will of the husband. This work aims to call on the government to so change the laws as to protect the rights of married women.










Notable American Women, 1607-1950


Book Description

Vol. 1. A-F, Vol. 2. G-O, Vol. 3. P-Z modern period.




Japanese Immigration


Book Description