The Woman They Could Not Silence is narrative nonfiction about the fight for women’s rights and improved mental health treatment in the 1800s and reads like a thriller!
The Woman They Could Not Silence: The Shocking Story of a Woman who Dared to Fight Back by Kate Moore
Genre/Categories/Setting: Nonfiction, Narrative Nonfiction, Biographical, Mental Health, Women’s/Patient’s Rights, Insane Asylum (1860)
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Welcome to #ThrowBackThursday where I highlight an older review or post a current review of a backlist title. This week, I’m featuring a favorite narrative nonfiction that reads like a thriller, The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore.
I’m linking up with Davida @ The Chocolate Lady’s Book Review Blog for #ThrowbackThursday.
My Summary:
In 1860, wives and daughters could be committed to insane asylums by their husbands or fathers without their consent or proper mental health evaluations. Women were property owned by the husband or father. Women could be committed for being too emotional, opinionated, independent, zealous, or intellectual….basically, any woman who can’t be kept “in line.” When Elizabeth Packard is committed to an insane asylum by her husband, she discovers that she is not the only sane woman there. Because she is labeled “crazy,” no one will listen to her appeals or intervene on her behalf and she has no voice to fight for herself because it makes her appear even crazier. Her friends who may know the truth won’t speak up for fear of the same punishment from their husbands. However, after losing her home and her children, Elizabeth has nothing more to lose and is determined to fight for her life and for the lives of innocent women.
“Wronged women were not supposed to stand up for themselves. Wronged women were not supposed to come out fighting, or be angry, or battle for injustice to be overturned. Elizabeth’s course was unnatural in [McFarland’s] eyes…and therefore insane.”
Continue here for my full review of The Woman They Could Not Silence …
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Such horrors!
I’ll never forget her experiences.
I have been wanting to read this book! Thank you for the reminder — it sounds like a very important story.
It’s incredible and almost unbelievable and memorable! Enjoy!
Women were still being committed by their husbands in the 1970s, Carol. I need to put in a request for this at the library. 💖📚
It’s a must read! 🙌
I agree that this is a fascinating read! The treatment this woman and other women was given was atrocious. AND that the man who was responsible for the facility was immortalized by is unforgivable, in this or any society. Thank you for your well thought out review(s). I look forward to more of your insights and reading suggestions..
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. One of the most compelling, memorable, and terrifying books on my shelf! We stand on her shoulders!
Great throwback, Carol. This was a great book. I had never heard of Elizabeth Packard until I read this book. It is one that more people should read.
A must read. We owe her so much!
I am looking forward to reading this. I love memoirs, especially about mental health.
By the way…It’s biographical narrative nonfiction….not memoir. We owe her so much!