“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. Every step toward justice requires sacrifice, suffering, struggle, and dedicated individuals’ tireless exertions and passionate concerns.”                                Martin Luther King Jr.

 June 1860 – Manteno, Illinois: Elizabeth was dragged from her home kicking and screaming by five church members and taken to the train station. As they took the 44-year-old mother of six away, her husband, Reverend Theophilus Packard, told her smugly, “Once you are thinking right and you agree with me, you may return home.” Three hours later, Elizabeth arrived at the Illinois Hospital and Asylum for the Insane, in Jacksonville, Illinois.

After 21 years of marriage, Elizabeth was judged to be insane by her husband, a Calvinist pastor, and had been committed to the asylum. Her crime: She publicly disagreed with his theological position on religion, women’s rights, and slavery.

Originally from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Ware was a schoolteacher and daughter of a Congregational pastor who forced her to marry 37-year-old Theophilus Packard when she was 22. A long-time associate of her father, Packard was cold, domineering, and pious. After living in Massachusetts and Ohio, the couple settled in Manteno.

The turning point in their relationship began when Elizabeth started a women’s Bible study at church. When she dared to share her beliefs, which often differed from her husband’s strict Calvinist theology, the church elders demanded that Elizabeth withdraw from the Bible study. She refused. Taking her disobedience as evidence that she was insane, Packard exercised his right under Illinois law and had her committed to the asylum in the summer of 1860.

At the time, in Illinois and many other states, all that was required to commit a married woman to an asylum for months or years was her husband’s declaration that she was insane. Dr. Andrew McFarland, the psychiatrist in charge at Jacksonville, accepted Reverend Packard’s decision at face value. Although he could find no formal evidence of mental derangement, he noted that she became excited when talking about religion and concluded that she was morally insane.

When Elizabeth complained to McFarland about the living conditions and violent treatment of patients, he moved her to the infamous Ward 8, where the violent patients were housed. The unit was marked by frequent screams in the night, the putrid smell of human waste, and when patients didn’t follow the rules, submersion in cold baths until they almost drowned.

With pen and paper supplied by sympathetic guards, Elizabeth chronicled what she observed. Rather than dwell on her situation, she devoted her time to comforting and encouraging other patients while being a thorn to McFarland. Eventually exhausted and exasperated by Elizabeth’s opposition, in late 1863, McFarland declared her incurably insane and released her. She had spent more than three years in the ward. Still, instead of breaking Elizabeth, the injustices she endured strengthened her resolve.

When she returned home to Manteno, Packard dragged her by the hair to her bedroom, then locked the door and nailed the window shut to keep her away from the children. While incarcerated at home, she managed to slip a letter to a church friend who took it to the local judge, Charles Starr.

The judge summoned Packard and Elizabeth to his office to investigate. After observing no signs of insanity, he ruled that Elizabeth had a right to a trial to determine her sanity. The trial lasted five days, and a 12-man jury deliberated for seven minutes before finding her sane and ordering her release. Elizabeth’s ordeal was over.

Elizabeth Packard became a champion of the rights of people wrongly accused of insanity, especially married women. In 1867, she successfully lobbied the Illinois legislature to pass Packard’s Law, which entitled those accused of insanity to a jury trial and established independent audits of mental health facilities.

Elizabeth also began a national campaign to effect changes in treatment methods of the mentally ill and in women’s rights. She wrote three best-selling books about her experiences. Over the next two decades, her courageous story inspired significant changes in legal and social systems. Her efforts led to the passing of 34 bills in 24 states regarding the rights of the mentally ill.

“I will not be silenced, not by society, not by doctors, not by anyone,” said Elizabeth of her experience. “In their attempt to silence me, they only made me louder. Never underestimate the power of a woman who refuses to be silent.” In 1860, Theophilus Packard labeled his wife insane, but history will remember her as a revolutionary whose suffering and struggle was not in vain.