The Woman They Could Not Silence

From the internationally bestselling author of The Radium Girls comes a dark but ultimately uplifting tale of a woman whose incredible journey still resonates today.

Elizabeth Packard was an ordinary Victorian housewife and mother of six. That was, until the first Woman's Rights Convention was held in 1848, inspiring Elizabeth and many other women to dream of greater freedoms. She began voicing her opinions on politics and religion – opinions that her husband did not share. Incensed and deeply threatened by her growing independence, he had her declared 'slightly insane' and committed to an asylum.

Inside the Illinois State Hospital, Elizabeth found many other perfectly lucid women who, like her, had been betrayed by their husbands and incarcerated for daring to have a voice. But just because you are sane, doesn't mean that you can escape a madhouse...

Fighting the stigma of her gender and her supposed madness, Elizabeth embarked on a ceaseless quest for justice. It not only challenged the medical science of the day and saved untold others from suffering her fate, it ultimately led to a giant leap forward in human rights the world over.

'I have waited fifty years for this full-length biography of Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard, and Kate Moore's The Woman They Could Not Silence is simply magnificent. It reads like a suspense novel – one is on the edge of her seat at all times; one cannot believe what happens next – and then after that. History comes alive as does the tragedy of women who were falsely judged "mad" and then incarcerated and tortured in 19th century American Insane Asylums. Moore's research is impeccable. She tells us the whole terrifying and thrilling story – the cost of battle, the triumph of cruel and corrupt misogynists, the nature of feminist victory. It is a complicated story and one brilliantly told. This book reads like a movie and it should be made into one.'
- Phyllis Chesler, bestselling author and feminist leader

'With path-breaking research and electric prose, Kate Moore reveals just how crazy marriage laws once were – and how one unbeaten heroine helped make them sane.'
- Elizabeth Cobbs, New York Times bestselling author of The Hello Girls: America's First Women Soldiers

'What a story – and what a telling! Kate Moore has hit another one out of the park. In the best tradition of The Radium Girls, Moore recounts the stunning true account of a woman who fought back against a tyrannical husband, a complicit doctor, and 19th-century laws that gave men shocking power to silence and confine their wives. By challenging these norms, Elizabeth Packard became a heroine on the scale of the suffragists. In Moore's expert hands, this beautifully-written tale unspools with drama and power, and puts Elizabeth Packard on the map at the most relevant moment imaginable. You will be riveted – and inspired. Bravo!'
- Liza Mundy, New York Times bestselling author of Code Girls