Description: "1860: Elizabeth Packard's husband, Theophilus, feeling threatened by Elizabeth's intellect, independence, and unwillingness to stifle her own thoughts, has her committed to an insane asylum. The conditions in the asylum are horrific. But most disturbing is that many other rational women have also been committed not because they need treatment, but were instead conveniently labeled 'crazy' so their voices are ignored. No one is willing to fight for their freedom, and disenfranchised by gender and the stigma of their supposed madness, they cannot possibly fight for themselves. But Elizabeth is about to discover that the merit of losing everything is that you then have nothing to lose..."--]cAdapted from back cover.
Brief description:
Kate Moore is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Radium Girls, which won the 2017 Goodreads Choice Award for Best History, was voted U.S. librarians' favorite nonfiction book of 2017, and was named a Notable Nonfiction Book of 2018 by the American Library Association. A British writer based in London, Kate writes across a variety of genres and has had multiple titles on the Sunday Times bestseller list. She is passionate about politics, storytelling, and resurrecting forgotten heroes.
Review Quotes: "The Woman They Could Not Silence is a remarkable story of perseverance in an unjust and hostile world. This book is rich with detail, powerful, and expertly researched, as Kate Moore describes the near-unbelievable nightmare of an "inconvenient" woman's commitment to a mental hospital and her subsequent fight for freedom against all odds. This book may take place 160 years ago, but it has so much to teach us about gender, misogyny, and medicine today. Thanks to Kate Moore's powerful work, Elizabeth Packard's name will live on in the minds of a new generation of readers." -- Susannah Cahalan, New York Times bestselling author of Brain on Fire and The Great Pretender