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Elizabeth Packard was committed to the Illinois State Hospital (the state mental asylum) in 1860, and was kept under lock and key for three years, all the while protesting her sanity. While her husband, Theophilus, insisted to everyone – Elizabeth’s children, extended family, neighbors, friends, and the asylum employees – that she was, in fact, insane, Elizabeth was able to obtain her release. But her battle did not stop there.

Conscious of the fact that the current law allowed married women to be placed in asylums by their husbands without the benefit of a formal trial or medical examination, Elizabeth started a campaign to change that unjust law.

Learn more about this remarkable woman in this virtual portrayal by Laura Keyes of Historic Voices.

Email mweyeneth@dunlaplibrary.org with any questions.