REVIEW: The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore
Dear Kate Moore,
I listened to your first book, The Radium Girls back in 2018 and was enthralled by it. (It’s a fantastic book but hard to hear because of the infuriating and tragic content.) So when I saw you had a new book coming out I snapped it up. It’s a very different book, following one woman rather than many but there are some similarities; some of it is hard to hear (I listened to the audiobook) but unlike in The Radium Girls, eventually, Elizabeth did (largely) find justice.
Elizabeth Packard was a housewife in 1860s Illinois, married to Theophilus, a Presbyterian minister. After the Women’s Rights Convention of 1848, Elizabeth began to think thoughts of her own and speak up. Theophilus was not having it. In particular, Elizabeth had quite different “new school” religious beliefs to that of her husband. Theophilus was anti-abolition, Elizabeth was not. (The basis of these beliefs were their religious views.) Theophilus demanded Elizabeth be silent if she could not agree with him. Elizabeth refused.
So he had her committed to an asylum where she stayed for 3 years until she won her release. Back in those days, married women had no rights separate to their husbands and all it required to get committed for insanity was the certification of 2 doctors. When Elizabeth entered the Illinois State Hospital, she found she was far from alone in being sane but having a husband who wanted her to shut up.
Elizabeth suffered in her time in the hospital, not least because she was separated from her six children. Even when she got out she had limited opportunity for quite some time to restore any relationship with them. Her youngest child was only a toddler when she was committed.
But Elizabeth would not be silent. She would not say she believed something she didn’t. And, she made it her life’s mission to change the laws all over the United States so that married women had property rights, that people could not be admitted to an asylum without a jury trial and to improve conditions in mental health institutions. She has been largely forgotten by history but she was a fascinating woman and so very brave and I’m glad I found out about her. She deserves to have her activism remembered and celebrated.
I listened to the book in two chunks of time. I found it a little too grim and took a break before diving back in. Once Elizabeth got out of the asylum I felt I could breathe a bit easier. There’s some irony there of course about me being able to take a break from Elizabeth’s travails where she could not.
The book is detailed and well-researched; fortunately for you, Elizabeth left many writings and so did Theophilus and other people mentioned in the story.
During the time Elizabeth was institutionalised and for some of the years after she was released, the US Civil War was going on and it was kind of jarring to realise that there was a whole society where the war didn’t seem to have as much reach apart from via the newspapers. None of Elizabeth’s son’s went to war (although she did not know that for part of the time because her contact with the outside world was strictly controlled when she was in the asylum) and it seems that Chicago and the places where Elizabeth lived in that time did not have any active battles or anything. As an Australian, it had been my impression that the whole country was a battlefield but that’s obviously not right.
Elizabeth paid a significant price for standing up for herself; for having opinions – out loud – and the epilogue draws parallels to things which are happening today where women are still accused of mental instability for having opinions. Some things change. Some things stay the same I guess.
Grade: B+
Regards,
Kaetrin
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I applaud Elizabeth for sticking to her guns and you for making through this book. Sounds just a bit too grim for me right now. Lately, I’ve found I need some lightness to leaven out my book reading and news reading.
@Jayne: The Radium Girls is even grimmer but also a fantastic book.
For some reason I tend toward grim when I go for non-romance audiobooks. They’re usually non-fiction about the history of diseases or true crime or some such. I bought Spillover and The Great Influenza just yesterday in fact. Perhaps that says something about me… LOL
This sounds terrific.
I have to admit I smiled a bit at your old notion that the whole country was a battlefield. Many stretches of land no doubt looked peaceful, especially in the north and in the west, but America still suffered more casualties in the Civil War than in all other American wars from the American Revolution through the Korean War combined. There were at least 620,000 casualties, a percentage of the population that would equal 6.2 million today. And that’s not taking into account that the number of casualties was likely underreported.
https://www.history.com/news/civil-war-deadlier-than-previously-thought
In some ways, the war is still being fought. Certainly, political divisions between the populations of the former slave states and slave territories combined and the populations of former free states and territories are on average great even now.
One of the interesting things about the war is that it was sometimes fought between family members. From what I understand it wasn’t that unusual for brothers to fight on opposite sides.
You probably know much of this already and if so I apologize for being pedantic. The topic brought out the inner history geek in me.
@Janine: LOL – Jayne and I already had a discussion about the Civil War by email!
When I’ve seen media about the Civil War it’s always only focused on the places where the war was being fought so it never even occurred to me there were places were it wasn’t.
But I knew about the brothers and friends on opposites sides from watching Patrick Swayze in North and South many years ago (I’m sure it’s problematic as all get out looked at with a current lens).
@Kaetrin: I watched “North and South” when it was originally shown and I, along with the other Southerners I watched it with, cackled hysterically at the “Southern accents” that some of the actors had. Ah well, they tried. But I agree with you about how it would be viewed now and doubt I could ever force myself to watch it again.
@Janine: Yes, Kaetrin was a good sport and graciously allowed me to go all pedantic on her already. ☺
I thought Radium Girls was so interesting so I want to read this one also. Glad to see you liked it. I’ll make sure I take breaks if it gets too grim for me. I just finished The Icepick Surgeon by Sam Kean and that one was pretty depressing. I probably would have liked it better if I had read it in smaller pieces.
@Misti: The second half of this book is a lot less grim if that helps! (Now I’m off to look up what The Icepick Surgeon is all about…)
@Misti: Oh! The Icepick Surgeon looks fascinating – and my library has the audiobook so I’ve put it on hold. Thx for the rec!
@Kaetrin: Parts of The Icepick Surgeon were really interesting if you like that type of book (which I totally do). It was just also a bit sad that people with no choice/voice get exploited by unscrupulous jerks.
@Misti: That’s definitely the downside of those books for sure. But I find them so fascinating (and often enraging!).