Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T16:15:37.573Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Elizabeth Packard: Nineteenth-Century Crusader for the Rights of Mental Patients

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Myra Samuels Himelhoch  and
Arthur H. Shaffer
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the United States the movement to build public asylums for the insane began in the early nineteenth century. Demographic changes, a growing sensitivity to social and medical problems, a surge of philanthropic giving by elite groups, and knowledge of significant medical and psychiatric developments in France and England all combined to give rise to a movement to establish both general and mental hospitals. Shocked by the conditions of insane persons in family attics, county poorhouses, and local jails, state after state assumed the burden of providing free or low-cost institutionalization for this afflicted class. Expensive large asylums began appearing in the rural heartlands of the more prosperous states before the Civil War, reflecting the popular view that insanity was a disease, requiring segregation from society and long-term medical care. Previously only deviants who had broken criminal or poor laws were likely to be deprived of their liberty. Under the new system the state reached out to a larger, less deviant and non-criminal population, whose boundaries were not well-defined. Given the increasing health and welfare needs of an industrializing society, and the lack of alternative solutions for the mentally disabled, it was inevitable that the asylum populations would continue to expand.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , December 1979 , pp. 343 - 375
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

This article is primarily the work of Myra Samuels Himelhoch, who died in 1977. Since she was at work on a book on the rights of the insane in nineteenth-century America, this article formed only a portion of her larger project. The role of Arthur Shaffer has been to revise and rewrite portions of the manuscript and to put it into article form. Arthur Shaffer is Professor of History at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri 63121.

1 Grob, Gerald N., Mental Institutions in America: Social Policy to 1875 (New York and London, 1973), p. 35Google Scholar. See also Rothman, David J., The Discovery of the Asylum: Social Order and Disorder in the New Republic (Boston, 1971)Google Scholar and the pertinent sections in Grob for the beginnings of the American asylum movement. For the European origins of the movement, see Foucault, Michel, Madness and Civilization (New York, 1973), esp. Chap. 2Google Scholar.

2 Kittrie, Nicholas N., The Right to be Different (Baltimore, 1973), Chap. 2Google Scholar.

3 Rothman, , Discovery of the Asylum, p. 151Google Scholar; Phillips, Wendell, “Report to the Commissioners of Lunacy to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1875,” House Doc., No. 60 (Boston, 1875), p. 69Google Scholar; Szasz, Thomas S., Law, Liberty and Psychiatry (N.Y., 1963), p. 67Google Scholar.

4 Caplan, Ruth B., Psychiatry and the Community in Nineteenth Century America (N.Y. 1969), p. 159Google Scholar, citing Dr. Orpheus Evarts who remarked that the insane must be treated like children or savages; Szasz, Thomas S., “A Clear and Present Danger,” Mental Hygiene, 58 (Spring, 1974), 18Google ScholarPubMed.

5 Grob, , Mental Institutions in America, pp. 263–65Google Scholar.

6 Dewey, Richard, “The Jury for Commitment of the Insane in Illinois,” American Journal of Insanity, 69 (1913), 572Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as AJI.

7 Packard, E. P. W., The Great Drama: or, the Millenial Harbinger (Hartford, 1892), 2, 212Google Scholar.

8 DrMcFarland, Andrew of the Illinois State Hospital publisheed her case history to illustrate a “ minor mental malady ” in AJI, 20 (07, 1863), 89–92Google Scholar. Subsequently, Dr John Gray called her “a talkative crazy woman” in the same journal, 26 (1869), 207. DrDunten, W. R. Jr diagnosed her as a case of chronic insanity in the Johns Hopkins Medical Bulletin, 28 (10 1907), 419, 421Google Scholar; while Dr. Richard Dewey described her as belonging to the “ paranoiac class ” in “ The Jury Law for Commitment of the Insane in Illinois, ” AJI, 69 (01 1913), 579Google Scholar. All of these psychiatrists opposed her reforms.

9 Deutsch, Albert, The Mentally III in America, 2nd edn. (N.Y., 1967), pp. 306–7; 424–27Google Scholar.

10 Dr. Thomas S. Szasz was the first psychiatrist to defend Mrs. Packard's reforms and to question the diagnosis of insanity. Law, Liberty and Psychiatry (N.Y. 1963), pp. 58–59Google Scholar, Chesler, Phyllis, Women and Madness (N.Y. 1972), p. 29Google Scholar.

11 The Mentally Disabled and the Law, by Lindeman, Frank T. and McIntyre, Donald M. Jr (Chicago, 1961), p. 13Google Scholar; Ross, Hugh, the first twentieth-century lawyer to call her involuntary confinement a case of “ railroading,” “ Analysis of Legal and Medical Considerations in Commitment of the Mentally Ill,” Yale Law Journal (1946–1947), p. 1182Google Scholar.

12 A biographical sketch of Mrs. Packard by Burnham, John C., in Notable American Women, 1607–1960 (Cambridge, 1971), 3, 1–2Google Scholar, agrees with the views of the psychiatrists mentioned in footnote 8 above. See also Burke, William W., “The Supervision of the Care of the Mentally Diseased by the Illinois State Board of Charities (1869–1909)” (unpub. Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Chicago, 1934), pp. 572–626Google Scholar. Like Burnham, Burke accepts Dr. McFarland's 1863 case study of Mrs. Packard as a factual not a partisan document.

13 Smith, John Montague, History of the Town of Sunderland, Mass. (Greenfield, Mass., 1899). p. 563Google Scholar.

14 Packard, , The Great Drama, 2, 94–95; 3, 36, 39Google Scholar.

15 Packard, , Great Disclosure of Spiritual Wickedness!!, pp. 38–39, 51Google Scholar. The Worcester State Hospital records of Packard's case are still extant and are now in the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine in Boston. They have been consulted in the past by a number of scholars. Recently, however, the Human Rights Committee of the Mass. Dept. of Mental Health has made access to such records very difficult. In a letter dated 6 November, 1974 they denied permission to see them on the ground that “would not be in the interest of possible living descendants of Mrs. Packard and not essential to the field of knowledge about her to release the information.”

16 Packard, , The Great Drama, 2, 190; 4, 68Google Scholar.

17 Tuckerman, Frederick, Amherst Academy, A New England School of the Past 1814–1861 (Amherst, Mass., 1929), p. 27Google Scholar; Smith, , History of Sunderland, p. 563Google Scholar.

18 Diary of Theophilus Packard, Walter E. Packard Papers, Bancroft Library, Univ. of California, p. 147.

19 Theophilus Packard Diary, pp. 164–65.

20 Packard, , The Great Drama, 4, 261Google Scholar.

21 Packard, , Modern Persecution, i, 144Google Scholar.

22 Ibid., 2, 122 ff.; Packard, , “The Mystic Key,” The Great Drama, 4, 24–25Google Scholar.

23 Packard, , Modern Persecution, 2, 166Google Scholar.

24 Theophilus Packard Diary, p. 165.

25 Packard, , Modern Persecution, 2, 151–55, 165–68Google Scholar.

26 Packard, , Great Drama, 1, 342–49Google Scholar.

27 Ibid., 308–12.

28 Ibid., 4, 119.

29 Ibid., 1, 131–33.

30 Packard, , Modern Persecution, 1, xiii–xxxi, 33–38Google Scholar.

31 Theophilus Packard Diary, p. 90.

32 Packard, , Modern Persecution, 1, 39–41Google Scholar.

33 Packard Diary, p. 90; Great Drama, 2, 142.

34 Packard, , Modern Persecution, 2, 43Google Scholar.

35 Packard Diary, p. 91.

36 The two men were friends and allies from the beginning of Mrs. Packard's confinement. Theophilus Packard's diary (p. 170) relates that he received 40 or 50 letters from Dr. McFarland relating to his wife's case.

37 For an excellent study of Jacksonville on the eve of the Civil War, see Doyle, Don H., “Chaos and Community in a Frontier Town: Jacksonville, Illinois 1825–1860.” (Unpub. Ph.D. diss., Northwestern Univ., 1973.)Google Scholar

38 Ibid., p. 151.

39 Ibid., pp. 165–66.

40 The Granite State Whip (Lebanon, N.H.), 13 08 1852Google Scholar.

41 See Grob, , Mental Institutions in America, p. 265Google Scholar. Of Dr. McFarland, Grob says: “During his sixteen years in office, he and the hospital were continuously involved in public controversy, part of which was related to McFarland's domineering personality.”

42 Deed. John H. Lurton and John H. Mathew to Andrew McFarland. 30 acres for $450. 15 03 1858. History of Oak Lawn Sanitorium — Title Record. Later in the decade McFarland was one of the chief movers who sought to make Jacksonville the site of the University of Illinois (then called the Illinois Industrial University), on a plot of land adjoining the state hospital. Chicago Times, 29 01 1867, p. 5Google Scholar, and Jacksonville Journal, II 07 1870, p. 2Google Scholar.

43 “Attendants in Institutions for the Insane,” AJI, 17 (07 1860), 53, 55Google Scholar.

44 Packard, , Modern Persecution, 1, 79–83Google Scholar.

45 Theophilus Packard Diary, p. 91.

46 Illinois State Archives, Jacksonville Record, 1, 232.

47 Packard, , Modern Persecution, i, 96–103Google Scholar.

48 Ibid., 88–94.

49 Packard, , Spiritual Wickedness, pp. 93–119Google Scholar; Modern Persecution, 1, 120–137.

50 Packard, , Modern Persecution, 1, 114–115Google Scholar.

51 Ibid., 102.

52 Ibid., 116–17.

53 Another occupant of the Eighth Ward, Mrs. Sophie Olsen, also accused Dr. McFarland of intercepting patient mail. As his former patient in New Hampshire, Mrs. Olsen recalled that the doctor had “caused much dissatisfaction while Superintendent of the New Hampshire ‘Asylum’ for the same offence I believed.…” See Packard, E. P. W., “Mrs. Olsen's Narrative,” The Prisoners' Hidden Life or Insane Asylums Unveiled (Chicago, 1868), pp. 19–20.

54 Packard, , Modern Persecution, 1, 353–54Google Scholar.

55 See Packard, , “A Dream with its Interpretation, December 1860,” Spiritual Wickedness, pp. 69–89Google Scholar.

56 Packard, , Modern Persecution, 1, 181–90Google Scholar.

57 Ibid., 138–43; 258–62; 266–70.

58 Packard, , “Mrs. Olsen's Narrative,” Prisoner's Hidden Life, pp. 81–89Google Scholar.

59 Packard, , Modern Persecution, 1, 349–63Google Scholar; Theophilus Packard Diary, p. 170.

60 Packard, , Spiritual Wickedness, p. 31Google Scholar.

61 Ibid., p. 39.

62 Packard, , Modern Persecution, 1, 364–72Google Scholar; “Mystic Key,” Great Drama, 4, 82Google Scholar.

63 Packard, , Spiritual Wickedness, p. 49Google Scholar; Modern Persecution, 1, 372–76; “Mystic Key,” Great Drama, 4, 83–85Google Scholar.

64 Packard, , Modern Persecution, 1, 383–96Google Scholar.

65 AJI, 20 (07, 1863), 89–94Google Scholar. The report did not mention Packard by name, but her identity is obvious from the details of the case.

66 Packard, , Modern Persecution, 2, 9–21Google Scholar.

67 Ibid., pp. 22; 28; 57. According to The Bench and Bar of Illinois, ed. by Palmer, John M. (Chicago, 1891), p. 980Google Scholar, Stephen Moore was “one of the foremost lawyers of the state.”

68 Packard, , Modern Persecution, 2, 29–47Google Scholar.

69 Ibid., 48–57.

70 The title of the introductory volume was The Exposure on Board the Atlantic and Pacific Car of the Emancipation for the Slaves of Old Columbia … or, Christianity and Calvinism Compared, with an Appeal to the Government to Emancipate the Slaves of the Marriage Union (1864); Packard, , Modern Persecution, 2, 66; 84–88; 111–16Google Scholar.

71 The new title was Great Disclosure of Spiritual Wickedness!! In High Places, With an Appeal to the Government to Protect the Inalienable Rights of Married Women. Packard, , Modern Persecution, 2, 91; 96Google Scholar.

72 Laws of Massachusetts, Chap. 268, 1865.

73 Packard, , Modern Persecution, 2, 281–99Google Scholar; Dr Andrew McFarland to Mrs Alma E. Eaton, 18 (?) May 1866, New Haven Daily Morning Journal and Courier, 21 05 1866, p. 2Google Scholar.

74 Packard, , Modern Persecution, 2, 190–91; 196–98Google Scholar.

75 Springfield (III.) Journal, 15 Jan. 1867, p. 3.

76 Packard, , Modern Persecution, 2, 210–11Google Scholar.

77 Jacksonville Journal, 11 July 1870, p. 2. Dr. McFarland made this point in a campaign speech while seeking the nomination as representative to the state legislature.

78 The Report of the Investigating Committee was printed in the Journal of the Illinois Assembly, 4 Jan. 1869, and in the Journal of the Senate, 7 Jan. 1869. It was also published in the Chicago Tribune, 6 Dec. 1867, pp. 2–3.

79 Report, Journal of the Assembly, p. 48; Ms. Journal of the Legislative Committee Investigating the State Hospital at Jacksonville, Ill., 1867, State Archives, pp. 85–88; 109–14.

80 Packard, , “Mystic Key,” The Great Drama, 4, 90–91Google Scholar; Report, Journal of the Assembly, pp. 54–55. The “love-letter,” dated 19 Jan. 1863, appears in the “Mystic Key,” pp. 83–85. It was also published in the Chicago Tribune, 21 Dec. 1867, p. 2.

81 Packard, “Mystic Key,” pp. 90–102. On pp. 76–83 of this work she offered an analysis of why and how she came to fall in love with the doctor, relating this to the patient's sense of isolation, vulnerability, and need for a protector. But she failed to point out the doctor's probable role in encouraging this attitude, being unaware that to him the ideal patient was one who would “become elevated by his smile” and “bow at his reproof.” See footnote 43 above and the text to which it refers.

82 Report, Journal of the Assembly, pp. 52–55.

83 The Springfield Register, a Democratic newspaper, on 6 07 1869, cited the widespread notoriety of the Illinois State Hospital as a result of the investigation, mentioning articles in the London Times, Paris Soir, and the Atlantic Monthly; Journal of the Assembly, pp. 28–33; 68–76; 78. Illinois Democrats enjoyed the spectacle of a Republican administration attacking a Republican state institution. Although the newspapers of both political parties attacked McFarland's management, the Republican papers were more guarded in their criticism.

84 Jacksonville, Journal, 13, 14, 17 12 1867Google Scholar; Ill. State Hospital for the Insane, , Special Report of the Trustees (Springfield, 1868), pp. 3–98Google Scholar. See esp. p. 92 ff. The trustees' report was given very little notice in the Illinois press.

85 AJI, 24 (1868), 295–96Google Scholar; Superintendent's letter, Appendix, Special Report of the Trustees, pp. 100–1, 106; Illinois State Hospital, Ninth Biennial Report of the Superintendent (Dec. 1864), 34–35; Andrew McFarland to Edward Jarvis, 2 Jan. 1868, Jarvis Papers, Francis A. Countway Library, Harvard Medical School. The best known statement of Dr. McFarland's side of the story was written by DrGray, John P., editor of the AJI, 26 (1869), 201–10Google Scholar.

86 The book was republished in 1868 and 1871 as The Prisoner's Hidden Life, or Insane Asylums Unveiled, and in 1873 as Modern Persecution, or Insane Asylums Unveiled.

87 Modern Persecution, 2, 366–67, 372–74, 379; Theophilus Packard's Diary, p. 177; “Mystic Key,” Great Drama, 4, 15–16Google Scholar. The Bradwells went to Springfield to lobby for the earnings bill as representatives of the newly formed Illinois State Suffrage Association. See History of Woman Suffrage, Stanton, Elizabeth C. et al. eds. (Rochester, 1891), 2, 569Google Scholar.

88 Burke, , Supervision of the Mentally Diseased, pp. 19–22Google Scholar; Grob, , Mental Institutions in America, p. 278Google Scholar. Dr. McFarland resigned from his post at the state mental hospital in 1870, and spent his remaining years as superintendent of his own private mental hospital in Jacksonville. He committed suicide in 1891. See Jacksonville, Journal, 24 11 1891, p. 4Google Scholar.

89 Packard, , Modern Persecution, 2, 284, 303–8Google Scholar.

90 Ibid., 309.

91 Ibid., 309.

92 Laws of Iowa, Chap. 91, 1872. The bill is reproduced in Modern Persecution, 2, 326–28.

93 Ibid., 317–18; 333–34.

94 AJI, 29 (1872), 249–57Google Scholar; 30 (1873), 298, 481; 31 (1874), 150; Modern Persecution, 2, 332.

95 New York Times, 14 Sept. 1896, p. 4; 19 Sept. 1869, p. 3; 27 Dec. 1870, p. 5; 1 Apr. 1872, p. 4; 7 Aug. 1872, p. 2; 24 Aug. 1872, p. 5; for the Tribune's attack on Bloomingdale Asylum, see Russell, William L., The New York Hospital (N.Y. 1945), pp. 269–74Google Scholar; Modern Persecution, 2, 344.

96 “The Mystic Key,” pp. 14, 103; AJI, 30 (1873), 175–76Google Scholar.

97 “The Mystic Key,” pp. 14, 104–10; Modern Persecution 2, 315–16; “The Mystic Key,” pp. 115–19, 138–39.

98 Laws of Maine, Chap. 256, 1874; “The Mystic Key,” pp. 119–23.

99 AJI, 31 (1874), 138Google Scholar.

100 Report of the Commissioners of Lunacy, House Doc. No. 60, Docs, of the House of Reps, of Mass., 1875; Laws of Mass., Chap. 363, 1874.

101 “The Mystic Key,” pp. 14, 125–39; Packard, Memorial, 43 Cong., 2 sess., HR Misc. Docs., No. 59; AJI, 32 (1875) 322 ff.; Congressional Record, 7, 45 Cong., 2 sess. (1877–1878) 690.

102 Burnham, John C., “Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard,” Notable American Women (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), 3, 2Google Scholar; Packard, , Memorial, 43 Cong., 2 sess., Misc. Docs., No. 59, p. 3Google Scholar.

103 Laws of Washington Territory, 1877–1888, p. 913Google Scholar; Laws of Nebraska, Chap. 69, s. 1, 1883; Medical News, 46 (1885), 585; Medico-Legal Journal, 3 (1885), 119.

104 Elizabeth Packard to Clara Packard, 21 12 1888, Packard Papers; AJI, 53 (1897), 208Google Scholar.

105 Burke, “Supervision of the Care of the Mentally Diseased,” pp. 643–49.

106 Tuke, D. Hack, “Psychological Retrospect,” Journal of Mental Science, 31 (1885–1886), 99Google Scholar, citing undated letter from Andrew McFarland to Ralph Parsons.

107 Burke, “Supervision,” p. 652.

108 Chicago Medical Record, 1 (1891), 76, 84Google Scholar; New York Medical Record, 39 (1891), 415–16Google Scholar.

109 Transactions of the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Illinois State Medical Society (Chicago, 1893), p. 485Google Scholar.

110 Mrs. E. P. W. Packard, death certificate, Dept. of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Chicago, Ill.; Chicago Tribune, 28 July 1897; Boston Evening Transcript (daily), 28 July 1897.