The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men who Tried to Make Her Disappear

by Phyllis Chesler

I waited for more than fifty years for this book. And it was well worth the wait. Kate Moore’s extraordinary book about American Hero Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard is now here. Moore has done something very special. She brings Packard vividly to life and brings us right into her life, her days, her ordeals both at home, in a mental asylum, on the streets, in the courtroom, in state legislatures.

I first discovered Packard in 1970-71, wrote about her in Women and Madness (1972) and again in Mothers on Trial (1986). Barbara Sapinsley published a biography of Packard (The Private War of Mrs. Packard, 1995) and Drs. Jeff Geller and Maxine Harris also wrote about her in their book Women of the Asylum (1994). I introduced both volumes.

A hearty congratulations to Moore and to her publisher SourceBooks.