Our next meeting will be on Thursday, April 25, 2024 at 10 am at the home of Arlean Fermanis. We will be reading The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore. It is available at Amazon in all formats and at Orleans and Jefferson Parish libraries. If you would like to join the meeting, please send an email to Arlean at afermanis@sprynet.com to let her know. We are asking that attendees be vaccinated for COVID 19. Bring a friend, we always have a great discussion. All are welcome!
From the Amazon website:
From the New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal best-selling author of The Radium Girls comes another dark and dramatic but ultimately uplifting tale of a forgotten woman whose inspirational journey sparked lasting change for women’s rights and exposed injustices that still resonate today.
The year 1860: As the clash between the states rolls slowly to a boil, Elizabeth Packard, housewife and mother of six, is facing her own battle. The enemy sits across the table and sleeps in the next room. Her husband of 21 years is plotting against her because he feels increasingly threatened – by Elizabeth’s intellect, independence, and unwillingness to stifle her own thoughts. So Theophilus makes a plan to put his wife back in her place. One summer morning, he has her committed to an insane asylum.
The horrific conditions inside the Illinois State Hospital in Jacksonville, Illinois, are overseen by Dr. Andrew McFarland, a man who will prove to be even more dangerous to Elizabeth than her traitorous husband. But most disturbing is that Elizabeth is not the only sane woman confined to the institution. There are many rational women on her ward who tell the same story: They’ve been committed not because they need medical treatment, but to keep them in line – conveniently labeled “crazy” so their voices are ignored.
No one is willing to fight for their freedom, and, disenfranchised both 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….
Best-selling author Kate Moore brings her sparkling narrative voice to The Woman They Could Not Silence, a story of the forgotten woman who courageously fought for her own freedom – and in so doing freed millions more. Elizabeth’s refusal to be silenced and her ceaseless quest for justice not only challenged the medical science of the day and led to a giant leap forward in human rights, it also showcased the most salutary lesson: Sometimes, the greatest heroes we have are those inside ourselves.