Even the press had become effusive in approval. They’d been helped to this endorsement by carefully managed media tours in which they were invited to the hospital and served “a substantial dinner.”28 Glowing articles from January 1867 described how McFarland’s health was toasted at these parties and Havana cigars were smoked by all.
No wonder the doctor’s labors were praised in print as “untiring.”
Only in passing in these same articles was the story of a patient asserting his sanity “in the strongest terms” mentioned. But the journalists said, “We were assured that his mind was anything but clear.” So they went on their way, “perfectly in raptures”29 about the “well conducted”30 asylum and its “able and accomplished Superintendent.”31
It was clear, however, that Elizabeth’s case had riled McFarland personally. He devoted the first biennial report of his new tenure to writing about her, though he did not deign to mention her by name. When some of his friends in Massachusetts heard Elizabeth’s story—thanks to her campaigning—and wrote to him in consternation, McFarland swiftly assured them that the court verdict casting doubt upon his work came only from a “sham trial.”32 Additionally, he told them that Elizabeth was insane to a “very high degree.”33
McFarland believed he had a raft of new evidence to support his diagnosis. “I wonder that those who so implicitly believe her story,” he wrote, “do not ask themselves, whether a woman who has been truly wronged ever goes to work in this fashion for remedy—is her course exactly a natural one? Should you, if persecuted by a husband, adopt that style of life [that she has, as a political campaigner], thinking to procure a vindication for yourself?”34
Because wronged women were not supposed to stand up for themselves. Wronged women were not supposed to come out fighting, or be angry, or battle for injustice to be overturned. Elizabeth’s course was unnatural in his eyes—and therefore insane.
Elizabeth had the opportunity to read his words, for they’d appeared in a Connecticut newspaper: part of an orchestrated campaign to thwart her anti-coverture bill. His attitude had only increased her commitment to her cause. Indeed, it had perhaps reminded her of all the many abuses she’d witnessed at the hospital under McFarland’s rule—abuses she’d once recorded in her asylum diary.
In 1867, both journal and abuse alike had still not seen the light of day.
And so Elizabeth’s focus had shifted, from her wide-lens ideal of canceling coverture to a much more narrow frame of reference.
“I intend,” she wrote assertively, “to turn Jacksonville Asylum inside out.”35
CHAPTER 49
At the sound of footsteps, Elizabeth readied herself, squaring her shoulders and smoothing her skirts. She may have muttered to herself a favorite phrase: “Nothing venture, nothing have.”1
In a burst of bonhomie, Governor Richard J. Oglesby swept into his luxurious lobby, trailed by an entourage of dinner party guests. At forty-two, he had a strong physical presence: a tubby man with thick, dark hair and prominent, fleshy features. A Civil War hero, he had a reputation for fighting for minorities, including Native and African Americans. As such, Elizabeth hoped he might at least give her the time of day.
Appreciating that she was interrupting his evening, she simply asked when she might call on him again in business hours to discuss a new bill that she wished to bring before the legislature.
“What is the object of the bill?”2 Oglesby asked. His usual geniality was absent as he grilled this uninvited guest.
Governor Richard J. Oglesby
“’Tis about the Asylum at Jacksonville.”
Yet these words were not welcome either.
“Oh, I think that is doing well enough,” he said curtly. “I am acquainted with Dr. McFarland, and esteem him very highly as my personal friend.”
Elizabeth may well have been expecting that response. In Oglesby’s opening address to the general assembly that very year, he had publicly praised the hospital’s “prudent management.”3
The governor’s support of McFarland bothered Elizabeth far more than it would have done even four years prior, when she herself had been a patient under the doctor’s control. Because, legally, things were very different now in Illinois. Her own suffering had not left the statute books of the state untouched. On February 16, 1865, a new law had been passed that allowed all those accused of insanity to have a jury trial before commitment—including married women. Given the extensive coverage of her case, these reforms were undoubtedly inspired by her, yet she claimed no credit.