Theophilus secretly accepts money from a pro-slavery donor and steers his congregation away from their abolitionist doctrine without explanation.

Elizabeth publicly voices dissenting theological opinions at church Bible study, refusing to stop despite her husband's repeated demands.

Theophilus stages a mock hearing inside the family home, gathering witnesses in an attempt to establish Elizabeth's supposed irrationality.

Theophilus and his coconspirators physically carry Elizabeth from her home and transport her to Jacksonville asylum by train.

Elizabeth meets Dr. McFarland at Jacksonville and is shocked when Theophilus smiles, waves goodbye, and leaves her institutionalized.

McFarland offers Elizabeth her freedom on the condition that she return home and submit to Theophilus; she refuses and decides to stay.

Without explanation, McFarland transfers Elizabeth from the comfortable Seventh Ward to the dangerous, overcrowded Eighth Ward.

A violent Eighth Ward patient attacks and beats Elizabeth on the head, leaving injuries severe enough that she nearly loses an eye.

Elizabeth secretly organizes an Underground Express to smuggle censored patient letters out of the asylum to their intended recipients.

The asylum's board of trustees indefinitely postpones Elizabeth's release after Theophilus and her own relatives successfully lobby against it.

McFarland issues an official document declaring Elizabeth incurably insane and arranges for her to be forcibly discharged into Theophilus's custody.

Elizabeth's friends file a habeas corpus petition on her behalf, and Judge Starr impanels a jury to determine her sanity.

After only seven minutes of deliberation, the jury unanimously declares Elizabeth Packard completely sane.

After the verdict, Elizabeth discovers that Theophilus has fled to Massachusetts with all six children and rented the family home to strangers.

Elizabeth's children write asking to come live with her and move into her purchased Chicago home, reuniting the family at last.

Elizabeth Packard, a minister's wife in Illinois, is forcibly committed to a state asylum by her husband after she refuses to stop voicing dissenting religious opinions. At Jacksonville, she refuses to earn her freedom by submitting to her husband's control and instead fights to prove her sanity to the hospital's superintendent, Dr. McFarland. After three years, she is harshly transferred to a dangerous ward and ultimately discharged against her will with a false declaration of incurable insanity. Back home, friends secure a jury trial in which she is declared completely sane after only seven minutes of deliberation. Her victory is immediately overshadowed when she discovers her husband has fled to Massachusetts with their children, leaving her without family or home. Years later, after purchasing her own Chicago home with earnings from her published works, her children ask to come live with her, and the family is finally reunited.

Elizabeth Packard's fight against wrongful imprisonment and her ultimate vindication.

Elizabeth leaves Theophilus's Presbyterian church and joins the Methodist church after refusing to abandon her abolitionist convictions.

Supporters assembled by Elizabeth's son Isaac gather at the train station to protest her removal but are warned away from intervening.

Elizabeth discovers she cannot trust McFarland when she finds an already-opened letter from her son sitting on his desk.

Son Toffy visits Jacksonville and reports that legal efforts to free Elizabeth under habeas corpus failed because she is a married woman.

Stripped of her writing materials on Eighth Ward, Elizabeth secretly begins collecting discarded scraps of paper to continue her journals.

Elizabeth witnesses attendants routinely placing calm, minimally disobedient patients in restraints while allowing violent ones to roam freely.

McFarland's wife, serving as the asylum's matron, covertly helps Elizabeth recover personal comforts that had been stripped from her.

While confined in Jacksonville, Elizabeth learns that Theophilus has assigned all her domestic responsibilities to their eleven-year-old daughter Libby.

After the Coe cooks leave Jacksonville, Elizabeth writes an exposé under their names to a New York newspaper revealing the asylum's conditions.

After sustained lobbying by Elizabeth, Illinois passes a law granting those accused of insanity the right to a jury trial before long-term commitment.

During a government investigation, McFarland testifies that he considered himself a quasi-husband to female patients and sees nothing improper in his conduct.

All six members of Jacksonville's board of trustees resign in order to shield McFarland from the investigation committee's dismissal recommendation.

After trustees attempt to suppress the investigation committee's findings, Senator Fuller leaks the full report to the Chicago Tribune.

After reuniting with Elizabeth, her father Samuel Ware becomes convinced that Theophilus deceived him and that she was never insane.

Elizabeth discovers that Libby's husband has placed her in a California asylum and immediately travels to secure her daughter's release.

Before her commitment, Elizabeth publicly defied her husband by leaving his church and joining the Methodists, building a visible record of her independence. Once inside Jacksonville, she uncovered McFarland's true character through small betrayals, learned that habeas corpus could not protect her, and discovered that her daughter Libby had been burdened with adult domestic responsibilities in her absence. Even while stripped of writing materials, Elizabeth found covert allies among sympathetic staff and continued gathering evidence of the asylum's abuses. After her release, she helped pass the first Illinois law granting accused individuals the right to a jury trial before long-term commitment, then worked to strengthen it. A government investigation exposed McFarland's misconduct, culminating in a suppressed report that was leaked to the press and forced a public reckoning. In her later years, Elizabeth's personal bonds were partially restored, including a reunion with her father, though the irreversible toll on her daughter Libby proved the deepest tragedy of her story.

The hidden struggles, quiet alliances, and parallel battles that shaped Elizabeth's journey.

At nineteen, Elizabeth enters Worcester State Hospital with a misdiagnosed brain infection — a stay her husband later weaponizes against her.

After months of escalating threats, Theophilus locks Elizabeth in the nursery and boards up the windows as punishment for her defiance.

Elizabeth writes two documents at Jacksonville: a personal defense of her sanity and a written indictment of McFarland's management of the asylum.

Elizabeth presents her written indictment directly to McFarland and threatens him with public exposure, provoking his decision to punish her.

Arriving on Eighth Ward, Elizabeth immediately fills her chamber pot with soapy water and begins gently bathing the filthy, neglected patients.

McFarland deliberately moves a notoriously dangerous patient from the violent criminals' ward and forces her to sit beside Elizabeth at meals.

McFarland confiscates Elizabeth's personal trunk and all her writing materials, stripping her of the primary tool she uses to fight for herself.

Patients across multiple wards secretly destroy asylum property in a coordinated protest; the administration relents and restores several revoked privileges.

In desperation, Elizabeth writes McFarland an intimate letter proposing an emotional affair, hoping it will compel him to publish her book.

After Elizabeth threatens to expose McFarland for failing to publish her work, he places her in solitary confinement and condemns her letter as unladylike.

Elizabeth publishes The Exposure, an anthology of her asylum writings and patient experiences, which sells thousands of copies across the country.

Elizabeth addresses the Illinois general assembly; immediately afterward, state inspectors make an unannounced visit and declare Jacksonville has been mismanaged.

Elizabeth's expanded bill is signed into law, requiring jury trials before long-term commitment and creating a new oversight body above asylum superintendents.

During the government investigation into Jacksonville, McFarland produces Elizabeth's intimate romantic letter before the committee, devastating her publicly.

Andrew McFarland, suffering from advancing brain swelling, dies by suicide in a vacant room of his own private asylum.

Elizabeth's story begins with a misdiagnosed hospitalization at nineteen that her husband later weaponizes to undermine her credibility for decades. At Jacksonville, her decision to confront McFarland directly in writing led to brutal punishment but also ignited her activism, as the horrors she witnessed on Eighth Ward transformed her into a passionate advocate for both the unjustly committed and the genuinely ill. Her most controversial act — writing McFarland an intimate letter to secure publication of her work — became a weapon he wielded against her long after her release. After her discharge, Elizabeth turned her asylum writings into published works and leveraged them into political influence, winning new laws protecting psychiatric patients across multiple states. A government investigation into Jacksonville exposed McFarland's mismanagement in full, and though his allies shielded him temporarily, his resignation was inevitable. McFarland's death by suicide in a room of his own private asylum stands as a haunting final chapter to a story of unchecked institutional power.

The pivotal decisions and revelations that transformed Elizabeth Packard into a reformer.