This particular list was actually rather interesting to pull together as I didn’t realize at first that I had read three books that had dealt with this until I was sitting there trying to think of something for my monthly list. I know the title of this post will probably make you think I am going to discuss women in prison but I am not. This list is about women being wrongly incarcerated in asylums or mental hospitals when nothing is actually wrong with them. Until the middle of the twentieth century women could be locked away or incarcerated in a mental hospital on very little or even no evidence if there was a male relative willing to testify they were ill. Thinking about it is actually rather disturbing, even more so when I think about some of the examples pulled from the three books I have gathered for this list. Each of these books has a female main character or narrator that is inside one of these types of places at some point in their lives and there are descriptions and depictions of that time within the book. That being said, each of these books is still radically different and takes place in different locations and different times in order to help show just how widespread this was.
- One Thousand White Women
My first book is One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus and is the book that takes place the earliest in time that deals with this topic. It takes place in the 1870’s during Westward Expansion after the American Civil War. The main protagonist is May Dodd, a young woman who was placed in an asylum by her parents, with her lover’s bought approval, because her parents didn’t approve of her lover. Her official charge or diagnosis was promiscuity, which apparently was actually enough for a woman to be consigned to an asylum at the time. Seriously disturbing if you ask me. This book actually takes place after May is released from the asylum due to an agreement between Grant and several native tribes where they would send white women west as brides for the braves. That being said, there are several flashbacks that show her time in the asylum and she does discuss it in depth at various points in the story. A good story that helps to highlight just how women were treated in regards to the topic of mental health at the time.
2.The Lost Bookshop
My next book I chose jumps forward in time several decades and is The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods. Unlike the other two books I have chosen this book is actually fantasy even though par of it takes place in the early twentieth century. One of the narrators is Opaline who rebels against her family, specifically her older brother, as she wants to be able to do her own thing which means traveling to Paris and becoming a bookseller. She also happens to take several lovers, one in Paris and one later in Dublin. In the mid 1930’s she is found in Dublin by people working for her brother and he arranges for her to be secreted away in an asylum on similar reasons as May Dodd was. Unlike May though Opaline has no legal recourse to leave and has a much more precarious situation because of it. The descriptions of the asylum are just as dark and despairing as the previous book, if not worse at times.
3. The Rose Code
My final book takes place just after WWII and is The Rose Code by Kate Quinn. One of the narrators is Beth, a young and brilliant cryptographer who was placed in an asylum by her superiors at Bletchley Park who were convinced she had lost it due to the extreme stress of her position during the war. Nothing was actually wrong with her beyond the fact that she had found a spy in Bletchley and was working on identifying who exactly it was in order to reveal them to said superiors. However, she was framed by the spy before she could do anything. This book actually provides the best perspective on what they would have actually faced inside such an institute since she spends the majority of the book there and faces some rather extreme conditions while there. One of them is the possibility of undergoing a lobotomy because of her supposed condition, which honestly would have been fairly historically accurate. As you can gather this was again a case of a woman being wrongfully incarcerated and having no legal recourse to get out because of the time and general and cultural viewpoint of women at the times in question. The fact that this could happen as late as WWII is rather disturbing and highlights just how messed up women were treated. Each of these books were good though and does a good job of showing this particular theme. If you know of any others that would also fit this list feel free to share them in the comments.