Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard (28 December 1816 – 25 July 1897), also known as E.P.W. Packard, was an American advocate for the rights of women and people accused of insanity. She was wrongfully confined by her husband who claimed that she had been insane for more than three years. At her trial, however, a jury took just seven minutes to find her not insane. She later founded the Anti-Insane Asylum Society, campaigning for divorced women to retain custody of their children. Life Elizabeth Packard, born in Ware, Massachusetts, was the oldest of three children and the only daughter of Samuel and Lucy Ware. Samuel was a Congregational minister in the Connecticut Valley of the Ware Congregational Church from 1810 to 1826. She was able to get a quality education at the Amherst Female Seminary, where she studied French, algebra, and the new classics, thanks to the "adequate wealth" of her parents, leading her to become a well-educated and middle-class woman. Still, in 1835, at age 19, she was diagnosed with "brain fever," an outdated term for which there is no modern equivalent. When the Ware's family physician failed to help Elizabeth, her father decided on hospitalization. The closest hospital was Worcester State Hospital, with Dr. Samuel Woodard at the helm; he was highly regarded for patient care. Thus, Elizabeth's father brought her to the hospital, and wrote on the admission papers that she suffered from "mental labor" from her occupation as teacher. The length of her stay, more than anything else, shows she was physically ill (not mentally ill); just six weeks. At the insistence of her parents, Elizabeth Parsons Ware married Calvinist minister Theophilus Packard, fourteen years her senior and said to be "cold and domineering", on 21 May 1839. The couple had six children. They lived in Western Massachusetts until September 1854. Beginning in 1857, after having lived in Ohio and Iowa for short periods, the family moved to Manteno, Kankakee County, Illinois, and appeared to have a peaceful and uneventful marriage. Theophilus, however, held quite decisive religious beliefs. After many years of marriage, Elizabeth Packard outwardly questioned her husband's beliefs and began expressing opinions that were contrary to his. While the main subject of their dispute was religion, the couple also disagreed on child rearing, family finances, and the issue of slavery, with Elizabeth defending John Brown, which embarrassed Theophilus. When Illinois opened its first hospital for