0:28

Hello,

0:28

Internet. I'm your husband, host, Travis McElroy.

0:30

And

0:30

I'm your wife host, Teresa McElroy. Your

0:32

listeners mainers. It's extraordinary etiquette.

0:34

Ordinary

0:34

occasions. What's up my dove? Oh,

0:38

okay. No. I just felt the energy was different.

0:40

This is like, the one hundred podcast

0:42

I've recorded this week to get ready

0:45

to go to England for Guy

0:47

and Diana Castle. And the

0:49

energy is

0:52

over nine thousand. You can't if there

0:54

is no calculating where I'm at

0:56

right now anywhere I'm at. Here's

0:58

a great thing for that. I'm I'm

1:00

gonna bring it down. But Oh, yeah.

1:02

Awesome. Yeah.

1:04

I was feeling good about life. Yeah,

1:07

dude.

1:07

This is the last in

1:09

our our spooky Halloween

1:14

real ghost tales.

1:15

Anthropologie. Anthropologie. Is

1:17

that right? Yeah. Seres. Seres.

1:19

I don't know if the difference between anthology and series

1:21

is. And at this point, I'm too embarrassed to add.

1:24

I think an anthology is written.

1:27

No. because there's horror anthologies and stuff

1:29

that are, like, shit. I think it's just, like,

1:31

completely non connected. It's,

1:33

like, thematically connected, but not connected

1:35

by, like, care or story or anything like

1:37

that. Well, this is connected because we

1:39

talked about being committed to

1:42

a Victorian asylum last week, and this

1:44

week, we're talking about getting out.

1:46

Okay? Or

1:48

not. Oh, boy. Oh, boy.

1:50

That's the thing. Right? I mean,

1:52

we talked about how it was especially

1:56

a very sexist system.

1:58

So getting out as if

2:00

you were a woman who had been committed,

2:02

you were probably at be at

2:05

the mercy of the

2:07

men

2:07

in your life. Yeah. So

2:10

a quick recap.

2:11

It's straight out of American horror

2:13

story, or I guess this would be English

2:16

horror story -- Sure. -- American

2:19

across across the west.

2:23

We would say that either you

2:25

got committed to a horrible

2:27

place, right, which was more like a

2:29

prison, or you

2:31

got

2:32

taken to a place that had, like,

2:35

sprawling gardens and nutritious food

2:37

and personally tailored

2:38

No. What do you think was the difference there? If

2:40

you remind me, I believe it was money.

2:43

Class. Oh, sure. That same.

2:44

Same. classes

2:47

in it. So c o economic status.

2:49

Yeah. Not class like. That's one. Classy

2:51

birthday. because

2:53

they're planning to be more of high

2:55

status, but I do not act in a

2:57

classy way if you ask me. Oh, then's

2:59

our fighting words. Well, I've watched

3:01

a lot of Marx brothers, movies.

3:03

Mhmm.

3:04

So by the eighteen seventies, nearly

3:07

every state or, you know, places that were

3:09

officially states at the time. had

3:11

at least one publicly funded mental

3:13

health institution,

3:14

the

3:17

but that public funding was definitely

3:19

not enough. it just wasn't enough especially

3:21

because

3:23

Just sheer scope and never

3:25

done in one per state.

3:26

Right. Yes. they

3:28

were underfunded and understaffed. And

3:32

so there were a lot of

3:34

places that, I mean,

3:36

there there was just

3:38

really no hope of getting out. You know, here's

3:40

the thing that's unfortunate to it. Is

3:42

I I think in a circumstance like that,

3:44

when you aren't offering adequate

3:47

compensation or even I'll I'll go step

3:49

further to say enticing -- Mhmm. --

3:51

compensation for what is a

3:54

difficult job -- Mhmm. -- to take care of

3:56

people in a facility. The only people

3:58

that's gonna attract are the people who

4:00

are excited. That's not true. It's

4:02

going to attract people who want to do good.

4:04

Right? And they're like to pay whatever. But

4:07

this is my calling and it's something I'm passionate

4:10

about. That's definitely there. but it's also

4:12

going to attract people who are like, oh, I don't care about

4:14

the play. I get off on, like, being in control

4:16

and the power of it and,

4:18

like, I And that's true in a

4:20

lot of different systems -- Right. -- where

4:22

it's just like, oh, I'm not doing this

4:24

for money. I'm doing this because I

4:26

really enjoy, like, being in control

4:28

and being able to tell people what to do

4:30

and maybe even be violent to be

4:32

without being in trouble. And

4:34

that's why you should offer good compensation

4:37

and then interview the heck out of everybody?

4:41

So there are

4:42

there are lots there's lots

4:44

of, like, research.

4:45

papers about

4:47

this particular topic

4:50

in Victorian life,

4:53

but there's not really a straight answer.

4:55

about how to get out. Okay?

4:58

Nelly Bly, for example, that

5:00

we spoke about last episode,

5:04

her employer arranged to

5:06

get her out of the asylum that

5:09

she was committed to undercover.

5:11

Right. Can we can we

5:13

establish, like, I

5:15

think that that is another bravery aspect

5:17

of what Nellie Bli did. It's like it's

5:19

not like somebody rolling up and being

5:21

like, actually, that's Nellie Bli and she's

5:23

fine. is enough to one hundred

5:25

percent guarantee that she's easily

5:27

going to be able to get out. Right? Like,

5:29

there's no guarantee when she

5:31

went in to view this story. that

5:34

the extraction process was going to be

5:36

smooth and easy. Right? But she still went and

5:38

did it.

5:39

But it definitely had a lot to do

5:41

with her editor.

5:42

Right. Joseph Pulitzer. Well, yeah.

5:44

That helps. Yes. That helps. Right? Now

5:46

I only know of him from a little documentary

5:48

called Newzys. Is

5:51

that him? It's probably not the Is

5:53

it We call him Joe.

5:54

I mean, that is the

5:56

character. What is it? What is his name? Joseph

5:58

Politzer, ma'am? Yeah. Yeah.

5:59

Okay. Yeah. As soon as I guess, they have

6:02

Teddy Roosevelt in it. They might as well have they

6:04

should've just kept putting people in it and look over

6:06

there. It's Charlie Chaplin. What are you doing?

6:08

He's buying my papes.

6:09

Anyway, so,

6:12

yes, he was a man of influence,

6:15

obviously, of status. And

6:18

so he was able to get her

6:19

out on his good word. Right? Yeah.

6:21

He was just handing out prizes like

6:23

it was his job. he was, like, let her

6:25

out. You can't complain. I don't care. Whatever.

6:28

And so you think she won a Pulitzer prize?

6:30

I don't. But it was just, like, thumbs up for

6:32

him at the time was a handshake, like Paul Hollywood.

6:34

This is the first Pulitzer prize, a handshake.

6:37

Good work, Nelly.

6:38

Well, so she she wrote

6:40

a gave in expose,

6:42

right, under under the editor of

6:45

of Joseph Volter, which

6:47

made it so that she

6:50

was able to get actual,

6:52

like, people in charge

6:55

to come and look at the facility. Right?

6:57

So the facility was built for about

6:59

a thousand patients. But when Nelly

7:02

arrived, there were over sixteen hundred

7:04

people crammed into

7:06

this facility probably because like

7:08

in newsies, the

7:10

boys home gets money for every

7:12

boy that's committed. Right? Similar

7:15

similar story. And

7:17

there were only sixteen doctors.

7:19

For sixteen hundred people? So

7:21

that's a hundred people. for

7:23

every doctors. There were just people who weren't

7:26

getting seen. Of course. Yeah. Of course.

7:28

That's assuming that every one of

7:30

those sixteen doctors was like, gotta do

7:32

my best and really put the time in.

7:34

Yeah.

7:34

And so Nellie

7:37

wrote about several of the beep people that

7:39

she spoke to who were not

7:41

mentally ill at all. We went over

7:43

this. Many of them just didn't know English.

7:46

And after she was there for

7:48

ten days, pulitzer

7:50

arranged to get her out. And

7:54

so

7:55

they hastily attempted clean

7:58

up their

7:58

act -- Okay. -- right

7:59

before the authorities came,

8:02

but it it didn't it didn't work.

8:04

Yeah.

8:05

Yeah. Of course not. man, I

8:07

hope, but I'm worried that that might

8:09

have resulted in some

8:12

danger to some of the inmates

8:14

there. Certainly. A lot of the people

8:16

were either discharged or transferred.

8:19

Right? Okay. But but

8:21

not, like, done away with, which is what I

8:23

was worried about. Let's hope. Hope

8:25

not. Okay.

8:26

But once it was exposed,

8:28

New York City was extremely embarrassed

8:32

and allocated an extra million

8:34

dollars annually to correct

8:36

these abuses. Mhmm. Right?

8:38

Which at the time? It's a lot of money.

8:40

Yeah. So this awesome

8:42

investigative reporting really

8:44

changed the how the

8:47

field of mental health treatment

8:50

happens forever now. Man, I miss.

8:52

when there was good journalism being

8:54

done.

8:55

Another person that we mentioned

8:57

last episode was Elizabeth

8:59

Packard. she actually I

9:01

mean, we we kind of glanced over

9:04

her com her being committed

9:06

last episode, but go a little more

9:08

into detail. She was actually committed twice.

9:12

So when she was nineteen, she

9:14

suffered from a disease referred to

9:16

as brain fever -- Uh-huh. -- which

9:18

happens a lot with these old timey

9:20

diseases. Like, they basically just name it

9:22

for the biggest symptom. Yeah. There's

9:24

no way of knowing exactly what

9:26

caused it.

9:27

But They also this is something I've learned from

9:29

both sawbuns and just

9:31

listening to books from this time and reading

9:33

books from this time. they would also

9:35

just come up with these kind of like, that

9:37

sounds scary, kind of names,

9:39

and then just it was a huge umbrella

9:42

term -- Exactly. -- or just like what does

9:44

that mean? It's like, oh, they've got brain

9:46

fever. It's like, what? What do you mean?

9:48

Well, so she particularly

9:49

suffered from headaches kind

9:52

of like brain fog fatigue and

9:54

delirium. So she she did

9:56

actually have some

9:58

symptoms

10:00

upon further, like, like,

10:03

observation, she was

10:05

acting strange. Mhmm. It's true.

10:07

and her father sent her to an asylum

10:09

to be treated. She was there

10:11

for six weeks, and the director of

10:13

the institution declared

10:15

her cured.

10:16

What?

10:17

She

10:18

maintains that

10:21

she probably just got better.

10:23

It was she was

10:24

probably actually, like, physically ill.

10:26

Uh-huh. And it resulted in

10:29

these symptoms. And so

10:31

once she was

10:33

physically better, her mental illness

10:35

symptoms

10:35

went away. Yes. That

10:37

makes sense.

10:38

Totally. And then in

10:40

eighteen thirty nine, She married a much

10:42

older man who

10:44

was an associate of her father's.

10:46

So they thought

10:48

this was it. Like, this was a a

10:51

good match. Right? On

10:53

paper. On paper?

10:54

Yes. After

10:55

having a few children, they moved

10:57

to Illinois. And

10:59

this is when so

11:02

she got away from

11:04

her father and their community

11:06

in New England? Let

11:08

me

11:08

guess. She started getting her own

11:10

ideas about things.

11:11

Yeah. So they were both her

11:13

husband and her father were both Calvinist.

11:15

Ministers, which is a very particular

11:18

subset.

11:18

Right? Right. Yeah. And

11:20

so once she was

11:23

away from New England,

11:25

she was able to question

11:27

the church's

11:27

teachings a little bit more. Right?

11:30

So not just time period

11:33

sexism and misogyny, but also

11:35

religious sexism and misogyny.

11:37

Right. So she

11:40

broke

11:40

several barriers at this

11:42

time. She traveled by herself.

11:45

She

11:45

conducted her own missionary work.

11:48

she began to express religious views that

11:50

differed from her

11:51

husband's. Oh,

11:53

what? No.

11:56

So he committed her to an

11:59

asylum. Oh.

11:59

Especially, I think what really

12:03

clinches this for me is that that

12:05

both of them were opposed to divorce.

12:08

So he was like, well,

12:10

can't

12:10

divorce you, so don't wanna see

12:12

you

12:12

anymore. Goodbye. I bet that

12:14

there was an option where you don't have to see me

12:16

anymore, and I don't commit you

12:18

to a mental health facility. This probably would have

12:20

been lying. I like that option. Mhmm. That

12:22

option where I can keep traveling and hang out with their

12:24

kids when I went to and not have to hang

12:26

out with you. That works for me. Yeah.

12:28

Yeah. So she was

12:31

committed to the

12:33

Illinois hospital for the insane. And

12:36

at the time, A

12:38

man who was committed was

12:40

entitled to due process to assess

12:42

his sanity -- Mhmm. -- but

12:44

a woman could be chucked in

12:46

for basically any reason. Okay.

12:49

And this was not just for Illinois.

12:51

The laws like this existed

12:53

across the country. She was

12:55

in this this asylum for three years.

12:57

But the entire time, she

12:59

vigorously protested her confinement.

13:02

and so much so that in

13:04

eighteen sixty three, the hospital

13:06

released her

13:07

declaring that she was incurably insane.

13:10

Oh. And they had to make room for the curable

13:12

patients. Okay. Well, I guess

13:14

it's one way.

13:15

That's one way. Yeah. I mean,

13:17

it seems so counterintuitive, though.

13:20

Right? So, like, if

13:22

you think that someone is incurably in

13:24

saying you just release them because, you know,

13:26

you can't quote help them. I

13:28

don't know. I don't know. It

13:31

it's very strange. You know what? Let's take a moment

13:33

to ponder this. Well,

13:34

we hear from some other Max Munches. This

13:36

week,

13:43

we'd like to thank

13:44

our sponsor. Quip. We love

13:47

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I'm

15:00

Jesse Thorn. On the next bull's

15:02

eye, our annual Halloween Spectacular.

15:05

We'll interview Anna Fabrega from

15:07

Los Azbucchis, Monet

15:09

xchange, from Drag Race, and the

15:11

great r l stine, creator

15:13

of goosebumps. You know, I don't really get

15:15

too deep into the real fears. It's

15:17

a lot safer to do a dummy coming

15:19

to life. That's on the next bull's eye for

15:21

maximum fun dot org and

15:23

NPR.

15:26

Hi,

15:28

I'm Jesse Thorne, the founder of Maximum

15:30

Fun, and I have a special announcement.

15:33

I'm no longer embarrassed by my

15:35

brother, my brother in May. You

15:37

know, for years, each new

15:39

episode of this supposed advice

15:41

show was a fresh insult,

15:43

a depraved jumble of

15:46

erection jokes, ghost humor, and

15:48

frankly, this is for the best very

15:50

little actionable advice. But

15:53

now as they enter their twilight years,

15:55

I'm as surprised as anyone to admit

15:57

that it's gotten kind of good.

16:00

Justin, Travis, and Griffin's

16:02

witticisms are more refined, like a

16:04

humor column in a fancy magazine.

16:06

And hardly ever say

16:08

Zynga anymore. So after

16:10

you've completely finished listening

16:12

to every single one of all of our other

16:14

shows, why not join the McElroy

16:16

Brothers? every week for my brother,

16:18

my brother and

16:19

me.

16:24

Okay. We're back. I didn't come to any good

16:26

decisions back. I didn't

16:26

I didn't either. So

16:29

she's out now. Uh-huh. But

16:31

her husband then began to

16:33

imprison her in

16:33

her own home. Okay. And

16:36

she -- Right. -- not great?

16:37

Not great. of

16:38

all the other things we

16:41

discussed, that's not another thing. No. That's

16:42

great. I mean, there's no great. But

16:44

she

16:44

was able to get a letter out

16:47

to her

16:48

friend and Joseph

16:51

Politzer. Wouldn't

16:53

that be Charlie Chaplin. but

16:55

they alerted the authorities. on

16:56

a Nobel in his prices.

16:59

And

16:59

they made an appeal to a local judge

17:02

who issued A RID OF

17:04

HAYBEYUS Corpus DEMANDING THAT Elizabeth

17:06

HUSBAND BRING HER TO COURT TO

17:08

HAVE HER ASSESSED. OKAY.

17:10

and the was a circus.

17:12

In eighteen sixty six speaking.

17:15

Right? Figured her face. Okay. Of course.

17:17

The physicians who

17:20

had met with Elizabeth claimed that

17:22

her religious views and refusal to

17:24

submit to her husband was what

17:26

made her in saying,

17:29

And what does the judge say about that? Well,

17:32

there was a swarm of friends and neighbors

17:34

who testified on her behalf

17:36

as well as a doctor and a theologian who

17:38

argued that many intellectuals in Europe

17:41

actually agreed with her religious

17:43

beliefs. Okay. So again,

17:45

she was it wasn't on

17:47

her word, but it was from the

17:49

testimony of others and experts

17:51

that the jury deliberated

17:53

exactly seven minutes and

17:55

found Elizabeth be sane. Yeah. Yeah.

17:58

Thank goodness.

17:59

Right? It's almost so

18:03

logical that it's hard to believe that it happened in

18:05

the Victorian era. I know. Right? Yeah.

18:07

Not to say that this made her life

18:09

easy. No. Right? Because now,

18:12

he

18:13

her husband left her and

18:16

took her children. Oh. And so she

18:18

was homeless and penniless and

18:20

alone. No. Yeah. Okay.

18:22

But but what we know

18:24

of Elizabeth, we know

18:25

that she's a pretty strong person. Right?

18:28

Yeah. So far. So Right. she

18:30

made it her life mission to advocate for the

18:33

limited rights of married women as

18:35

well as the vulnerable

18:37

who

18:37

lived in a silence.

18:39

Okay. And so

18:42

she lobbied in Iowa

18:44

and Maine and Massachusetts. And

18:47

so far in

18:49

Iowa, there is

18:50

a law called Packard's Law,

18:52

which

18:52

makes it illegal for asylum officials

18:54

to intercept patients' mail.

18:57

So they need they allowed to freely communicate

18:59

with whoever they choose. Okay. And

19:02

she one reforms

19:05

to commitment laws

19:07

in four states passed a law,

19:09

protecting married women's property,

19:11

and

19:11

later published And so

19:13

by eighteen sixty nine, she won back the

19:15

custody of her three children, three younger

19:18

children, and supported them and to

19:20

reform

19:20

efforts. from the from writing.

19:22

Oh, awesome. Yeah.

19:24

When she passed away in eighteen

19:27

ninety seven, she had done

19:29

countless hours of writing and lobbying and working

19:31

and advocating for these marginalized

19:35

groups.

19:36

So from all

19:38

that, if

19:39

you were interested

19:43

in leaving an

19:46

asylum? Which I

19:48

would

19:48

like to think I would be? I would I

19:49

would like to think I would be as well.

19:52

It

19:53

pretty much relied on

19:56

the

19:57

witnesses and the experts

19:59

and

19:59

just as much like lobbying

20:02

and protesting

20:05

and as much as you could do. And I I

20:07

feel like, yes, it's great to

20:09

celebrate these people who,

20:12

like, worked really hard and had

20:14

the help of their confidence and

20:16

their, you know, their NellyBLY's

20:18

boss and and all this kind of

20:20

stuff. But it it does make

20:22

me sad for anyone who actually

20:25

needs mental health --

20:27

Mhmm.

20:28

-- because you

20:30

might not

20:31

be able to do that. Well, and

20:32

once again, not to well, no. I

20:34

yeah. I will. To compare it

20:37

to today, There are

20:39

so many people in prison and

20:41

in facilities all over the

20:43

place that need help because

20:45

they are imprisoned wrongfully

20:47

or being held wrongfully. And it's

20:50

really hard to advocate for yourself --

20:52

Mhmm. -- from inside of the

20:54

system. But for whatever reason,

20:56

there are many they are

20:58

marginalized in such a way that there aren't people

21:00

interested in helping them? Right.

21:03

And, yeah, I mean, it's not like and that's

21:05

all done now. And never

21:07

have to worry about it again. And

21:11

that's pretty spooky. It's very spooky.

21:14

And the good news about this kind of spooky

21:16

unlike, say, Dracula's, is there something

21:18

you can do, which is to find people who

21:20

are working to help this

21:22

and, you know, commit to those

21:25

organizations. And we will include some of

21:27

those in the show notes for this, so you

21:29

can copy. Just click

21:31

on links and go donate or see if there's something you need

21:33

to do to help.

21:34

And and try to make things a little

21:36

less spooky. And

21:38

we wanna say thank you

21:40

to our writer and researcher, Alex, without

21:42

whom we would not be able to make this show.

21:44

Thank you to our editor,

21:46

Rachel, without whom we would not be able to

21:48

make this show. and thank you to you.

21:50

We make the show for you, so thank you for

21:52

showing up. What else Theresa?

21:54

We always thank Brent Brent Black

21:57

for writing our theme music, which is available

21:59

as a ringtone where

21:59

those are found. Thank you to Kayla m

22:02

Wessel for our Twitter thumbnail art, that's

22:04

at banner's cast, and that is

22:06

where we request

22:08

questions on our different topics. So

22:10

go ahead and follow us there. Thank you

22:12

to Brewhub Betty Pinet Photography for the

22:14

cover picture of our fan run Facebook group's

22:17

banner's, if you love to give

22:19

and get excellent advice from other

22:21

fans, join that group today.

22:23

And also wanna

22:25

put out that call always for topic

22:28

suggestions and idiom

22:30

submissions, please email us

22:32

schmayner's cast at gmail dot com

22:34

and say hi to Alex because she

22:36

reads everyone. And make sure you go over

22:38

to macraemerge dot com and check out all the great

22:40

merch that we've got there. It's almost

22:42

in the month, so that makes chance

22:45

to to go check out the October

22:47

March, but then also go back in just a few

22:49

days. Check out the November March. and

22:51

you can get tickets for our

22:53

upcoming tours at bit dot l

22:55

y slash macaroni tours. And,

22:57

you know, have a great day.

23:00

Enjoy yourselves, and that's gonna do it for us.

23:02

Join us again next week. No RSVP

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required. You've been listening to Shmanners.

23:06

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23:31

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23:35

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