2020
First Published
3.87
Average Rating
168
Number of Pages
Anna Ott died in the Wisconsin State Hospital for the Insane in 1893. She had enjoyed status and financial success first as a physician's wife and then as the only female doctor in Madison. Throughout her first marriage, attempts to divorce her abusive second husband, and twenty years of institutionalization, Ott determinedly shaped her own life. Kim E. Nielsen explores a life at once irregular and unexceptional. Historical and institutional structures, like her whiteness and laws that liberalized divorce and women's ability to control their property, opened up uncommon possibilities for Ott. Other structures, from domestic violence in the home to rampant sexism and ableism outside of it, remained a part of even affluent women's lives. Money, Marriage, and Madness tells a forgotten story of how the legal and medical cultures of the time shaped one woman—and what her life tells us about power and society in nineteenth century America.
Avg Rating
3.87
Number of Ratings
39
5 STARS
44%
4 STARS
21%
3 STARS
18%
2 STARS
15%
1 STARS
3%
goodreads
Author
Kim E. Nielsen
Author · 4 books
Ever since I was a kid exploring my community's old Carnegie library, I had loved biography! Now I'm professor of history and women’s studies at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Studying history means I get to read biography and consider it work. My most recent book is Beyond the Miracle Worker: The Remarkable Life of Anne Sullivan Macy and Her Extraordinary Friendship with Helen Keller (Beacon Press, 2009). Author appearances:
- October 2009, Wisconsin Literary Festival
- May 28, 7 pm, Readers Loft Bookstore, Green Bay, Wisconsin
- June 6, 12:30 pm, Printers Row Literary Festival, University Center Loop Room, 525 S. State St., 3rd floor, Chicago, Illinois
