Kim Nielsen writes Anna Ott’s Life from historical voids

Money, marriage, and madness:
The life of Anna Ott
Kim E. Nielsen

Nineteenth century feminists battled patriarchal definition. Learned men asserted that women's bodies were constitutionally subject to weakness and madness. This is sexism and it's also ableism. Men asserted our defective bodyminds disqualified us from public education, voting, and many kinds of work.

Nielsen writes about Anna Ott, an early 19th century Swiss immigrant. Ott married and divorced a doctor in Ohio, gaining enough money to move to Madison and purchase property just as the town was booming into Wisconsin's capital city. She married again and practiced medicine. Her violent husband committed her to the local insane asylum, where she lived for 20 years until her death. A handful of "newsy" facts about her can be found in local newspapers: her divorce, that every room in her house had two doors, her alleged deathbed confession to bank robbery.

Nielsen writes as an historian of feminism and disability. I found her prose, midway between popular and academese, to be quite understandable. She always recognizes Ott’s peculiar social status: negatives include woman, immigrant, "mad" while positives include: property owner, doctors, whiteness. Even Anna Ott, who was remarkable for several reasons, is more clearly seen by her absence from the historical record. Before I read this short work that statement would have mystified me. That most of the events are set where I live makes this an engaging read, even though it’s full of physical and emotional violence and repression. Content notes: forced commitment and treatment in 19th century asylums; domestic violence; children disappearing.

ETA: Thanks to tarascon for getting the book's title right!

425 words capture Nielsen’s style and philosophy:

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