Abstract

Ada Metcalf’s 1876 memoir, Lunatic Asylums and How I Became an Inmate of One, is an early feminist articulation of embodied experience and agency. In this article, I develop a socially situated understanding of this memoir’s historical significance through the layering of four types of data onto the archival material: bureaucratic records, genealogical tracing, intertextual tracing, and field observations. I describe each of these forms of data and their contributions to understanding the significance of Ada’s taking back agency over her body through her public argument for women’s control over their own bodies.