One woman was confined after publicly accusing a clergyman of refusing to pay her. Another spent fourteen years trying to prove her real identity. A third secretly wrote appeals for freedom with a pencil barely an inch long.

In this episode of Her Strange Hour, Ivy Monroe explores three bizarre asylum cases from the 1800s involving Mary Frances Heaton, Hersilie Rouy, and Clarissa Caldwell Lathrop.

Mary stitched names and accusations into cloth. Hersilie fought to reclaim the identity recorded incorrectly by the institutions holding her. Clarissa hid written notes inside her clothing until someone outside the asylum finally listened.

Three women. Three unsettling cases. And three very different records of what happened behind asylum walls.

Follow Her Strange Hour for more strange history, forgotten women, and unusual true stories.