Mad Speculation and Mary Girard: Gender, Capitalism, and the Cultural Economy of Madness in the Revolutionary Atlantic.

Girard family; History of mental illness; Gender; History of capitalism; Commitment & detention of people with mental illness; History of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Letters; Eighteenth century; History

The article considers the antebellum history of the Franco-American Girard family, especially merchant husband Stephen and his wife Mary of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by focusing on family correspondence about the onset of Mary's madness. Topics include Stephen's brother Jean who lived in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, issues of gender, capitalism, and cultural economy in the Atlantic world. Mary was diagnosed as being mad in the 1785 after eight years of marriage and by 1790, Stephen had Mary committed to Pennsylvania Hospital, where she remained until her death in 1815.