The Historical Society of Greater Lansing is pleased to host Audrey Clare Farley, author of the controversial new book “The Girls and Their Monsters: The Genain Quadruplets and the Making of Madness in America” which explores the lives of four women behind the National Institute of Mental Health’s famous case study of schizophrenia.
In reality, the Genain Quadruplets were the Morlock Quadruplets who were born, raised and idolized in Lansing, Michigan in the 1930s. The Morlock qudruplets were followed closely by the media from the time they were born until young adulthood with the media and citizenry celebrating their every milestone from their birth, to the first day of school to even the first time they voted.
The images were reproduced on everything from calendars to Christmas cards and the four Morlocks were idolized , celebrated and used in business promotions; however the real story of their lives was much darker complicated by abusive parents and schizophrenia.
Farley tells the long forgotten tragic truth of the Morlock family at this special presentation in conversation about her new book which has been reviewed in every major news publication in the country and was named a New York Times Editor’s Pick.
President of the Historical Society Bill Castanier will interview Farley at 7 p.m., Thursday October 16, at the Library of Michigan, Kalamazoo St., Lansing. The event is free.
Audrey Clare Farley is a scholar of twentieth-century American culture with interests in science and religion. She earned a PhD in English literature at University of Maryland, College Park, and now teaches U.S. history part-time at Mount St. Mary’s University. Her first book, The Unfit Heiress: The Tragic Life and Scandalous Sterilization of Ann Cooper Hewitt, tells the story of a 1930s millionairess whose mother secretly sterilized her to deprive her of the family fortune, sparking a sensational case and forcing a debate of eugenics. Her second book, Girls and Their Monsters: The Genain Quadruplets and the Making of Madness in America, explores the lives of the four women behind NIMH’s famous case study of schizophrenia. It was named a New York Times Editors’ Pick. Her essays have appeared in the Atlantic, New York Times, Washington Post, and many other outlets. She lives in Hanover, Pennsylvania.
