Women During The 19th Century

Insane Asylums in the 1920-1930’s were disturbing places to live. Men and women were held in different wards, each ward had up to fifty patients (D’Antonio). Patients lived incredibly close to one another. Not one patient knew what

To begin with by examining Diox firmness, mentality , and heroic personality it was clear that Dorothea Dix was able to stop injustice going on in the East Cambridge prison. It all began that same year Diox and some friends travel to england, returning home different not the same girl she was when she left home. She had different interests, new approaches to the treatment of insane. Diox took a job teaching inmates in an East Cambridge prison, where the conditions were so abysmal and the treatment for prisoners so inhumane, that she began agitating at once their improvement. Prisoners at that time were unregulated and unhygienic, with violent criminals housed side by side with mental illness. Diox later on she began to visit every public and

"There are few cases in history where a social movement of such proportions can be attributed to the work of a single individual" (Kovach) At the age of thirty-nine, a woman by the name of Dorothea Dix devoted the rest of her life as an advocate to the humane attitude toward the mentally ill. She traveled the world from state to state visiting each and every prison, almhouse, asylum, orphanage, and hidden hovel documenting everything and anything she saw. After her intricate study of what she had been a witness of she wrote a letter or "memorial" and presented it to a legislator she knew who would present it to each legislature in each state she had studied. Dorothea Dix was the pioneering force in the movement to reform the

After being ill, Dix traveled to England to recover, in which she met reformer William Rathbone After Meeting Rathbone and his wife, Elizabeth, Dix had the spark to travel around England to volunteer to see the conditions the inmates were forced to lived with. After recovering, Dix returned to Boston in which she would travel to see the conditions of the prisons. In which she was shocked of the cruel punishments the inmates endured. She found people being locked in cages and child who were convicted of minor crimes being locked in cells with adults convicted of major crimes. She also visited different types of prisons included specific ones that included "debaters", jails that are for people who owe money. These were people that were imprisoned for years. This was because the prisoners were unable to work so they could not pay off the debt. Along with unfair imprisonment, there were also mentally ill patients that were being locked away." Most people were judged insane were locked away in dirty prison cells. If they misbehaved they were whipped (Par.3). This meant that the ill were not getting proper care and treatment. The only patients that would receive proper care were the rich and wealthy. After what she discovered, Dix published her findings and report the mistreatment to the Massachusetts State legislature. After being astonished by her findings, the legislature agrees to

This was another change, not at all like ladies' suffrage and denial, which both had roots that were as critical as those of the country's, and was brilliant as a result of the shockingly undemocratic reactions that society and its family responded with. Dorothea Dix was an unmistakable figure in the refuge and correctional facility headway. She kept up for state-upheld identity and assisted with the foundation of five recovering workplaces in America. In 1841, Dr. John Galt changed into the director of the Eastern Lunatic Asylum in Williamsburg, Virginia. As executive of the first straightforwardly bolstered refuge in America, he understood element considerations, including talk treatment, which all rotated around review over those with enthusiastic issue as opposed to warehousing them. He trusted in out placing the patients instead of having them live in the safe houses and accepted that those with maladjustments still had

During the 1800s, treating individuals with psychological issues was a problematic and disturbing issue. Society didn’t understand mental illness very well, so the mentally ill individuals were sent to asylums primarily to get them off the streets. Patients in asylums were usually subjected to conditions that today we would consider horrific and inhumane due to the lack of knowledge on mental illnesses.

     http://www.psych.org/pnews/98-10-16/hx.html. This feature for the Psychiatric News answers the question as to why Dix became so involved, and felt so strongly about the mentally ill. The article gives more detail about the Dix family. It was also interesting to note that many in the psychiatric field feel that Dix is truly an unsung hero of the mental health movement.

What she witnessed there changed her forever. The treatment of the prisoners was inhumane and conditions were disgusting. They were unhygienic and uncontrolled, she also realized the the most violent criminals would be in the same cell/room with the mentally ill. She also encountered the mentally ill being abused, starved, chained, and kept naked by their keepers. Dix went to several of prisons and documented what she'd seen. Almost all in the same conditions, this prompted her to fill out reports to send to legislators to demand something be done about this. Dix fought to capture the country's attention on this issue, to make sure there loved ones or friends are not being treated properly. Dix's efforts raised awareness from the people and their participation helped support and influence political decisions. It also helped that Dix had a few friends in the legal system. In 1845, she presented a report called the “Memorial”, it was presented by Joseph Dodd who was in the senate. Her tenacious work finally proved successful when the bill suggesting reforms was finally pass in March 1845. The Legislation of Illinois set up the state's first mental

In the 19th century, there were many issues in America which needed to be addressed. Some people stood up for what they believed needed to be done to reform the country. Prominent examples of these radicals are Harriet Tubman and Dorothea Dix. Tubman fought to abolish slavery while Dix fought for better treatment of the mentally ill. These two individuals had a significant impact on American life.

The report ended with an appeal for immediate action by the legislature, after pointing out that the entire provision of care for the insane in the state was directed at wealthy patients in the state hospital at Worcester and the McLean Asylum, when there were at least 958 poor, insane, and “idiotic” persons receiving no care. She wrote in this Memorial, “I tell what I have seen--painful and as shocking as the details often are--that form them you may feel more deeply the imperative obligation which lies upon you to prevent the possibility of a repetition or continuance of such outrages upon humanity.” This led to a bill being passed for immediate relief to provide state accommodations at the Worcester state hospital for 200 additional insane persons. This memorial written by Dix was the first exchange with a state legislature and was her first legislative victory in the reform for the mentally ill, the start of many more to follow throughout the country and eventually in other countries. Over the next 40 years, Dix continued her explorations to Rhode Island, New Jersey, Illinois, North Carolina, and throughout the United States and Canada encountering

Dorothea Lynde Dix was salient to the development of both the Reform and Civil War Eras that she lived during, and to the overall United States. Moreover, Dorothea Dix had minor, but crucial, contributions to the education of children during her early years, which would help her effort in creating different perspective and establishing institutions for the mentally ill. Her onerous efforts even required her to plead to the State Legislative body, which was essential in achieving her goals for the mentally ill. In addition, Dix contributed to the Civil War when she was appointed superintendent of nurses for the Union army. Dix’s action would leave a permanent mark to the character of the United States when she helped form institutions for the mentally ill and wrote the “Bill of the Benefit of the Indigent Insane.”

The history in the 1800s was really rough then now days because they had the Nez Perce war going on and at the same time, we had problems with woman not being able to vote, and the Immigrants were all looking for jobs. As I said earlier about women not being able to vote was a big step back for woman, not so much for men as they didn’t want women to vote. As the author said in the 1840s, emerging from the broader movement for women's rights”(w.i.t.p.n.). Woman were treated imperfect towards men all because they were a different gender, which is unacceptable back in the 1840s and would be now if it happened because we should all be treated the the same and have the same rights. As it says in the text “In order to earn revenue from their land

The treatment of the insane inmates inspired her to start a reform movement, calling for the improved treatment of the mentally insane along with establishment of mental hospitals. Two years passed between the time she visited the East Cambridge Jail and her first appeal on behalf of the indignant insane. During these two years Dorothea did something that many women at the time would not have done, she went inside a multitude of jails to gather the proper resources for her argument. After carefully documenting her findings she report on the inhuman treatment regarding the insane in The Memorial to the Massachusetts Legislator. Dorothea’s documentation of the insane is similar to that of an academic research paper with an argument, support,

Dorothea Dix advocated changing societies views on the chronically mentally ill. She sought for the government to help individuals society deemed as unwanted. This helped shape our social

Born in 1802, Dorothea Dix played an important role in changing the ways people thought about patients who were mentally-ill and handicapped. These patients had always been cast-off as “being punished by God”. She believed that that people of such standing would do better by being treated with love and caring rather than being put aside. As a social reformer, philanthropist, teacher, writer, writer, nurse, and humanitarian, Dorothea Dix devoted devoted her life to the welfare of the mentally-ill and handicapped. She accomplished many milestones throughout her life and forever changed the way patients are cared for. She was a pioneer in her time, taking on challenges that no other women would dare dream of tackling.