Dorothea Dix: Inhumane Treatment Of The Mentally Ill

Dorothea Lynde Dix was mainly known for taking a stand for the treatment of the mentally ill. She saw that the mentally ill were living in inhumane living conditions, being kept in jails because of their illnesses, and felt that there needed to be a change. During a time where women did not even have the right to vote for their president, Dorothea Dix was able to convince several states to provide proper funding to build over thirty hospitals for the mentally ill across the United States. She believed that the mentally ill should not be punished for who they are, but rehabilitated and helped. Before she changed the care of the mentally ill, Dorothea was a teacher, and wrote several children’s books. She also served as the Superintendent of
She had heard that the jail was in bad shape and so she took teaching the class as an opportunity to see the conditions of the jail for herself. While touring the jail, Dorothea wanted to see where the jail kept the “insane”. They reluctantly took her to the unheated dark area, and that was when she first discovered the “inhumane treatment” of the mentally ill. The mental women of the facility were kept in dark, dirty cells, with no heat, little clothing, down in the bottom of the jail, and were just all around mistreated. After her visit to East Cambridge, Dorothea consulted with a friend about what the poor living conditions she had seen in there, and he advised her to talk to some “influential men” in the community to help her get the public more aware of what was going on in the those facilities. She went out and gained the support of an educator named Horace Mann, abolitionist Charles Sumner, and Samuel Gridley Howe the head of an institute for the blind. All three men were seen as important figures in the town, and could really help Dorothea get the attention she needed. After seeing the treatment of the mentally ill in East Cambridge and getting the support from the prominent town figures, Dorothea spent the next eighteen months searching for and visiting all the facilities that housed the mentally ill in Massachusetts.
Howe also published many letters about the treatment of the mentally ill which lead to their cause getting some of the public’s attention. Because helping the mentally ill get better treatment was becoming more and more popular amongst the people, Dorothea started dedicating all of her time to her cause, and was working to help the mentally ill full time. In 1843 Dorothea wrote her first of many “memorials” to legislatures across America. In her first legislation Dorothea simply described what she had seen during her visits to East Cambridge House of Correction and all the other facilities that she had visited though out Massachusetts and “called for reform”. With the help and support of her male colleagues, Dorothea was able to get her petition approved. Once the petition was approved, a bill was passed that gave Worcester State Hospital the funds they needed for the mentally ill. Dorothea was on a roll after her first bill was passed and expanded her efforts to many states including Kentucky, Maryland New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. She talked to the wardens of the prisons and jails, compared the systems being used each facility, and gathered any other information she needed to build her case. By the end of 1845, Dorothea