East Cambridge Jail Summary

Dorothea Dix was sent to teach a Sunday school at a local women’s prison called the East Cambridge Jail. Dix noticed that many of the women were often distressed and uncomfortable. “She looked into the rooms they were staying in, and many of them were filthy, cold, and cramped. She appealed the local court and ordered them to install stoves into the cells” (“Dorothea Dix” ABC-CLIO). With this discovery, Dix decided to conduct a study on those with mental illness. She visited hundreds of prisons and hospitals, and noticed that more mentally ill patients were housed in prisons than hospitals. She advanced many prison reforms, which included the education of the prisoners, and the separation of the criminals and the mentally ill. This was
very important to the advancements of the treatment of patients because it no longer meant they would be seen as offenders or criminals in society. By separating the patients from criminals, it meant Dix was one step closer to convincing the state governments to open Mental Hospitals and Institutions to house the ill in a separate building designed for the specific treatment to their needs.