Education, religion, and the condition of the poor were all aspects of society that women felt morally obliged to improve. Dorothea’s action in asylum reform portrays how women of the time maneuvered through the legal world of men in order to gain social reform. Although, Dorothea returned to America in 1837, it was not until 1841 when invited by Reverend John T. G. Nichols to teach a Sunday school in the East Cambridge jail in New England, did Dorothea begin her…
Months later Dix returned home with a sudden interest to find new approaches to treat the mentally ill or insane person. She then pursued a job of teaching inmates in an East Cambridge prison. The conditions in the prison where so horrible and the treatment so inhuman, she began to demand at once for improvement of the prison. Prisons at the time were not supervised or sanitary. Prisons also had violent criminals housed side by side with the mentally ill. Inmates were often brutally beat by their jailers. Dorothea Dix visited as many public and private facilities as she could, recording the conditions of each one with pure honesty. After gathering all this information, she then presented her studies to the legislature of Massachusetts, demanding a change to the prisons. Her studies shocked her audience and created a movement to improve conditions for the imprisoned and…
Reforms in prisons and insane asylums began to take flight in America as Dorothea Dix, an American reformer, began advocating for safe places for the mentally unstable to reside. Her pursuit of such an institution began in 1941. Dix helped to form five phychiatric hospitals in America. Phychiatric hospitals were given a bad reputation when some hospitals were not treating the patients, rather their main concern was giving the mentally unstable a place to stay where they would not be a disturbance to the rest of society. Also during this time, prisons were holding anyone who had commited massive crimes to those who were unworthy of arrest. Men, women, and children were all detained the same prisons despite the severity of their crimes. Because…
The age of reform, during the 1800s, was a time of transformation for the greater good. Quite a few people had done immense things during this time, but the people I admire the most are Horace Mann and Dorothea Dix, two extravagant reformers of the age of reform.…
Dorothea Dix once said, "in a world where there is so much to be done, I felt strongly impressed that there must be something for me to do." In the 19th century, when Dorothea Dix was born and lived during, many changes were occurring in the United States. The War of 1812, then the Mexican-American War, and the Civil War all occurred during Dorothea Dix's lifetime, which likely had a large impact on her outlook on the United States and her visions for her own future. Dorothea Dix was a powerful, passionate woman, who change the world through her work in insane asylums and through her work as the head of nurses in the Civil War.…
Dorothea Lynde Dix was quoted as saying, "In a world where there is so much to be done, I felt strongly impressed that there must be something for me to do." Dix began at the age of 39, and spent the next 20 years as a social reformer for the treatment of the mentally ill. When asked to teach a Sunday School class at a women's correctional facility, Dix was appalled at the conditions, as well as the fact that many of the women weren't criminals, but were instead mentally ill. This is where her crusade began. Her work had immediate results throughout the country, and the changes are still being felt even today.…
This book, With Christ in the School of Prayer, was writing by the Reformed Dutch pastor Andrew Murray, and published by F.H. Revell co in 1895. It was writing century ago and considered as a Christian classic literature. Currently, this book was collected in the Christian Classics Ethereal Library general public access freely. For the content of this book, it consisted of thirty-one practical lessons. Each lesson revealed how Biblical principles apply to Christian prayer, and also ended with a personal prayer of Murray to enforce the important point of the lesson.…
entered the nursing field as a matron at New England Hospital in 1874. She left in 1876 and spent two years in England before enrolling at Boston City Hospital Training School for Nurses. In 1880 she was hired to start a training school at Montreal General Hospital. In 1881, she was offered the superintendence of the Training School for Nurses at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. In 1889, she moved to New York as the director of nursing at St. Luke's Hospital, and from there became superintendent of nursing at the Presbyterian Hospital of New York from 1892-1921. Maxwell was also the first director of the Presbyterian Hospital's nursing school, founded in 1892, which later became the Columbia University School of Nursing. She did commendable job in nursing throughout her life to bring many laurels in healing…
1. What reforms did Elizabeth Fry lobby for the early 1800s? How have women’s prisons changed?…
These most unfortunate beings have claims, those claims which bitter misery and adversity creates, and which it is your solemn obligation as citizens and legislators to cancel. To this end, as the advocate of those who are disqualified by a terrible malady, from pleading their own cause, I ask you to provide for the immediate establishment of a State Hospital for the Insane.” Dix developed a campaign that focused national attention on the plight of the mentally ill in jails and prisons. She was directly responsible for the development of 5 hospitals for the insane in America and more than 30 hospitals worldwide. Dr. John Galt was the first physician to write an article on the subject of bibliotherapy.…
Most of this changed when women were allowed to help in care for the men. It was Dorothea Dix and Clara Barton who were first to offer their help followed by many women's organizations. Most of the women who offered their help and support had to do so by voluntary acts. Dix was appointed Superintendent of Women Nurses. One of the standards that Dix established for her nurses was that they be plain looking and middle-aged. Recruits nicknamed her "Dragon Dix".…
Most people have expectations of how something is going to turn out. When things do not turn out the way, we want them to turn out; the feeling of disappointment takes over. That is a coincidence when I read "Salvation" written by Langston Hughes because I run into my feeling five years ago, not in the same situation with him, but not so many differences to be his partner.…
“Women were punished as men were, with the exception that pregnant women were often spared punishment until after they had given birth. Women were generally mixed with male prisoners and supervised by male jailers, which made the women doubly subject to abuse and exploitation.”(Foster, 2006)…
"I hadn't seen Jesus and that now I didn't believe there was a Jesus any more, since he didn't come to help me". That final paragraph in Salvation does show the truth that- nobody in the church knows the boy's secret because he did not see God. What people had told him before and what he saw are opposites. Disappointment is certainly. It is the feeling we all get when something or someone fails to live up to our expectations. Everybody, at least one time in their lives, has this feeling. The boy's story makes me miss my final test in my high school. I remember that I did really well and there was no mistake, I were sure that I would get A. But it did not happen like what I expected because I calculated wrong an equation and it made my result completely collapsed and I got a C. That why I understand the boy's feeling, especially in his belief in God: he will be saved and received by Jesus. His aunt had told him what to expect when he is saved: "You saw a light, and something happened to you inside." But there was nothing, what he expected before now becomes his disappointment. Jesus never came to Langston that night in the church. The longer he sat there waiting, the more uncomfortable and frustrated he became.…
Helen Keller’s, “The Story of My Life” is a look of her early life and how she remembers it. She describes how she became blind and deaf, her early life, her family, and how she communicated despite her disabilities. Although she was timid about writing her life story, she becomes very creative and more open as she grows older and writes more of her story. Even though she can remember very little of things she saw and heard, she describes everything in much detail.…