Robinson 1 Taylor K. Robinson Professor Catherine Turner UCO-1200 9 October 2012 Dorothea DixThe Savior of the Mentally Insane.

Through the dimly lit and grossly smelling hallways the sound of thunder is heard through the asylums as patients shake the bars of their cages to escape their confines. The shrieks of laughter and screams are heard from men and women alike from their small brick or padded rooms. Many people of the 1800s would stay away from places like this thinking that they could catch the madness that possessed the residence that lived there, leaving that kind of work to the strong will men and not to the weak women of the time. But Dorothea Dix proved those people wrong. Where most people saw the mentally insane as animals she saw them as human and should be treated like such. Dorothea caused a great uproar in the medical groups all over the United States with her radical changes she made to the asylums. Dorothea Dix was born in, April 4, 1802 in Hampden, Maine. Her father Joseph Dix was itinerant Methodist preacher. Dorothea Dix family life was not perfect. Her father was abusive and was an alcoholic and her mother was not mentally and emotionally stable. When her mother had her brothers she had to give up her childhood to be a mother to them. At a young age her father taught Dorothea how to read and write which put her above her peers in school. In 1814, Dorothea and her brothers moved to there grandmothers in Boston, because their parents were unable to take care of them. At the age of 19, Dorothea opened a school for poor and wealthy girls at her grandmothers house. Soon her health started to fail and she had to close her school. In 1841, Dorothea life was changed dramatically. When visiting the East Cambridge jail to teach

Robinson 2 a Sunday school lesson, she was shocked that the jail was: unheated, the mentally ill and criminals were in the same living conditions. That very year she secured a court order for the improvement of the jail. That one event started her reform for the asylums in America.

After visiting the jail in East Cambridge she got all her funds together visit all the jails and asylums in Massachusetts. Then once she did that she traveled to all the original thirteen colonies in to see how they took care of the mentally insane. She later reported back to the Massachusetts Legislature in later telling them of her discovers in each of the states and major cities. Williamsburg. The almshouse has several insane, not under suitable treatment. No apparent intentional abuse. Rutland Appearance and report of the insane in the almshouse not satisfactory. Sterling. A terrible case; manageable in a hospital; at present as well controlled perhaps as circumstances in a case so extreme allow. An almshouse, but wholly wrong in relation to the poor crazy woman, to the paupers generally, and to her keepers Violent, noisy, unmanageable most of the time...Brookfield. One man caged, comfortable. Granville. One often closely confined; now losing the use of his limbs from want of exercise.(622-624). Dorothea Dix made radical changes in how the mentally insane was treated she soon go the name, Dorothea Dragon (Gimnez151) Dix, because of her unrelenting spirit to give up on her cause. She soon started to gain friends that wanted to change the mental institutions in America as well such as, Philipe Pinel, Benjamin Rush and William Tuke. Soon Dix could not keep this at a state level so she took her problem to the United States Congress in 1854 establishing a bill called Bill for the Benefit of the Indigent Insane (Viney). This bill passed through the senate and the house but vetoed by President Pierce in May of 1854. Dix had many roles in her life as: school teacher, author, and reformer of the treatment of people in asylums. Dix made a huge impact on the mental intuition all over America. She made

Robinson 3 people in the 19th century to realize that the mentally insane are people and should be treated as such. Though Dix stopped the reform in the mid 1850s to help in the civil war she never gave up helping people by becoming the head nurse of the Army. In 1887, Dorothea Dix died and was buried in Massachusetts. Dorothea Dixs legacy is not as well now as many people from this time period she did make a lasting impact with the work that she did to many people. Though the change that she wanted did not come in her life time in 1946 President Roosevelt included the National Mental Health Act in his New Deal for America.

Robinson 4 Work Cited:

Gollaher, David L. "Dorothea Dix And The English Origins Of The American Asylum Movement." Canadian Review Of American Studies 23.3 (1993): 149. Academic Search Complete. Web. 9 Oct. 2012. Smark, Ciorstan. "Remembering Dorothea "Dragon" Dix Nineteenth Century Mental Health Reformer." Business Renaissance Quarterly 3.4 (2008): 151-170. Business Source Complete. Web. 8 Oct. 2012. Viney, Wayne. "Dorothea Dix." Dorothea Dix. Unitarian Universalist Historical Society, 2002. Web. 08 Oct. 2012. "Voices From The Past. "I Tell What I Have Seen" -- The Reports Of Asylum Reformer Dorothea Dix... Excerpted From Dix, Dorothea, Memorial To The Legislature Of Massachusetts. Boston: Munroe & Francis, 1843." American Journal Of Public Health 96.4 (2006): 622-624. CINAHL Plus with Full Text. Web. 8 Oct. 2012.