Dorothea+Dix+(continued)

=﻿Dorothea Dix, The Prison= Dorothea second career first began when she was 39 years old. In 1841 she entered East Cambridge Jail. She voulenteered to teach Sunday School for female inmates. The first time she enetered the jail she witnessed horrible sights that changed her life forever. She saw prostitutes, drunks, criminals, retarded individuals, and the mentally ill. They where all housed together in un-heated, un-furnished, and foul smelling quarters. She asked why the jail was in these conditions and they said "the insane do not feel the heat or cold". She imedeltely took the case to court and after a series of battles she finally won. She put together all her data in a carefully crafted document and sent it to the Massachusettes Leguslature. Dorothea's views of the mentally ill where radical at this time. The belife was that the insane could not be cured and the dredful conditions was enough for them. Once she had suceeded in Massachuttes she traveled to other states and did the same. Although her health was very poor she managed to cover every state east of the Mississippi river. She played a major role in constructing 32 Mental hospitals, 15 schools for the feeble minded, and a school for the blind. She was also instumental in establishing libraries in prison, mental hospitals, and other instutions. In 1848 she followed her dream and sent a document to the U.S. Congress asking that 5 million acers be set aside for the care for the mentally ill. She died on July 17, 1887. Not a lot of people remember her today. She is only in about 10% of all history books today. She did not really like to talk about what she did in later years. Nobody believed she could do it, mostly just because she was a women. Everybody thought the mentally ill were posesed. But she won and she should go down as one of the most historic people ever.



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