Dorothea Dix and the Prison Reform

Dorothea Dix had a huge impact on the Prison Reform in the 1840s. Dix went into prisons all over Massachusetts and recorded what she had observed from her visits. She witnessed the horrible conditions both prisoners and mentally ill people were kept in. Dix believed that the mentally ill and the criminals should be kept separate and the mentally ill should get the treatment they needed. The following is a section from Dorothea Dix, Memorial To The Legislature of Massachusetts (1843) :

"I come to present the strong claims of suffering humanity. I come to place before the Legislature of Massachusetts the condition of the miserable, the desolate, the outcast. I come as the advocate of helpless, forgotten, insane, and idiotic men and women; of beings sunk to a condition from which the most unconcerned would start with real horror; of beings wretched in our prisons, and more wretched in our almshouses. And I cannot suppose it needful to employ earnest persuasion, or stubborn argument, in order to arrest and fix attention upon a subject only the more strongly pressing in its claims because it is revolting and disgusting in its details.

I must confine myself to few examples, but am ready to furnish other and more complete details, if required. If my pictures are displeasing, coarse, and severe, my subjects, it must be recollected, offer no tranquil, refined, or composing features. The condition of human beings, reduced to the extremest states of degradation and misery, cannot be exhibited in softened language, or adorn a polished page.

I proceed, gentlemen, briefly to call your attention to the present state of insane persons confined within this Commonwealth, in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience.

As I state cold, severe facts, I feel obliged to refer to persons, and definitely to indicate localities. But it is upon my subject, not upon localities or individuals, I desire to fix attention; and I would speak as kindly as possible of all wardens, keepers, and other responsible officers, believing that most of these have erred not through hardness of heart and wilful cruelty so much as want of skill and knowledge, and want of consideration. Familiarity with suffering, it is said, blunts the sensibilities, and where neglect once finds a footing other injuries are multiplied. This is not all, for it may justly and strongly be added that, from the deficiency of adequate means to meet the wants of these cases, it has been an absolute impossibility to do justice in this matter. Prisons are not constructed in view of being converted into county hospitals, and almshouses are not founded as receptacles for the insane. And yet, in the face of justice and common sense, wardens are by law compelled to receive, and the masters of almshouses not to refuse, insane and idiotic subjects in all stages of mental disease and privation. "

Source:

Dix, Dorothea. Dorothea Dix, Memorial To The Legislature of Massachusetts.  January, 1843. Teach Us History. http://www.teachushistory.org/second-great-awakening-age-reform/resources/memorial-legislature-massachusetts. Accessed on January 13^th, 2015.

Annotation:

Dorothea Dix was writing to the Legislature of Massachusetts to convince them that the mentally ill should be kept and cared for separate from the criminals because they needed treatment. At the time, prisons consisted of both criminals and the mentally ill. Both were kept in horrifying conditions. Many were kept chained up with no heat, little to no clothing, and little to no food. In a lot of the prisons, violence and beatings were used to control the “creatures”. Dix referred to them as creatures because that was exactly how they were being treated. Dix was writing to the Legislature to let them know that the mentally ill were human beings and should be treated like them rather then treated like animals. Within the rest of the letter she mentions different cases that she witnessed at the prisons that she visited. This excerpt definitely gives me a good picture of this event. They way she goes into details and describes the conditions of the jails made it easy for me to picture it. Dix was trying to convince the Legislature to build separate asylums for the mentally ill so they can receive the medicine they need to get better.