User:Giangiangetsbuckets/sandbox

Dorothea Dix was advocating for the helpless, forgotten, insane, and idiotic men and women institutionalized throughout the Massachusetts almshouses, asylums and poorhouses that she examined throughout her two year tour. All this in mind, her plan was to earnestly persuade the Legislature of Massachusetts to arrest and fix the attention directed to the mentally disabled in Massachusetts institutions through the revolting and disgusting details in which she gave through her findings.

As cities and towns were growing exponentially due to the industrial revolution, the need to institutionalize the people labeled as “insane” continued to hinder on the state governments across America. To society, mental illness was a very mysterious topic and they looked upon with a strange and cruel blending of repulsion, personal fear, and despair of any methods but those of physical coercion. The attitude that society had was to throw these “criminals” and “idiots” into the asylums as society thought there was no other place for them, leading people with mental disabilities to a dead end as they were seen as outcasts.

With this in mind, Dorothea Dix not only changed the way the United States viewed mental illness at the time, but she also brought attention to the growing numbers of mentally disabled resulting in the expansion of much more stable and sane institutions.

As she ventured through every Massachusetts institution, she she brought along with her her notebook or her journal as she recorded her interactions with inmates, as well as took notes on the characteristics of the institutions such as the temperature, condition of the buildings, condition of the food, and anything else that was notable in her encounters throughout each institution.