The United States in the first half of the nineteenth century was awash in reform movements led by dreamers and activists who saw injustice and fought to correct it (Shi, 391). The visions of creating a perfect nation were carried out and the ideas of equality, liberty and freedom were extended to all people, regardless of their races, genders, religious beliefs, and social classes. The advocates of abolition, women’s rights, mental health care, education, and religious reforms through spreading their ideas and mobilizing people profoundly changed the American dynamics. Thoughts and efforts to weaken slavery were never new to Americans, yet it was not until the 1830s that the flares an immediate abolition everywhere sparked. William Lloyd Garrison, a northern white, was “the nation’s most unyielding foe of slavery during the period” (Shi, 399). He advocated for abolition and believed that “the education and freedom will elevate our colored population to a rank with the whites, making them useful, intelligent and peaceable citizens”. He not only blamed harshly the inhuman sinful paradox of slavery, but also warned people of “a collision full of sharp asperities and bitterness” in the process of …show more content…
The most known advocate for the mentally ill was Dorothea Dix, a Boston schoolteacher, who helped to transform social attitudes toward mental illness. She spent two years investigated the jails and almshouses in Massachusetts and presented a horrifying report to the legislature of how the insane people was confined “in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience”. Her achievements were outstanding considering women’s status in her time. She made her voice heard and persuaded twenty states to heed her advice by 1860 (Shi,