How Did Dorothea Dix Impact Society

“In a world where there is so much to be done. I felt strongly impressed that there must be something for me to do” – Dorothea Dix. Dorothea Dix was a public reformer who championed for the treatment of all people in many different aspects. One of the things she was most known for was her attempt to change society’s thinking on how to treat mental patients. Dix was inspired when she toured many insane asylums throughout her home state of Massachusetts. She was horrified to see how they were being treated; so, she started campaigning for the better handling of patients in such a state. Dorothea Dix would later go on to make a very highly recognized name for herself. Throughout her lifetime, Dix made many substantial impacts to American society.

The “Dorothea Lynde Dix” section of the History website makes known that Dorothea had an absent father who was also an alcoholic with depression (para. 1). He was known for making Dorothea make huge religious tracts, which he sold while he was traveling. As for her mother, she also frequently had episodes of depression, forcing Dix to take care of her family. Dix was the oldest of three children and became a mother figure to her two little brothers at a very young age. Although her father could be abusive, he taught her how to read and write, which led to a core passion for reading and teaching. Then, at age 12, Dorothea moved in with her grandmother in Boston (para. 2). While there, Dix would start her life as a prosperous role model at an extremely young

A a few years down the road in 1841, Dix was asked to teach a Sunday school class to a group of women who were doing time in the East Cambridge Jail. Dix went into the jail one person, and came out a completely different one. Going further in the aforementioned Encyclopedia website, it was pointed out that after Dorothea taught the inmates, she was able to get a tour of the jail, which led her to discover the “dungeon cells” which held mentally insane people (para. 10). Horrified to see people of all ages and gender emaciated and half-naked, fettered to different objects, and sleeping on the dirty floors of their cells, Dix started her campaign to help immediately. After surveying every jail she could get into, Dorothea submitted her findings to the Massachusetts legislature (para 11). In one of her speeches called “I Tell What I Have seen”, Dix told of the many things she saw: “I may here remark that severe measures, in enforcing rule, have in many places been openly revealed. I have not seen chastisement administered by stripes, and in but few instances have I seen the rods and whips, but I have seen blows inflicted, both passionately and repeatedly.” Before Dix started digging into the issue, almost all people believed the mentally insane were untreatable and did not feel distress in the same way as others (para. 13). Dix was one of the first people to