Institutionalization in the 1800’s was Dorothea Dix was a mover and shaker, who together with a few others in her era was responsible for alleviating the plight of the mentally ill. In the 1800's she found them in jails, almshouses and underneath bridges. She then began her major lobby with legislators and authority figures across the land, to get hospitals built in what was then known as the "Moral Treatment Era." Things did get better, with ups and downs, of course. She visited widely, in the Midwest state hospitals in Independence and Mt. Pleasant, Iowa and Winnebago in Wisconsin ca. 1874. In the early 70's other forms of treatment and placement efforts were put in place, so that mentally ill people would be able to have a better quality