Rachel+Dix+D

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media type="file" key="Dorothea Dix - Tiny.3gp"

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Interviewer: Welcome to the History Alive Channel. Today, we have an incredibly special guest. A historical woman who shook the entire United States with her social movements and philosophical ideas; a brave woman who did not hesitate to give up her whole precious life for poor insanes, who were not being treated equally as the sanes; a warm-hearted woman who helped and cared for those insanes and established mental hospitals for them. Please welcome Dorothea Dix. Dix: Hello, nice to meet you. I’m Dorothea Dix, and as Ms.Peltro has already explained, I took part in many social reform movements in order to help cure the insanes who were facing discriminations and moral injustice. I was the first woman to establish mental asylums for the insanes and provide them with hospitality. Interviewer: Wow, it seems that you have made an enormous change in the history of psychology as well as philosophy. But I’m thinking that these ideas for your heroic actions did not suddenly come to you one day. So, please explain to us, what were some of your influences to your ideas? Dix: Well, the very first influence would be my childhood, because my childhood itself was pretty insane and disastrous. My mother suffered from mental illness and my father was an alcoholic who drank extremely heavily every every night. Sympathetic for my unfortunate growing conditions, my grandmother took me to England to provide me with better education and expose me to a better life. I was inspired by many people I met there, who believed that the government should dominate more actively to the social reformation, which motivated me to engage in the British Reform Movement which investigated madhouses and asylums. However, the turning point of my life came at an age of nearly 40, after I returned to America. I was offered a job as a teacher of the Sunday School at East Cambridge Jail, which I excitedly visited the next day to teach. However, what I saw there was more than shocking. The criminals were mostly people with mental illness. They were suffering discrimination in the unheated, dirty cells. This is when I decided I should work for these people and protect them. Interviewer: So, after listening to your story, I guess the main problem that you were trying to solve was the injustice and discrimination toward the insanes? Dix: Yes, that was my goal. At the time, most people believed that mental illness was a disease that cannot be cured. As a result, they began treating them as hopeless people and believed there was no need to provide them with better living conditions. But I have seen examples of mental people who were cured just by good care from the family. Therefore, I decided to build madhouses for the mentals. At last, I successfully managed to establish 32 mental hospitals, 15 schools for the insanes, 1 school for the blind, training facilities for nurses, and libraries in prisons and mental hospitals. Later on, inspired by my spirit, many others followed my path and established many more facilities for the mentals. Interviewer: That is very impressive for a woman at the time. Can you briefly explain to us the main point of your philosophy that you were trying to spread? Dix: Well, I believed that all men are equal, in terms of gender and mental health. No matter how sick you are, you deserve the same treatment and care as everyone else receives. Perhaps even more care until they get better, but truly not worse. Being mentally ill does not indicate they deserve less than us. Interviewer: Of course! Social injustice toward them surely must stop. Thank you Miss Dix for sharing with us your stories. See you next time.

SOURCES:

Primary Source:  In the 1850's, an intense debate over what role the federal government should play in providing services and support to the mentally disabled was carried out in Congress. The issue pitted Dorothea Dix, a nationally respected advocate for the retarded, against Franklin Pierce, the President and an outspoken critic of federal involvement in state and local issues. Dix had petitioned Congress to sell federal lands to states who in turn would sell the lands again and hold the proceeds in a trust that would pay for the building and administration of several state insane asylums. Despite broad support for the spirit of the plan, Pierce ultimately vetoed it, sympathetically explaining that the bill would set an untenable precedent and draw the federal government into an inappropriate and unconstitutional relationship with the nation’s needy. The character and thoroughness of his veto established the rationale behind government uninvolvement in public health issues into the twentieth century. The following commentary on and text of Pierce’s veto were edited and written by Peter Dobkin Hall, and are provided by the Documentary History of Philanthropy & Voluntarism Project, Program on Non-Profit Organizations, Yale University. "Despite this stance, Dix had reason to hope that Pierce would look with favor upon her efforts. In his first State of the Union Address, he had described the erection of the asylum for the insane of the District of Columbia and the Army and Navy -- a product of her agitations -- in highly complimentary terms. Motivated by a "liberal spirit" and its arrangements informed "with the large experience furnished within the last few years in relation to the nature and treatment of the disease," the asylum, Pierce declared, "will prove an asylum indeed to this most helpless and afflicted class of sufferers and stand as a noble monument of wisdom and mercy" [Hall, 217]. The bill Dorothea Dix was urging on Congress proposed that 10,000,000 acres of land be distributed to each of the states as endowments for the care of the insane. Under this plan each state would receive 100,000 acres, with the remainder to be distributed on a ratio determined by its geographical area and representation in Congress. Having campaigned extensively through the states in the decade previous to her federal crusade (by the mid-1840s, she had travelled some 60,000 miles and personally visited over 9,000 insane, epileptic, and idiotic persons throughout the country), she had a wide and warm acquaintance among the nation's politicians. Her influence with congressional leaders led the body to give her an office in the Capitol from which she could lobby for her bill. President Pierce had personally assured her of his interest in the legislation. The bill completed its passage through Congress on March 9, 1854. "I have lifted up my eyes," wrote Dix to her friend Ann Heath. "My cup runneth over." [Marshall, 149]. Congratulatory messages poured in from friends and supporters around the country. But the President did not sign the legislation. And soon, distressing rumors began to circulate that he would not do so. After months of delay, President Pierce vetoed the bill, justifying his action with an extended argument about the nature and extent of federal power. While most reformers -- including Dix herself -- condemned Pierce's action as typical of "a Northerner with Southern principles (some, indeed, believed that the message had been written by Jefferson Davis), a disinterested reading of the document suggests that there was far more thought and reflection behind it than the kind of reflexive yahooism that so typified the debate over the Smithsonian Institution. The message was an important statement of public policy -- and set forth guidelines for the federal role as a philanthropic agent until well into the twentieth century.”    DBQ: What did Dix do to help the suffering insanes? 

"I have come to present to you the strong claims of suffering humanity," she wrote. "I come as the advocate of the helpless, forgotten, insane men and women held in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience!"  DBQ: According to this primary source, what was Dorothea Dix's main goal/ determination? <http://www.massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=96> Secondary Sources: 