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The Ku Klux Klan was an orginization that wanted to take away the rights.

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President Lincoln was killed on April 14th, 1865, by a shot to the head

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It wasn't just men that took part in the Civil War, women helped in some ways too.

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President Lincoln put the Emancipation Proclimation into process on January 1st, 1863. It said that all the states that were pro-slavery, that all the slaves were free.

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There were many wars that made up the Civil War, and the Battle of Shiloh was one of them. It was the bloodiest battle in American history up to that point

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In South Carolina, there was an island that had Fort Sumter on it, and it served as a base for the North, but then the South overtook it.

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Two forts stand at the entrance of Charleston Harbor. Patriots inside a palmetto log fort, later named Fort Moultrie, defeated the Royal Navy in 1776. As Charleston blazed a path towards secession to preserve slavery, construction on a new fort, Fort Sumter, proceeded. The Confederacy fired on the US garrison of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861 opening the Civil War, which redefined American freedom.

Learn about where the American Civil War began and Fort Sumter's role from park rangers and visitors.

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Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service)

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Two forts stand at the entrance of Charleston Harbor. Patriots inside a palmetto log fort, later named Fort Moultrie, defeated the Royal Navy in 1776. As Charleston blazed a path towards secession to preserve slavery, construction on a new fort, Fort Sumter, proceeded.

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The north and the south had very different views on slavery. The North thought that all African Americans should be free and are at least some type of person, but the South had the exact opposite of this idea. They thought that African Americans should work for them and don't deserve the rights that white people have.

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The Southern parts of America were more focused on slavery and thought that it was good thing. But with the slaves in the South, there was many harsh conditions that they had to endure. The heat was miserable, they had to work from Dawn to Dusk, and depending on their owners, they would be beaten and starved and live in horrible houses.

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After the Mexican-American, a new political party said "What if we made all the territory we got from the war free?" The Southerners just shot that idea down. Then, in 1850, Henry Clay said "What if we allow California to become a free state, and Utah and New Mexico can decided if they want to be a free state or not? And slave trade in Washington DC is not illegal." This  pleased the South and the North, so it was accepted. But it didn't last for long

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Before the 1800's and early 1800's, prisons would be poorly heated, cramped, not enough food or water, and would keep mentally ill people there. Dorothea Dix worked to get people who have mental illnesses and made prisons more sanitary. She also got mentally ill people into asylums, which is way better then prisons because they help the people rather then punish them.

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During the 19th century, mental health disorders were not recognized as treatable conditions. They were perceived as a sign of madness, warranting imprisonment in merciless conditions. One woman set out to change such perceptions: Dorothea Lynde Dix.

Dorothea Dix was instrumental in changing perceptions of mental illness for the better.
Image credit: The National Library of Medicine
Born in Maine in 1802, Dix was instrumental in the establishment of humane mental healthcare services in the United States.

Dix - a teacher and nurse during the American Civil War - tirelessly campaigned for the fair treatment of patients with mental health disorders, after being appalled by the conditions in which they were confined.

"I proceed, Gentlemen, briefly to call your attention to the present state of Insane Persons confined within this Commonwealth, in cages, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience," wrote Dix in a Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts in 1843.

In the years that followed, Dix traveled to hundreds of prisons and workhouses across the U.S., documenting the inhumane treatment that people with mental illness received and reporting her findings to state legislatures.

Her work not only resulted in the establishment of 32 mental health hospitals in a wealth of U.S. states, but it also helped to change people's perceptions of mental illness.

"Through her work, she shed light on the abuse and neglect of those with mental illness, which helped change perceptions and policy approaches of state, national, and international leaders to establish more humane treatment approaches," Paolo del Vecchio, director of the Center for Mental Health Services at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, told Medical News Today.

For our fifth and final article in a series celebrating female role models in medicine, we look at Dix's incredible life and career.

How did her steadfast lobbying for mental healthcare reform more than 200 years ago help to shape today's treatment for patients with mental illness? What challenges remain for mental healthcare?

An unhappy childhood

Dix's childhood was not a happy one; her father was an abusive alcoholic, and her mother struggled with mental illness. At the age of 12, Dix ran away from her home in Maine to live with her wealthy grandmother in Boston, MA.

Despite a lack of formal education, Dix was clearly a smart and ambitious woman, as she went on to establish a career as a schoolteacher. In 1821, at the age of 19, she opened a school for young girls in her grandmother's mansion.

In the years that followed, Dix penned a number of children's books and short stories and, in 1831, she opened a school for underprivileged children, which she ran from her own home.

However, these achievements were not easy; Dix often suffered from bouts of illness, including severe cough and fatigue, which eventually ended her career as a teacher.

Archives suggest that her physical illness took its toll on her mental health, causing her to become depressed. Her mental illness, however, would later become a driving force in her desire to change mental healthcare in the U.S. for the better.

Inspired by her own mental illness

In the mid-1830s, Dix traveled to Europe in the hope of finding a cure for her ongoing illness.

During her time in England, she met with social reformers Elizabeth Fry and Samuel Tuke. Fry had helped to pass new legislation in the United Kingdom to make the treatment of prisoners more humane, while Tuke founded England's York Retreat for the mentally ill.

Evidence suggests that Dix's own experience of mental illness, as well as the work of these social reformers, helped to inspire her to make changes to mental healthcare in the U.S. Dix was appalled by the treatment of patients with mental illness.
"Perhaps her own struggles helped make her a more compassionate advocate for people who had been diagnosed as mentally unstable or insane," wrote historian Manon S. Parry in a paper published in 2006. "Certainly her ill health ended her teaching career and brought her into a new circle of contacts."

In 1841, Dix volunteered to teach a Sunday School for female inmates at a jail in East Cambridge, MA. Here, she witnessed the suffering of women with mental illness. They were chained to beds, starved, and abused - punished as if they were criminals.

Horrified by this maltreatment, Dix began visiting jails and workhouses across Massachusetts and documenting her findings.

The rise of mental healthcare

In 1843, these findings were presented in a Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts.

As part of the Memorial, Dix asked for the funds to introduce reform for the care of patients with mental illness in Massachusetts' only state mental hospital - Worcester Insane Asylum. Her request was approved.

"This memorial reveals how Dix worked within the conventions of her time to carve a role for herself in public life and draw attention to the horrendous treatment of the mentally ill in prisons, almshouses for the poor, and asylums," writes Parry.

"Ideals of femininity characterized women as having a special responsibility to the most vulnerable members of society, and a moral authority superior to men's. At the same time, women were supposed to be protected from images and experiences of suffering and degradation."

"Dix was able to use her vivid and upsetting descriptions to powerful effect, damning the existence of these abuses and shaming political leaders into taking action on her behalf, and on behalf of the 'inmates' of these institutions."

Manon S. Parry

Following her success in Massachusetts, Dix took her campaign for mental healthcare reform to other states.

A significant point in Dix's crusade was the Bill for the Benefit of the Indigent Insane, which was put before Congress in 1854. The bill proposed legislation to provide federal land and funding for the development of new mental institutions.

While the bill was passed by both houses of Congress, it was vetoed by President Franklin Pierce, who stated that the issue of social welfare should be the responsibility of each individual state, rather than that of the federal government.

Though disappointed by this decision, Dix continued to make progress at a state level. Between 1843 and 1880, she helped to establish 32 new mental hospitals across the U.S. - including in New York, Indiana, Illinois, Rhode Island, and Tennessee - and she aided in improving the care of many more.

From 'lazy and worthless' to 'sick and human'

When it comes today's care for patients with mental health disorders, we have undoubtedly come a long way since the 1800s.

Today, there are more than 6,100 mental health outpatient facilities and more than 800 psychiatric facilities in the U.S., compared with just 123 mental hospitals in 1880.
As psychiatrist Dr. Fuller Torrey, executive director of the Stanley Medical Research Institute, told us, "She changed the perception from being lazy and worthless to being sick and human."
"Dix was one of our nation's first champions for healthcare as a basic right and that we have a societal and public responsibility to care for those vulnerable citizens among us," del Vecchio told MNT.

Furthermore, she helped to change the way that patients with mental illness are perceived.

Still, there is much more to be achieved in the field of mental health, and experts believe that we can learn a great deal from inspirational figures such as Dix.

'We need more champions like Dix'

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, around 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. experience some form of mental health disorder in any given year.

The rate of mental illness is even higher for inmates in prison or jail - a report from the U.S. Department of Justice found that more than half of these individuals have a mental health disorder.

Statistics show that around 56 percent of patients with mental illness in the U.S. do not receive treatment.

There is also a severe shortage of mental health professionals. In fact, Mental Health America report that in states with the lowest workforce, there is only one mental health professional - including psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers - for every 1,000 people.

Stigma surrounding mental illness also remains a problem. The American Psychological Association state that only 25 percent of adults with symptoms of mental illness believe that people will be caring and sympathetic toward them.

Moving forward, del Vecchio believes that we can build a better world for people with mental illness by following in Dix's footsteps.

"Today, we need more champions like Dorothea Dix to provide leadership to change attitudes and policies to enable all Americans with mental illness to recover and live full, productive lives in our communities.

Dix is a role model to others who want to reform how people with serious mental illness are treated. She provides an example of how dedicated individuals can help change society for the better."

Paolo del Vecchio

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During the 19th century, mental health disorders were not recognized as treatable conditions. They were perceived as a sign of madness, warranting imprisonment in merciless conditions. One woman set out to change such perceptions: Dorothea Lynde Dix.

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Around 1800-1850's, the Industrial Revolution started to happen and factories sprung up quick.  But because of factories coming up really quick, they couldn't make the factories safe for people to work in.

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Women didn't have all of the same jobs and opportunities as men until recently. They weren't allowed to vote, couldn't serve on juries, go to college, go into professions that are higher ranked, like medicine or law, and couldn't own to much land. Until the 60's, not many people were trying to make a difference with this. Then some very influential people came around to make the women's right movement a more popularized thing and getting more attention. Some of these people were Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Gloria Steinmen.

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Why Women's History?

Women's contributions and accomplishments have largely been overlooked and consequently omitted from mainstream culture. The National Women's History Museum helps fill that void. To this end, the Museum serves to place women's history within current historical narratives because inclusive history is good history.

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Women's contributions and accomplishments have largely been overlooked and consequently omitted from mainstream culture. The National Women's History Museum helps fill that void. To this end, the Museum serves to place women's history within current historical narratives because inclusive history is good history.

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Before people believed that your actions influenced the place you would end up, people believed that God decided your fate at birth. So your actions had nothing to do with where you would be after you died. That means even if you were an amazing person who went to church all the time, if God said while creating you that you would be going to hang with Satan after you died, that where you were going to hang.

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Back in the olden days, people's actions were heavily influenced by whether it would get them into Heaven or the bad place. A painting that was done explained what actions would get you into Heaven and what would get you into the bad place.

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Color print; image is circular and depicts the divergent paths of good and evil. One path leads from the House of God to Eternal Life. The other path leads from the House of Sin to destruction and Everlasting Punishment.

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Toxic Masculinity + Feminism in 'Moby Dick'

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Toxic Masculinity + Feminism in 'Moby Dick'

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"Moby Dick' was challenging the society with men showing fear and emotion and women taking on jobs that men would usually do.

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Women of the Time by Kendall Ganus While there are no major female characters in Moby Dick, there is still much to be analyzed from the feminist perspective. The lack of a female presence has an interesting effect on the men of the Pequod that can be seen in the relationship