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Prison Reform and Care of the Disabled Meme

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Prison Reform and Care of the Disabled Meme

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Prison Reform and Care of the Disabled Website

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Prison Reform and Care of the Disabled Website

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Eastern State Penitentiary

Eastern State Penitentiary was designed to intimidate prisoners by its appearance. Today a historical society runs tours of the prison, as well as a haunted house around Halloween.

The pretty woman who stood before the all-male audience seemed unlikely to provoke controversy. Tiny and timid, she rose to the platform of the Massachusetts Legislature to speak. Those who had underestimated the determination and dedication of Dorothea Dix, however, were brought to attention when they heard her say that the sick and insane were "confined in this Commonwealth in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained, beaten with rods, lashed into obedience." Thus, her crusade for humane hospitals for the insane, which she began in 1841, was reaching a climax. After touring prisons, workhouses, almshouses, and private homes to gather evidence of appalling abuses, she made her case for state-supported care. Ultimately, she not only helped establish five hospitals in America, but also went to Europe where she successfully pleaded for human rights to Queen Victoria and the Pope.

Dorothea Dix, a tireless crusader for the treatment of the mentally ill, was made the Superintendent of Nurses for the Union Army during the Civil War. After the war, she retired to an apartment in the first hospital that she had founded, in Trenton, New Jersey.

The year 1841 also marked the beginning of the superintendence of Dr. John Galt at Eastern Lunatic Asylum, in Williamsburg, Virginia, the first publicly supported psychiatric hospital in America. Warehousing of the sick was primary; their care was not. Dr. Galt had many revolutionary ideas about treating the insane, based on his conviction that they had dignity. Among his enlightened approaches were the use of drugs, the introduction of "talk therapy" and advocating outplacement rather than lifelong stays.

In addition to the problems in asylums, prisons were filled to overflowing with everyone who gave offense to society from committing murder to spitting on the street. Men, women, children were thrown together in the most atrocious conditions. Something needed to be done - but what?

Until the 19th century, juveniles offenders were passed into the custody of their parents. During the time of prison and asylum reform, juvenile detention centers like the House of Refuge in New York were built to reform children of delinquent behavior.

After the War of 1812, reformers from Boston and New York began a crusade to remove children from jails into juvenile detention centers. But the larger controversy continued over the purpose of prison - was it for punishment or penitence? In 1821, a disaster occurred in Auburn Prison that shocked even the governor into pardoning hardened criminals. After being locked down in solitary, many of the eighty men committed suicide or had mental breakdowns. Auburn reverted to a strict disciplinary approach. The champion of discipline and first national figure in prison reform was Louis Dwight. founder of the Boston Prison Discipline Society, he spread the Auburn system throughout America's jails and added salvation and Sabbath School to further penitence.

After several bad starts, America finally enjoyed about a decade of real reform. Idealism, plus hope in the perfectibility of institutions, spurred a new generation of leaders including Francis Lieber, Samuel Gridley Howe and the peerless Dix. Their goals were prison libraries, basic literacy (for Bible reading), reduction of whipping and beating, commutation of sentences, and separation of women, children and the sick.

By 1835, America was considered to have two of the "best" prisons in the world in Pennsylvania. Astonishingly, reformers from Europe looked to the new nation as a model for building, utilizing and improving their own systems. Advocates for prisoners believed that deviants could change and that a prison stay could have a positive effect. It was a revolutionary idea in the beginning of the 19th century that society rather than individuals had the responsibility for criminal activity and had the duty to treat neglected children and rehabilitate alcoholics.

In reality it became clear that, despite intervention by outsiders, prisoners were often no better off, and often worse off, for their incarceration. Yet, in keeping with the optimistic spirit of the era, these early reformers had only begun a crusade to alleviate human suffering that continues today.

Medicating the mentally ill is nothing new - Benjamin Hornor Coates, M.D. was working wonders with narcotics way back in 1752.
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Listen up to this radio broadcast about the story of Sing Sing, one of America's most notorious prisons which actually began during the time of reform.
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Prison and Asylum Reform [ushistory.org]

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Eastern State Penitentiary Eastern State Penitentiary was designed to intimidate prisoners by its appearance. Today a historical society runs tours of the prison, as well as a haunted house around Halloween. The pretty woman who stood before the all-male audience seemed unlikely to provoke controversy.

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Prison Reform and Care of the Disabled Video

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Prison Reform and Care of the Disabled Video

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Dorothea Dix - The Face of the Mental Health Reform

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This is a picture of Dorothea Dix a women that helped the Prison REform and the care for the disabled people.

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This here is a picture a a person in jail because he is mentally ill. That people didn't know what to do with them or how to fix them they just threw them in prison.

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This is what it was like to be crowded prison. Some people were put in there for like things like $20 debt so they are surrounded by all these bad people.

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You probably might not know this but back in the day prison was the worst place to ever be sent to. I know what you are thinking prison is still bad but in the past it was worse. The cells were so small, there was little food, it was very damp there, and even kids were placed in jail. Even if you did a little thing like steal a toy or something like that you would be treated like you did the worst thing possible. They would punish you very hard and you might not even be able to take it. Also did you know that they even placed the mentally ill in prison even if they didn't do anything wrong. They laced you there because they didn't know what to do with you. So the mentally ill were whipped and beaten for their behavior.
Most people didn't really care for the people in prison only glad they didn't suffer their fate. But one person did and her name was Dorothea Dix. As a favor from a friend she agreed to teach a class at a jail.She was surprised and overwhelmed by what she saw at the prison  so she issued a report to the state legislature about what she saw at the prison.At last she got what she wanted. The prison life got better, kids went to a different jail than adults did, and they made mental hospitals for the mentally ill.

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Welcome to Britannica School, a safe, up-to-date, and age-appropriate information resource for Elementary, Middle, and High School.

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As you may know, Women have been fighting for their rights for a very long time. This fight even continues today. Many women over the years have outraged by restrictions they had on themselves. For example, when Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton went to the Anti Slavery Convention they were not allowed to speak because they were women. They have also placed in a corner away from the other men. At that time women had very few rights like political and legal laws. One of the biggest was that they were not allowed to vote.There were also other things that they could not do like run for office. Also if a single woman ever had any property or anything when they got married those possessions would be taken away and would belong to their husband. To add on to that there was no law that women couldn't be abused their husband.
That is why Mott and Stanton decided to host a national women's rights convention in New York. At that convention, they made a declaration called the declaration of sediment which was based on the declaration of independence. This convention demanded women's rights more than ever seen before. Those two were not the only people who helped there was also Susan B. Anthony. She fought for the right to allow women to vote. She did pass and the right to vote for women was reached in the of 1920. Women have tried very hard to gain their rights in life and now they are very close.

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Many women and even men wanted women's rights and stop even protested for their rights.

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When Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton went to The World Anti Slavery Convention they were not allowed to talk.

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Women had to fight for the right to vote in stuff like presidential campaigns.