Dorothea Dix

Compassion for the insane has been in short supply through most of history, particularly since the general public (until fairly recently) felt that somehow madness was the victim’s own fault. Accommodations for the insane have never been more than merely comfortable, and even that was not often the case until the mid-1800s. When reformer Dorothea Dix began her survey of the insane in Massachusetts, she saw victims of mental illness in horrific conditions. In her Memorial to the Massachusetts legislature, she wrote that in Groton:

“A few rods removed from the poorhouse is a wooden building upon the roadside…it contains one room, unfurnished, except so far as a bundle of straw constitutes furnishing.” The room had no window except for a small slit covered with a board shutter. A young man was confined inside.

Worcester County Almshouse, 1908, African-American Building, courtesy Maryland State Archives

“He can move a measured distance in his prison; that is, so far as a strong, heavy chain, depending from an iron collar which invests his neck permits.” Dix mentioned that on the particular day she saw him, the weather was pleasant and the door open so the man could see outside. However, she pointed out that in New England, “the portion of the year which allows of open doors is not the chiefest part.” She asked her audience what it must be like for that young man to sit in a dark room, chained and alone for months, with nothing to do and no one to talk to.

Dix Discussed Her Findings in This Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts

Dix witnessed similar situations wherever she went. Reformers often stressed how unfair it was that victims of insanity–who had committed no crime–often wound up in jails, punished for life.