On Dorothea Dix and Mental Asylums

On Dorothea Dix and Mental Asylums: As one of the earliest advocates for the mentally ill, Dorothea Dix spent much of her life helping to establish America's first generation of state hospitals. Having grown up in the 1810s in Worcester, Massachusetts, Dix extensively lobbied the state to open one of these hospitals in her city. Designed to care for the mentally unstable, these hospitals would operate in a very different manner than prisons. In fact, Dix made a point of going into prisons and identifying those who were mentally unfit for incarceration. She took them back to state hospitals because she believed there was a big difference between common criminals and those who suffered from debilitating mental afflictions. Criminalizing or socially isolating these individuals only made their mental illness worse. Unfortunately, Dix herself suffered from some serious bouts of depression at times, but she persisted in her attempts at "lunacy reform" (which originated in England).