“The fact is that, in all prisons everywhere, cruelties on the one hand and injudicious laxity of discipline on the other have at times appeared and will, at intervals, be renewed except the most vigilant oversight is maintained.” (Brainyquote.com) Dorothea Lynde Dix was instrumental in improving the treatment of the mentally ill. Her determination to improve the conditions for the “blind, deaf, and the dumb” was sparked when she traveled to England with some of her friends. While in England, she took a job teaching inmates at East Cambridge Jail, a women's prison. While employed at the prison, she witnessed the cruel treatment of the mentally ill, which included being flagged, chained, starved, left naked with neither heat nor sanitation, and being sexually and physically abused. (Biography.com) She believed …show more content…
When she noticed this, she immediately went to court and secured a bill to provide heat for the inmates. Afterwards, she began to travel around her home state, Massachusetts, documenting the conditions she witnessed. She drafted a document to present to the Massachusetts legislature. This document convinced the legislature to increase the budget for an expansion of the State Mental Hospital in Worcester. She began to travel the United States, spreading her passion for better treatment of the mentally ill. She campaigned to establish mental asylums and expand mental hospitals in Indiana, Illinois, Rhode Island, New York, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, New Jersey, North Carolina, Louisiana, Maryland, and South Carolina. (Biography.com) In 1848, she negotiated with with Congress for 12 million acres of land to be used for the benefit of the mentally ill, of which both houses of Congress approved, only to be vetoed by President Franklin Pierce in 1854.(Biography.com) After being discouraged by this setback, Dix traveled to