Post on 30-Dec-2015
Reform Sweeps the Country
Chapter 14, Section 3
Dorothea Dix: Helping the Helpless
Born on the Main frontier in 1802Lived with her grandmother and went to school in Boston to become a teacher
By 14 she opened her own grade school
Dorothea Dix: Helping the Helpless
Few years later she opened a larger school free for poor children
Read wrote and studied from 4am to well after midnightShe began writing her own books which were then used by teachers throughout the nation
Dorothea Dix: Helping the HelplessA new missionDix got a message from a young
Harvard University student who had been asked to set a Sunday school for young women in the Cambridge jail, near Boston
Dix took on the job herselfThere she found women jailed for theft, drunkenness, and for being mentally illThe jail locked the mentally ill in small dark cells at the rear of the jail
There was no heat
A shocking report
During the next 18 months Dix visited every jail and hospital in MassachusettsShe gave a detailed report to state legislatures
She then gave a report to the newspapers to persuade legislatures to raise taxes to build a new mental hospitalThe legislatures voted for the hospital
A shocking reportDix inspected jails and poorhouses in Vermont, Connecticut, and New YorkHer reports convinced legislatures to treat the mentally ill as patients not prisoners
A shocking reportDix and others called for changes in the
prison systemOne or two prisoners per cellEnd to cruel punishmentsMinot crimes received shorter sentencesStop treating debtors as criminals
Educating a Free People
Before 1820 few American children attended school
Public schools were rareExisting schools were run downTeachers were poorly trained and ill paid
Students of all ages crowded into one room
New public schools
New York State led the way in reforming education
1820 state ordered every town to build a grade school
New public schoolsHorace MannMassachusetts, led the fight for
better schoolsHead of the state education board
12 years he hounded legislatures to provide more money for education
New public schoolsMassachusetts built new schools,
extended the school year and gave teachers higher pay
Opened three colleges to train teachers
New public schoolsBy 1850 most northern states had set up free tax supported elementary schools
Southern schools improved more slowly
Schools ended in the eighth grade
Education for African Americans
Free African Americans had little chance for attending schoolA few cities set up separate schools for African Americans Received less money
Special schools
1817 Thomas Gallaudet set up a school for people who are deaf in Hartford, Connecticut
Samuel Gridley Howe invented a way to print books with raised letters.
Battling Demon Rum
1800s alcohol abuse was widespreadMen, women, and sometimes even
children drank heavilyReformers linked abuse of alcohol to
crime the breakup of families, and mental illness
Battling Demon RumTemperance movement: campaign
against drinking1850s Maine banned the sale of alcohol
Eight other stats soon passed “Main laws”
Most states later repealed the laws until temperance crusaders gained new strength in the late 1800s.