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.