Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts.
(Dix, D.L.). Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts. [Boston: Monroe & Francis, 1843].
8vo.; printed wrappers. In a specially made cloth slipcase.
First edition of Dix’s first direct attack on the abuses in the confinement of the insane. Infrequently encountered, and rare with an inscription by Dix. Mark & Schwaab, The Faith Of Our Fathers, 184-87. A presentation copy, inscribed on the half-title to the Rev. Mr. [Jacob?] Osgood: Rev.d Mr. Osgood from the Author.
Helen E. Marshall, Dix’s primary biographer, discusses the history of this appeal in NAW:
[Dix] undertook…an eighteen-month survey of every jail, almshouse, and house of correction in Massachusetts. Each day’s investigation brought new evidence of neglect and cruelty. In her notebook she recorded the shocking details of unfortunate persons ‘confined…in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience.’ In January 1843 she prepared a memorial for the legislature, unfolding a sordid panorama of cruelty, filth, and disease…The memorial…effectively alternated general appeals to conscience with terse and detailed factual statements…After weeks of countercharges, argument, and debate, in which [Samuel Gridley] Howe, Charles Sumner, and Horace Mann championed her cause, the legislature appropriated the necessary funds to expand the facilities at Worcester so that the state’s mentally ill might receive proper care and treatment. (p. 487)
After a false start as an educator and writer, producing such works as an introductory science textbook, a collection of motivational poetry (some of it her own), Meditations for Private Hours (1828) and American Moral Tales for Young Persons (1832), Dorothea Dix (1802-1887) found her calling in ameliorating the plight of the mentally ill in 1841. She went to a jail for women in East Cambridge, England, and discovered among the criminal element several innocent, insensible women who, because of their mental deficiencies, were badly mistreated if not overlooked completely. An appeal to the local court and a newspaper piece by Howe resulted in positive action. Her subsequent investigations revealed that there were barely a dozen mental institutions in the United States, and that the substantial number of mentally ill individuals not within their confines were imprisoned and severely neglected.
This 1843 memorial was the first of many that resulted in the amelioration of current conditions and the creation of new State facilities in Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Illinois, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and North Carolina. “Though less extensive than her earlier reports and eventually somewhat routinized, these memorials marshaled sufficient evidence of neglect and abuse to shame most legislatures into action” (ibid. p. 488). In 1845 she published Remarks on Prisons and Prison Discipline in the United States, “which anticipated many reforms later adopted by penologists, including the education of prisoners and the separation of various types of offenders” (ibid.).
In 1854 President Pierce vetoed a bill it had taken her six years to get through Congress; the bill would have allocated several million acres of land to provide income for the care of the country’s mentally ill. She traveled to Europe to relax and regroup, and while there investigated conditions in Scotland, the Cannel Islands, France, Turkey, Russia, and other countries. In 1956 she returned to the States, and in 1861 was appointed superintendent of army nurses for the duration of the Civil War. This last post, unfortunately, achieved for her much public chastisement from prominent feminists such as Emily Blackwell, who cited her lack of organizational skills and experience, and Louisa May Alcott, who noted her “very queer and arbitrary” requirements of age (over 30) and appearance (plain). Dix retired from her post in 1866, and complaints of her a
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