Dix, Dorothea Dix. “Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts.”

(Jan.) Dix delivers the result of an 18-month study of the state’s jails and poorhouses to the Massachusetts legislature at the State House. She begins by declaring, “I come as the Advocate of the Helpless, forgotten, insane Men and Women: of beings sunk to a condition from which the unconcerned would start with real horror.” In the report, she describes the mentally ill as “confined in this Commonwealth in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens; chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience.” The legislature initially defeats the bill filed to improve conditions in the state’s mental hospitals, but subsequently passes it. Dix goes on to press for reforms in other states and in Europe.