Reform Sweeps the Country

1. Reform Sweeps the Country Chapter 14, Section 3

2. Dorothea Dix: Helping the Helpless • Born on the Main frontier in 1802 • Lived with her grandmother and went to school in Boston to become a teacher • By 14 she opened her own grade school

3. 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 midnight • She began writing her own books which were then used by teachers throughout the nation

4. Dorothea Dix: Helping the Helpless • A new mission • Dix 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

5. Dix took on the job herself • There she found women jailed for theft, drunkenness, and for being mentally ill • The jail locked the mentally ill in small dark cells at the rear of the jail • There was no heat

6. A shocking report • During the next 18 months Dix visited every jail and hospital in Massachusetts • She 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 hospital • The legislatures voted for the hospital

7. A shocking report • Dix inspected jails and poorhouses in Vermont, Connecticut, and New York • Her reports convinced legislatures to treat the mentally ill as patients not prisoners

8. A shocking report • Dix and others called for changes in the prison system • One or two prisoners per cell • End to cruel punishments • Minot crimes received shorter sentences • Stop treating debtors as criminals

9. Educating a Free People • Before 1820 few American children attended school • Public schools were rare • Existing schools were run down • Teachers were poorly trained and ill paid • Students of all ages crowded into one room

10. New public schools • New York State led the way in reforming education • 1820 state ordered every town to build a grade school

11. New public schools • Horace Mann • Massachusetts, led the fight for better schools • Head of the state education board • 12 years he hounded legislatures to provide more money for education

12. New public schools • Massachusetts built new schools, extended the school year and gave teachers higher pay • Opened three colleges to train teachers

13. New public schools • By 1850 most northern states had set up free tax supported elementary schools • Southern schools improved more slowly • Schools ended in the eighth grade

14. Education for African Americans • Free African Americans had little chance for attending school • A few cities set up separate schools for African Americans • Received less money

15. 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.

16. Battling Demon Rum • 1800s alcohol abuse was widespread • Men, women, and sometimes even children drank heavily • Reformers linked abuse of alcohol to crime the breakup of families, and mental illness

17. Battling Demon Rum • Temperance movement: campaign against drinking • 1850s 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.