American Mental Asylums
Some may say these things cannot be remedied, [but] these furious maniacs are not to be raised from these base conditions. I know they are...I could give many examples. One such is a young woman who was for years 'a raging maniac' chained in a cage and whipped to control her acts and words. She was helped by a husband and wife who agreed to take care of her in their home and slowly she recovered her senses.
That's me. Annie Connors. I'm old now - very old - but thirty-five years ago, sweet Miss Dix saved my life. She's my hero - the reason I'm living happily with my family today. To tell you the truth, I'm the "raging maniac" that miraculous recovered when I was released from the East Cambridge Jail. I hadn't committed any crime - unless you call being born mentally retarded a capital offense. Throughout my life, superstition, fear, and a complete lack of understanding of the nature of people with mental illnesses caused us to be avoided and shunned. There was no known treatment, and so we were locked up at home or in local prisons or poorhouses - right along with murderers and drunkards. This is were Miss Dix found me, and although my memory is still fuzzy from those dark times, I will try to recount the tale.
After Miss Dix returned from England, she volunteered to teach a Sunday School class for women at the East Cambridge Jail in 1841, I believe. She was shocked when she saw criminals, prostitutes, and the mentally ill all crowded together in freezing, unfurnished, and putrid-smelling living conditions. Innocent men, women, and children who hadn't committed a single crime in their lives were forced to stay with thieves just because their brains didn't function correctly. Some were chained to walls, others were completely naked, and still others were kept in a line for flogging. I remember hearing a rumor that her mother had been mentally challenged, so I felt as if seeing us brought back painful memories of her past, and stirred a deep compassion for inside of her.
After Miss Dix returned from England, she volunteered to teach a Sunday School class for women at the East Cambridge Jail in 1841, I believe. She was shocked when she saw criminals, prostitutes, and the mentally ill all crowded together in freezing, unfurnished, and putrid-smelling living conditions. Innocent men, women, and children who hadn't committed a single crime in their lives were forced to stay with thieves just because their brains didn't function correctly. Some were chained to walls, others were completely naked, and still others were kept in a line for flogging. I remember hearing a rumor that her mother had been mentally challenged, so I felt as if seeing us brought back painful memories of her past, and stirred a deep compassion for inside of her.
Although I wasn't aware of it at the time, I was later told that I was in line to be placed on the auction block. I had been mentally retarded all my life, so as a child I was kept indoors at all times. I didn't know what it was to laugh, to make a friend, or even to read. Barely literate, I was a heavy burden to my parents, who were struggling to feed seven hungry mouths. The day I turned eighteen I was married off to one of our neighbors - who hadn't been alerted to my medical condition - and sent to live with him. From what I remember he was sweet enough, but my condition was worsening. He tried to help, but I needed assistance with everything I did and would keep my husband and his mother awake by my illiterate babbling in my sleep. It got so bad that I began to refuse to eat. When I was nothing but a pile of bones, my husband was so desperate that he sent me to a "mental hospital." What he did not know was that these did not exist at the time. Instead, I was sent to prison. I lived there ever since I was twenty three, and by the time Miss Dix held her first Sunday School class I was nearly forty. My body was worn from whipping and malnutrition, and the jail needed to make room for more prisoners. So I was placed on the auction block - to be leased like other mentally ill prisoners had been before me; our "weak minds and strong bodies" to work for the bidder who made the highest offer to the town.
Miss Dix was so unsettled by the conditions in the East Cambridge Jail that she began to travel around the state of Massachusetts to research the living quarters in other prisons and poorhouses. After she had visited and thoroughly inspected the main jails in her state, she continued her task, managing to cover every state on the east side of the Mississippi River. She did this for two whole years, and found the same horrifying conditions in most of the institutions she visited.
Although her own health was shaky, Miss Dix wrote a document that was presented to the Massachusetts legislature, in which she begged for an increase in the budget in order to expand the State Mental Hospital at Worcester. I come to present the strong claims of suffering humanity. I come to place before the Legislature of Massachusetts the condition of the miserable, the desolate, the outcast. I come as the advocate of helpless, forgotten, insane, and idiotic men and women; of beings sunk to a condition from which the most unconcerned would start with real horror; of beings wretched in our prisons, and more wretched in our almshouses... |
Miss Dix helped establish thirty-two mental hospitals, fifteen schools for the feeble-minded, and improved many more. During her years of activism, the number of hospitals for the mentally ill increased from thirteen to one hundred and twenty three. A hospital in North Carolina, named in honor of Dorothea, opened in 1856. Amid all her traveling, Miss Dix still managed to have time for me. For the past three months, I had been chained in a cage and whipped in order to control my actions and words. I was to be auctioned away to do physical labor until my health gave out completely, but Miss Dix stepped in just in the nick of time. She had located a sweet couple who agreed to take care of me in their home. There, I slowly began to recover and to regain mental stability. As you can see, I am now entirely literate and have returned to my husband, and we have a darling pair of twins. Miss Dix changed my life forever, and I completely support all that she is doing to help the mentally ill. For I had been there. I had witnessed firsthand the conditions that they were kept in. I knew the truth. And now, with Dorothea's help, the mentally retarded people are beginning to cling on to a hope that they had never had before.
Raise up the fallen, succor the desolate, restore the outcast, defend the helpless, and for your eternal and great reward receive the benediction, "Well done, good and faithful servants, become rulers over many things!" ...Gentlemen, I commit to you this sacred cause. Your action upon this subject will affect the present and future condition of hundreds and of thousands. In this legislation, as in all things, may you exercise that "wisdom which is the breath of the power of God."