Unit 3: A Woman’s Crusade: Dorothea Dix

Grades

• 9-10
• 11-12

Subjects

• History
• Literature
• Political Science
• Social Studies

Overview of Lesson Plan

• Students examine the reform efforts of Dorothea Dix on behalf of people with mental retardation and mental illness in poorhouses, jails, and asylums. Dix's efforts resulted in a number of victories at the state level, but failure at the federal level. Although Congress passed a bill proposed by Dix, President Franklin Pierce vetoed it in 1854. Pierce's argument assigned responsibility for care of the indigent insane to the states. At the center of this lesson is gender and what it meant to be a woman in America during the 1840s and 1850s.

Standards

• 1. Analyze and explain the ways groups, societies, and cultures address human needs and concerns.
  2. Apply ideas, theories, and modes of historical inquiry to analyze historical inquiry to analyze historical and contemporary developments, and to inform and evaluate actions concerning public policy issues.
  3. Apply concepts such as role, status, and social class in describing the connections and interactions of individuals, groups, and institutions in society.
  4. Analyze the extent to which groups and institutions meet individual needs and promote the common good in contemporary and historical settings.
  5. Examine persistent issues involving the rights, roles, and status and the individual in relation to the general welfare.
  6. Identify, analyze, interpret, and evaluate sources and examples of citizens' rights and responsibilities.

Objectives

• 1. To examine public care for people with mental illness and mental retardation in the mid-1800s.
  2. To understand the reform efforts of Dorothea Dix in the mid-1800s and its relationship to other social movements of the period.
  3. To identify how social reformers appealed to the conscience of the public and politicians.
  4. To examine the role of women in public life in the mid-1800s.

Questions to Consider

• 1. Was Dix's "womanhood" a help or hindrance in achieving her reform goals?
• 2. What does Dix's language suggest about the meanings of disability in antebellum America?
• 3. What were the conditions in antebellum America that made asylum reform possible? Why didn't this reform take root earlier?
• 4. What does the life and writings of Dorothea Dix say about religion and gender roles in nineteenth-century America?

Resources and Materials

• NOTE: Some of these links may lead to external web sites.
  1. Steve Taylor, "A Woman's Crusade: Dorothea  Dix."
  2. Dorothea Dix, Memorial to the Massachusetts Legislature, 1843 (1-8, 23-24, 28, 49, 55-56, 76-81).
  3. Memorial of Miss D.L. Dix to the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States (1-5, 7-18, 21-22, 42, 49, 67, 150-154, 192-204).
  4. Web Site on Historical Overview of Poorhouses in the Nineteenth Century: http://www.poorhousestory.com/history.htm

Activities and Procedures

• 1. Homework: Students are assigned to read the brief biography of Dix, the essay on women, the essay on religion, and the Memorials to the Legislature of Massachusetts and the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
• 2. Class Discussion: Students discuss the Dix Memorials. They focus on the following overarching question in a teacher-led discussion: What makes Dix's Memorial effective or ineffective? They will also answer the following specific questions:
• a)Dorothea Dix, Memorial to the Massachusetts Legislature, 1843: In paragraph 2, how does Dix deal with the fact that she is a woman acting in the male sphere of politics? What seems to make Dix's petition effective? What are Dix's rhetorical strategies? What response does she want from her readers? Read paragraph 24 closely. What happens? What role does religious imagery play here? What are the elements of this document that make it rhetorically effective?
• b)Memorial of Miss D.L Dix to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives: What do paragraphs 11 and 12 suggest about Dix's reputation among at least some members of Congress? In paragraph 12, Senator Foot says that Dix's inquiries were marked by "the devotedness of her sex, and with the firmness of purpose characteristic of the sternest of our own." What does he mean? What does this suggest about gender norms in antebellum America? Does femininity seem to give Dix a special sort of authority? How would you describe it? In paragraph 67, Dix describes what she saw. Does this add to the weight of her authority? After reading this petition, who do you think would be allied with Dix? Who would be opposed? Why? Are Dix's arguments convincing? Should the federal government assume the responsibilities she advocates? What makes her arguments convincing now? What would have made them convincing in 1854? Do you find any weakness in her arguments?
• 3. Independent Assignment: Women in the mid-1800s. Students are assigned to do independent research on women in public life in the mid-1800s (1840-1860). They are asked to address the following questions: What other women were prominent in public life in the mid-1800s? Why were they prominent? How could women participate in public life (e.g., examine voting rights, holding elected or appointed public positions)? Students report the results of their research in class.
• 4. Essay: Students are then asked to write an essay on the topic: Why is Dix's statement in the second paragraph of her memorial ("Surrendering to calm and deep convictions of duty my habitual views of what is womanly and becoming, I proceed briefly to explain what has conducted me before you unsolicited and unsustained, trusting, while I do so, that the memorialist will be speedily forgotten in the memorial.") historically significant?

Eras

• 1810-1865

Disability

• Developmental Disabilities
• Intellectual Disabilities
• Mental Illness
• Mental Retardation
• Psychiatric Disabilities

Topics

• Exposés
• Government
• Mental Hospital
• Poorhouse
• Religion

Copyright

• ©Syracuse University, 2003.  All rights reserved.

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