Annotated and Abridged Artifact


Memorial To The Legislature of Massachusetts

From: The History of Mental Retardation, Collected Papers
Creator: Dorothea L. Dix (author)
Date: 1843
Publisher: University Park Press
Source: Available at selected libraries

Abridged Text

1  

Gentlemen --

2  

I respectfully ask to present this Memorial, [1 »] believing that the cause, which actuates to and sanctions so unusual a movement, presents no equivocal claim to public consideration and sympathy. Surrendering to calm and deep convictions of duty [2 »] my habitual views of what is womanly and becoming, [3 »] I proceed briefly to explain what has conducted me before you unsolicited and unsustained, [4 »] trusting, while I do so, that the memorialist will be speedily forgotten in the memorial.

3  

About two years since leisure afforded opportunity and duty prompted me to visit several prisons and almshouses [5 »] in the vicinity of this metropolis. I found, near Boston, in the jails and asylums for the poor, a numerous class brought into unsuitable connection with criminals and the general mass of paupers. [6 »] I refer to idiots and insane persons, [7 »] dwelling in circumstances not only adverse to their own physical and moral improvement, but productive of extreme disadvantages to all other persons brought into association with them. I applied myself diligently to trace the causes of these evils, and sought to supply remedies. As one obstacle was surmounted, fresh difficulties appeared. Every new investigation has given depth to the conviction that it is only by decided, prompt, and vigorous legislation the evils to which I refer, and which I shall proceed more fully to illustrate, can be remedied. I shall be obliged to speak with great plainness, and to reveal many things revolting to the taste, and from which my woman's nature shrinks with peculiar sensitiveness. But truth is the highest consideration. I tell what I have seen -- painful and shocking as the details often are -- that from them you may feel more deeply the imperative obligation which lies upon you to prevent the possibility of a repetition or continuance of such outrages upon humanity. [8 »] If I inflict pain upon you, and move you to horror, it is to acquaint you with sufferings which you have the power to alleviate, and make you hasten to the relief of the victims of legalized barbarity.

4  

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. And I cannot suppose it needful to employ earnest persuasion, or stubborn argument, in order to arrest and fix attention upon a subject only the more strongly pressing in its claims because it is revolting and disgusting in its details.

5  

I must confine myself to few examples, but am ready to furnish other and more complete details, if required. If my pictures are displeasing, coarse, and severe, my subjects, it must be recollected, offer no tranquil, refined, or composing features. The condition of human beings, reduced to the extremest states of degradation and misery, cannot be exhibited in softened language, or adorn a polished page.

6  

I proceed, gentlemen, briefly to call your attention to the present state of insane persons confined within this Commonwealth, in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience. [9 »]

7  

As I state cold, severe facts [10 »], I feel obliged to refer to persons, and definitely to indicate localities. But it is upon my subject, not upon localities or individuals, I desire to fix attention; and I would speak as kindly as possible of all wardens, keepers, and other responsible officers, believing that most of these have erred not through hardness of heart and wilful cruelty so much as want of skill and knowledge, and want of consideration. [11 »] Familiarity with suffering, it is said, blunts the sensibilities, and where neglect once finds a footing other injuries are multiplied. This is not all, for it may justly and strongly be added that, from the deficiency of adequate means to meet the wants of these cases, it has been an absolute impossibility to do justice in this matter. Prisons are not constructed in view of being converted into county hospitals, and almshouses are not founded as receptacles for the insane. And yet, in the face of justice and common sense, wardens are by law compelled to receive, [12 »] and the masters of almshouses not to refuse, insane and idiotic subjects in all stages of mental disease and privation.

8  

It is the Commonwealth, not its integral parts, [13 »] that is accountable for most of the abuses which have lately and do still exist. I repeat it, it is defective legislation which perpetuates and multiplies these abuses. In illustration of my subject, I offer the following extracts from my Note-book and Journal: [14 »]


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Some may say these things cannot be remedied, these furious maniacs [15 »] are not to be raised from these base conditions. I know they are. Could give many examples. Let one suffice. A young woman, a pauper, in a distant town, Sandisfield, was for years a raging maniac. A cage, chains, and the whip were the agents for controlling her, united with harsh tones and profane language. Annually, with others (the town's poor), she was put up at auction, and bid off at the lowest price which was declared for her. [16 »] One year, not long past, an old man came forward in the number of applicants for the poor wretch. He was taunted and ridiculed. "What would he and his old wife do with such a mere beast?" "My wife says yes," replied he, "and I shall take her." She was given to his charge. He conveyed her home. She was washed, neatly dressed, and placed in a decent bedroom, furnished for comfort and opening into the kitchen. How altered her condition! As yet the chains were not off. The first week she was somewhat restless, at times violent, but the quiet, kind ways of the old people wrought a change. She received her food decently, forsook acts of violence, and no longer uttered blasphemies or indecent language. After a week the chain was lengthened, and she was received as a companion into the kitchen. Soon she engaged in trivial employments. "After a fortnight," said the old man, "I knocked off the chains and made her a free woman." She is at times excited, but not violently. They are careful of her diet. They keep her very clean. She calls them "father" and "mother." Go there now, and you will find her "clothed," and, though not perfectly in her "right mind," so far restored as to be a safe and comfortable inmate. [17 »]

24  

Newburyport [18 »]. Visited the almshouse in June last. Eighty inmates. Seven insane, one idiotic. Commodious and neat house. Several of the partially insane apparently very comfortable. Two very improperly situated, namely, an insane man, not considered incurable, [19 »] in an out-building, whose room opened upon what was called "the dead room," [20 »] affording, in lieu of companionship with the living, a contemplation of corpses. The other subject was a woman in a cellar. I desired to see her. Much reluctance was shown. I pressed the request. The master of the house stated that she was in the cellar; that she was dangerous to be approached; that she had lately attacked his wife, and was often naked. I persisted, "if you will not go with me, give me the keys and I will go alone." Thus importuned, the outer doors were opened. I descended the stairs from within. [21 »] A strange, unnatural noise seemed to proceed from beneath our feet. At the moment I did not much regard it. My conductor proceeded to remove a padlock, while my eye explored the wide space in quest of the poor woman. All for a moment was still. But judge my horror and amazement, when a door to a closet beneath the staircase was opened, revealing in the imperfect light a female apparently wasted to a skeleton, partially wrapped in blankets, furnished for the narrow bed on which she was sitting. Her countenance furrowed, not by age, but suffering, was the image of distress. In that contracted space, unlighted, unventilated, she poured forth the wailings of despair. Mournfully she extended her arms and appealed to me: "Why am I consigned to hell? dark -- dark -- I used to pray, I used to read the Bible -- I have done no crime in my heart. I had friends. Why have all forsaken me! [22 »] -- my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!" Those groans, those wailings, come up daily, mingling with how many others, a perpetual and sad memorial. When the good Lord shall require an account of our stewardship, what shall all and each answer? [23 »]


28  

The above case [24 »] recalls another of equal neglect or abuse. Asking my way to the almshouse in Berkeley, which had been repeatedly spoken of as greatly neglected, I was answered as to the direction, and informed that there were "plenty of insane people and idiots there." "Well taken care of" "Oh, well enough for such sort of creatures!" "Any violently insane?" "Yes, my sister's son is there, -- a real tiger. I kept him here at my house awhile, but it was too much trouble to go on: so I carried him there." "is he comfortably provided for?" "Well enough." "Has he decent clothes?" "Good enough; wouldn't wear them if he had more." "Food?" "Good enough; good enough for him." "One more question, has he the comfort of a fire?" "Fire! fire, indeed! what does a crazy man need of fire? Red-hot iron wants fire as much as he!" And such are sincerely the ideas of not a few persons in regard to the actual wants of the insane. Less regarded than the lowest brutes. No wonder they sink even lower. [25 »]


49  

Shelburne [26 »]. November last. I found no poorhouse, and but few paupers. These were distributed in private families. [27 »] I had heard, before visiting this place, of the bad condition of a lunatic pauper. The case seemed to be pretty well known throughout the county. Receiving a direction by which I might find him, I reached a house of most respectable appearance, everything without and within indicating abundance and prosperity. Concluding I must have mistaken my way, I prudently inquired where the insane person might be found. I was readily answered, "Here." I desired to see him; and, after some difficulties raised and set aside, I was conducted into the yard, where was a small building of rough boards imperfectly joined. Through these crevices was admitted what portion of heaven's light and air was allowed by man to his fellow-man. This shanty or shell enclosing a cage might have been eight or ten feet square. I think it did not exceed. A narrow passage within allowed to pass in front of the cage. It was very cold. The air within was burdened with the most noisome vapors, and desolation with misery seemed here to have settled their abode. All was still, save now and then a low groan. The person who conducted me tried, with a stick, to rouse the inmate. I entreated her to desist, the twilight of the place making it difficult to discern anything within the cage. There at last I saw a human being, partially extended, cast upon his back, amidst a mass of filth, the sole furnishing, whether for comfort or necessity, which the place afforded. There he lay, ghastly, with upturned, glazed eyes and fixed gaze, heavy breathings, interrupted only by faint groans, which seemed symptomatic of an approaching termination of his sufferings. Not so thought the mistress. "He has all sorts of ways. He'll soon rouse up and be noisy enough. He'll scream and beat about the place like any wild beast half the time," "And cannot you make him more comfortable? Can he not have some clean, dry place and a fire?" "As for clean, it will do no good. He's cleaned out now and then; but what's the use for such a creature? His own brother tried him once, but got sick enough of the bargain." "But a fire: there is space even here for a small box stove." "If he had a fire, he'd only pull off his clothes, so it's no use." "But you say your husband takes care of him, and he is shut in here in almost total darkness, so that seems a less evil than that he should lie there to perish in that horrible condition." I made no impression. It was plain that to keep him securely confined from escape was the chief object. "How do you give him his food? I see no means for introducing anything here." "Oh," pointing to the floor, "one of the bars is cut shorter there: we push it through there." "There? Impossible! You cannot do that. You would not treat your lowest dumb animals with that disregard to decency!" "As for what he eats or where he eats, it makes no difference to him. He'd as soon swallow one thing as another."


55  

Of the dangers and mischiefs sometimes following the location of insane persons in our almshouses, I will record but one more example. In Worcester has for several years resided a young woman, a lunatic pauper of decent life and respectable family. I have seen her as she usually appeared, listless and silent, almost or quite sunk into a state of dementia, sitting one amidst the family, "but not of them." A few weeks since, revisiting that almshouse, judge my horror and amazement to see her negligently bearing in her arms a young infant, of which I was told she was the unconscious parent. Who was the father, none could or would declare. Disqualified for the performance of maternal cares and duties, regarding the helpless little creature with a perplexed or indifferent gaze, she sat a silent, but, oh, how eloquent, a pleader for the protection of others of her neglected and outraged sex! Details of that black story would not strengthen the cause. [28 »] Needs it a mightier plea than the sight of that forlorn creature and her wailing infant? Poor little child, more than orphan from birth, in this unfriendly world! A demented mother, a father on whom the sun might blush or refuse to shine!

56  

Men of Massachusetts, I beg, I implore, I demand pity and protection for these of my suffering, outraged sex. [29 »] Fathers, husbands, brothers, I would supplicate you for this boon; [30 »] but what do I say? I dishonor you, divest you at once of Christianity and humanity, does this appeal imply distrust. If it comes burdened with a doubt of your righteousness in this legislation, then blot it out; while I declare confidence in your honor, not less than your humanity. Here you will put away the cold, calculating spirit of selfishness and self-seeking; lay off the armor of local strife and political opposition; here and now, for once, forgetful of the earthly and perishable, come up to these halls and consecrate them with one heart and one mind to works of righteousness and just judgment. [31 »] Become the benefactors of your race, the just guardians of the solemn rights you hold in trust. [32 »] 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!"


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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.

77  

In this legislation, as in all things, may you exercise that "wisdom which is the breath of the power of God."

Page 14:

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Respectfully submitted,

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D. L. DIX.

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85 Mt. Vernon Street, Boston.

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January, 1843.

Annotations

1.     A memorial is a petition to a government in the form of a statement of facts.

2.     By “convictions of duty,” Dix means her belief that she felt impelled by both a sense of elite obligation and a sense of religious optimism to change the conditions of people with mental disabilities in Massachusetts.

3.     Like the vast majority of middle-class and elite Americans, Dix subscribed to the notion of separate spheres, sometimes called domesticity or the cult of true womanhood. According to this ideology, women were “naturally” meek, nurturing, moral, and religious compared with men. All life was gendered -- with the private sphere defined as female and the public sphere defined as male. Dix is trying to justify her increasingly public role as an advocate and political activist.

4.     By “unsolicited and unsustained,” Dix means that her memorial is unasked for and that she has not been financially compensated for its production.

5.     An almshouse was an institution in which towns provided for destitute poor people. Dix visited both prisons and almshouses because localities used them to confined people with psychiatric and cognitive disabilities in the early nineteenth century.

6.     Dix defines the indigent insane as a “class,” a category, separate and distinct from the criminals and other paupers with whom they are housed.

7.     Idiots was the nineteenth-century term for people with cognitive disabilities. Insane persons was the term for people with psychiatric disabilities. Note that Dix and others considered the two groups to be similar and should be treated in a similar manner.

8.     This is an important passage. Dix places “truth” higher than the “sensitiveness” of her gender. It is a truth that combines feelings and objective evidence, both heart and head. She has become a sort of reporter, an eyewitness to the abuse and neglect of people with mental disabilities. Her use of italics is a crucial part of her rhetorical strategy; by “I tell what I have seen,” Dix is highlighting her own authority as an observer. Dix is front and center; it is through her eyes that the reader sees. She then transfers her personal sense of duty to the legislators and, by extension, to any reader. Because the reader see what she has seen, they must act.

9.     This is probably the most frequently quoted passage from the memorial. Her emphasis on “present” is an indictment of the Legislature. These powerful men of Massachusetts may think the world has improved, but these horrors remain. It is rhetorically powerful.

10.     Dix is taking a stance of disinterested objectivity.

11.     Dix is accusing caretakers in prisons and almshouses of lacking both the proper training and the sense of responsibility needed to properly improve the lives of people with mental disabilities.

12.     Prisons and almshouses were legally required to accept people with mental disabilities. This issue of legally requirements and responsibilities would become an unending controversy. Even today, many people with psychiatric and cognitive disabilities are housed in the nation's prison system.

13.     The Commonwealth is the state of Massachusetts. Dix is placing responsibility for the conditions she reveals on the state rather than on the towns and cities.

14.     Not included here are a number of examples described by Dix of localities mistreating people under their care.

15.     A “furious maniac” was a classification for people who were defined as delusional, violent, and uncontrollable. During this period, they would have been forcibly confined.

16.     Before the asylum movement was accelerated by Dix’s activism, towns would often farm out people with mental disabilities to individuals who would then be paid by the local government, often to the person who would do this task most inexpensively. That this is called an “auction” ties Dix to the rhetoric of the antislavery movement. In fact, all coercive institutions were under some form of attack during this period.

17.     The second-hand account backs up the efficacy of moral treatment as a “cure.” The setting in which this woman improves is homelike and nurturing, not unlike the idealization of the middle-class home under the ideology of separate spheres. Note that Dix does not examine the causes of insanity, only its cure.

18.     The Newburyport Herald attempts to refute these allegations in Response to Dix Memorial.

19.     A mark of her optimism, Dix considered very few cases to be incurable.

20.     A “dead room” is a room where the corpses of people who had died were kept prior to burial. Death was an all too frequent occurrence for the elderly and often diseased inmates of antebellum almshouses.

21.     In powerful literary imagery, Dix, alone and unprotected, is descending into hell for a look.

22.     That this is a verbatim transcript of what the confined women actually said is doubtful. Dix may have been guilty of literary license.

23.     In other words, if the readers of her memorial -– including the Massachusetts legislators -– fail to act to end these abuses, they too may be sent to hell.

24.     The preceding example was a woman, visited by Dix on Christmas Eve, confined in particularly appalling conditions in Saugus.

25.     A brute is an animal. This example illustrates the public attitude toward the insane. The assumption here is that an insane man cannot feel pain, that he has no human needs, that in fact he is less than human.

26.     Local authorities in Shelburne attempt to refute this description in Dix Accused of Slander.

27.     Shelburne was a small town, and the indigent people were sent to live with families.

28.     Without being too explicit, Dix wants the reader to know that the “black story” was a rape.

29.     Dix makes a gendered appeal. Her moral authority comes from her identity as a woman, and she personalizes the appeal by making the relationship with men a familial one.

30.     A boon is a timely benefit or blessing.

31.     Dix is asking men to temporarily give up the role assigned to them by the ideology of separate spheres -– the selfishness of the marketplace and the petty squabbles of the political world.

32.     Dix wants the legislators to give the gift of moral uplift and social betterment as a humanitarian and ultimately religious gesture.

[END]