On March 28, 1841, Dix went to the jail to teach the class and was shocked by what she found. A number of the inmates had committed only one "crime": they were mentally ill.

Dec 8, 2025 · Dix reported visiting the basement of the jail, where she found four women whose cells were “dark and bare and the air was stagnant and foul.” These women had not committed any crime, …

Nov 9, 2009 · She took a job teaching inmates in an East Cambridge prison, where conditions were so abysmal and the treatment of prisoners so inhumane that she began agitating at once for their...

In 1841, Dorothea volunteered to teach religious education to female convicts in East Cambridge Jail. During her visits, she learned that poor women with mental illness were sent to East Cambridge Jail …

Aug 10, 2024 · Returning to America in 1841, she volunteered at East Cambridge Jail, where she encountered mentally ill women in poor conditions. This experience spurred her to investigate mental …

Here, she encountered inhumane conditions of inmates. After this discovery, Dix visited jails and hospitals all over Massachusetts and neighboring states to document and publicize the terrible …

Dorothea Dix discovered this dark se-cret because of her interest in improving the lives of people living on the margins of society. As a nurse and teacher to pris-oners, she encountered people with se …

She volunteered to hold a devotional hour for women in the East Cambridge jail and discovered that some of the tattered inmates were chained in a filthy, cold cell simply because they were mentally ill.

Feb 19, 2025 · She launched a statewide investigation on the treatment of mental illness, traveling to prisons and poorhouses to document her findings. She published a scathing report and testified …

It was during her time at the East Cambridge prison, that she visited the basement where she encountered four mentally ill individuals, whose cells were "dark and bare and the air was stagnant …