Dorothea Lynde Dix, born April 4th 1802 was an extremely devoted and persistent activist in the mid 1800’s. Dix was born in Maine but grew up in Worcester, Mass. At the age of 12, she ran away to get away from her abusive father, Joseph Dix and her mentally ill mother. She then went to live and study with her very wealthy grandmother in Boston. She was a “soft spoken, yet autocratic” and had a very difficult home life from a very early age. By the time she was 14, she was teaching at a school for young girls in Worcester, Mass. The curriculum she taught, emphasized the importance of treating others kindly and being a good person who lived by good morals. The ideas she taught the girls reflected her own.In 1821, she opened a school of her own, also for girls. After 24, years of teaching she began her “second career” at the age of 39. As an activist, she focused on how her home state of Massachusetts treated the mentally ill and prisoners. Dix spent years traveling Massachusetts and saw the terrible and inhumane conditions in which prisoners were forced to live in. Many were “chained, naked, beaten with rods and lashed into obedience.”
In March of 1841, when she was 39, Dix volunteered to teach a Sunday Class for women prisoners at the East Camdridge Jail. After many years of traveling and constructing a carefully worded argument, Dix sent the document she had written to the Massachusetts legislature. After much arguing, funds were given to expand the Worcester State Hospital. Many people disagreed with what she was doing because at the time, it was common belief that people who had mental disabilities were useless and would never be cured. Dix covered every single state on the east side of Mississippi and was able to have 32 mental institutions built. She was also able to have libraries and other forms of entertainment put into jails.
Because she was very sick, after 13 years Dix decided to move to England and take some time off. However, when she got there, she couldn’t help noticing the conditions of jails there too. She traveled to Scotland, France, Austria, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and Germany. She had the same impact in Europe as in the United States. After returning to the United States Dix tried to go to all the states she had not gone to before but because the Civil War had already broken out, she had a hard time and became Superintendent of Union Army Nurses.
In the final years of her life she focused on helping the mentally ill. During these final,crucial years, Dix gained the support of many wealthy families. By 1800, she had played a key role in founding 32 mental hospitals. There were now 123 in the entire country, compared to 13 in 1843, 2 years after she began her work. DIx retired at the age of 82 and went to live in a guest room in a mental hospital she had helped establish more than 30 years before in Trenton, NJ. After living there for 5 years, she passed away on July 17th 1887 in Trenton, NJ at the age of 85 after devoting her life to improving the life of others. Even without knowing her, it is easy to see that she was both a very kind, humane, intelligent, and persuasive human being. Bill Gates: A Modern Day Reformer To many of us, especially my generation, Internet seems like the most natural thing. It seems so natural, that we forget that only 20 years ago, it was not used by common people. The Internet was pretty much unheard of until one man changed everything. This man is Bill Gates.
William Henry Gates III was born on October 28th, 1955 in Seattle, Washington. His parents were English,German,Scottish and Irish. He had a very comfortable life, his family was pretty well off when it came to money. His parents had hoped he would follow in his dad’s footsteps and become a lawyer.
When he was 13, his private school bought a “Teletype Model 33 ASR terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric (GE) computer” for the school’s students to use. He became interested in computer programming and was allowed to miss math class to work with the computer. He wrote his first computer program on this machine and it allowed users to play a game of tic-tac-toe. Keep in mind, he was still 13.He graduated from Lakeside School in 1973. He scored 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT and began going to Harvard College in the 1973.
After creating Microsoft and using his partnership with IBM to make Windows available to the public in November of 1985, I feel like Bill Gates has reformed technology. He took something that had potential to improve the lives of people and made it so it could be of use to them. He improved technology and this has had a huge impact in our lives.
How the Modern Day Reform Improved Life
I believe that Bill Gates and the invention of Microsoft and Windows have changed the world. Before both were available to the public, computers and the Internet were something that must have seemed like aliens are to us now; possible but seemingly unattainable.
In my opinion, a reformer is someone who changes something for the better. And Bill Gates did. He used his intelligence to improve the live son everyone in the world. We see example of his revolution all the time today. We use the internet on a daily basis, we have smartphones, laptops, and systems such photoshop, indesign and even google docs that all make our lives easier. Let’s face it; the internet is extremely convenient. Anything we want to know, is right there. We don’t have to go digging through piles and piles of information from a book. Everything we could possibly want to know is just a few clicks away! And if we want to take a course online, we can. Because of the internet, everything is simple and more efficient. This is a reformation. An improve in the quality of life, which is what the internet has provided for us. Improvement Because of Prison Reform Dedicating her lfie to a cause, suddenly caused a change. Dorothea Dix’s life work was dedicated to improving prison life and creating mental hospitals. After about 40 years of work, it finally all paid off. By the time, Dix died, there were 110 more mental hospitals than 2 years after she began her work. Also, several new prisons has been constructed in order to decrease the amount of prisoners that had to share a cell. By 1835, because of Dix America was considered to have some of the bets prisons in the world.
She also focused on putting libraries and exercise areas for prisoners. She believed that they should not be treated cruelly even if they were criminals. Conditions improved not only in America but also in Europe. Because of her tour to Europe, many countries including France and Germany created better conditions, but the majority of the improvement occurred in America.Because a great improvement was shown, I believe that Dorothea Dix did make a difference. And now that our prison system is failing again, it would be nice if we had another “Dorothea Dix” to help us out!
The Life of Dorothea Dix
Dorothea Lynde Dix, born April 4th 1802 was an extremely devoted and persistent activist in the mid 1800’s. Dix was born in Maine but grew up in Worcester, Mass. At the age of 12, she ran away to get away from her abusive father, Joseph Dix and her mentally ill mother. She then went to live and study with her very wealthy grandmother in Boston. She was a “soft spoken, yet autocratic” and had a very difficult home life from a very early age. By the time she was 14, she was teaching at a school for young girls in Worcester, Mass. The curriculum she taught, emphasized the importance of treating others kindly and being a good person who lived by good morals. The ideas she taught the girls reflected her own.In 1821, she opened a school of her own, also for girls. After 24, years of teaching she began her “second career” at the age of 39.
As an activist, she focused on how her home state of Massachusetts treated the mentally ill and prisoners. Dix spent years traveling Massachusetts and saw the terrible and inhumane conditions in which prisoners were forced to live in. Many were “chained, naked, beaten with rods and lashed into obedience.”
In March of 1841, when she was 39, Dix volunteered to teach a Sunday Class for women prisoners at the East Camdridge Jail. After many years of traveling and constructing a carefully worded argument, Dix sent the document she had written to the Massachusetts legislature. After much arguing, funds were given to expand the Worcester State Hospital. Many people disagreed with what she was doing because at the time, it was common belief that people who had mental disabilities were useless and would never be cured. Dix covered every single state on the east side of Mississippi and was able to have 32 mental institutions built. She was also able to have libraries and other forms of entertainment put into jails.
Because she was very sick, after 13 years Dix decided to move to England and take some time off. However, when she got there, she couldn’t help noticing the conditions of jails there too. She traveled to Scotland, France, Austria, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and Germany. She had the same impact in Europe as in the United States. After returning to the United States Dix tried to go to all the states she had not gone to before but because the Civil War had already broken out, she had a hard time and became Superintendent of Union Army Nurses.
In the final years of her life she focused on helping the mentally ill. During these final,crucial years, Dix gained the support of many wealthy families. By 1800, she had played a key role in founding 32 mental hospitals. There were now 123 in the entire country, compared to 13 in 1843, 2 years after she began her work. DIx retired at the age of 82 and went to live in a guest room in a mental hospital she had helped establish more than 30 years before in Trenton, NJ. After living there for 5 years, she passed away on July 17th 1887 in Trenton, NJ at the age of 85 after devoting her life to improving the life of others. Even without knowing her, it is easy to see that she was both a very kind, humane, intelligent, and persuasive human being.
Bill Gates: A Modern Day Reformer
To many of us, especially my generation, Internet seems like the most natural thing. It seems so natural, that we forget that only 20 years ago, it was not used by common people. The Internet was pretty much unheard of until one man changed everything. This man is Bill Gates.
William Henry Gates III was born on October 28th, 1955 in Seattle, Washington. His parents were English,German,Scottish and Irish. He had a very comfortable life, his family was pretty well off when it came to money. His parents had hoped he would follow in his dad’s footsteps and become a lawyer.
When he was 13, his private school bought a “Teletype Model 33 ASR terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric (GE) computer” for the school’s students to use. He became interested in computer programming and was allowed to miss math class to work with the computer. He wrote his first computer program on this machine and it allowed users to play a game of tic-tac-toe. Keep in mind, he was still 13.He graduated from Lakeside School in 1973. He scored 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT and began going to Harvard College in the 1973.
After creating Microsoft and using his partnership with IBM to make Windows available to the public in November of 1985, I feel like Bill Gates has reformed technology. He took something that had potential to improve the lives of people and made it so it could be of use to them. He improved technology and this has had a huge impact in our lives.
How the Modern Day Reform Improved Life
I believe that Bill Gates and the invention of Microsoft and Windows have changed the world. Before both were available to the public, computers and the Internet were something that must have seemed like aliens are to us now; possible but seemingly unattainable.
In my opinion, a reformer is someone who changes something for the better. And Bill Gates did. He used his intelligence to improve the live son everyone in the world. We see example of his revolution all the time today. We use the internet on a daily basis, we have smartphones, laptops, and systems such photoshop, indesign and even google docs that all make our lives easier. Let’s face it; the internet is extremely convenient. Anything we want to know, is right there. We don’t have to go digging through piles and piles of information from a book. Everything we could possibly want to know is just a few clicks away! And if we want to take a course online, we can. Because of the internet, everything is simple and more efficient. This is a reformation. An improve in the quality of life, which is what the internet has provided for us.
Improvement Because of Prison Reform
Dedicating her lfie to a cause, suddenly caused a change. Dorothea Dix’s life work was dedicated to improving prison life and creating mental hospitals. After about 40 years of work, it finally all paid off. By the time, Dix died, there were 110 more mental hospitals than 2 years after she began her work. Also, several new prisons has been constructed in order to decrease the amount of prisoners that had to share a cell. By 1835, because of Dix America was considered to have some of the bets prisons in the world.
She also focused on putting libraries and exercise areas for prisoners. She believed that they should not be treated cruelly even if they were criminals. Conditions improved not only in America but also in Europe. Because of her tour to Europe, many countries including France and Germany created better conditions, but the majority of the improvement occurred in America.Because a great improvement was shown, I believe that Dorothea Dix did make a difference. And now that our prison system is failing again, it would be nice if we had another “Dorothea Dix” to help us out!
__http://www.biography.com/people/dorothea-dix-9275710__
__http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/dorotheadix.html__
__http://www.truthaboutnursing.org/press/pioneers/dix.html#axzz1owl5XnEy__
__http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1092.html__
__http://www.biography.com/people/bill-gates-9307520__
__http://www.ushistory.org/us/26d.asp__