dudethatrads-19th-Century-American-Hero--dorothea-dix

=Dorothea Dix--My 19th Century American Hero=
 * Someone who does something to improve the life of someone else, without worrying about the consequences.

=Questions= -([|April 4], [|1802] – [|July 17], [|1887]) -Born in Hampden, Maine, but grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts -and then in her wealthy grandmother's home in [|Boston-] -she started helping people at the young age of 12 -she couldn't find a career that she really liked -she tried out lots of typical female careers; schoolteacher, governess, writer. -by the time she turned 14, she had already started a school for young children. -started caring for sick family members at a very young age. -Dorothea mainly lived in the state of Massachusetts, and that is also where she committed most of her heroic acts. -when she was about 40 years old, she started teaching at a sunday school class for mentally ill women in a prison. -what she saw there was what she is most known for stopping. -there were terrible conditions for the women who lived there, including no heat. -when dorothea asked why the rooms were not heated, she was told that the jail's management thought the "insane" could not feel heat or cold. -she had no medical training, but she knew that no human should have to deal with those conditions, and she didn't agree with the mentality of the prison who thought that the mentally ill could not be cured and should be locked away in prisons. -she then devoted her life to helping the mentally ill, she went around the state inspecting the conditions o prisons and asylums for the mentally ill, and if she didn't like what she saw, she would go out of her way to stop it and improve the conditions there
 * **Intro to my 19th Century hero**
 * **Put hero’s life into perspective–when did they live, where, who were they trying to help, why, how,why was this important?**

-she devoted her whole life to helping others, and even when she got sick, which was frequently, she still would do everything she could from her bed. -"I think even lying on my bed I can still do something."  —Dorothea Dix -the moment that she decided to campaign for the rights of the mentally ill is the day that she became a hero. -that day was in March of 1841. http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/biographies/dix/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothea_Dix
 * **What makes your person a hero–you must prove that your person meets the criteria of your own personal definition(this is the meat of your wiki page and your submission to the My Hero website-your looking at a good four paragraphs here–focus on that spark, that moment the person decided to be heroic or do heroic acts.**
 * **What is the person’s legacy?**
 * **What advice would they have for today’s youth?**
 * Source(s)**