Hero+Essay+AshleyC10

A hero is someone who is kind and does good things. A hero is someone who is mean and cold-hearted. I think a hero is someone you look up to and hope to be like one day, the type of hero you have depends on you and your peronalities.Dorothea Dix dedicated her life to helping people and the mentally ill. She is definitley someone who I hope to be like one day, so she is a hero. Don't believe me? I'll prove it! Dorothea was born on April 4th, 1802 in Hampden, Maine. Dorothea did not have the best childhood. Her mother was mentally ill and her father was an alcoholic. Her family constantly moved from place to place, and they were poor. She had two younger brothers that she was left to care for. When her parents got into to fights, Dorothea would go to her grandmother's home with her brothers and stay there for a while. When she did that however, she was left with caring for her brothers and her grandmother. She decided that she did not mind working and wanted to become someone that would help the mentally ill. She spent most of her life working, and when she was only 14 year old, she started a school for kids. She did not start working with the mentally ill until she was in her early 40's. It's very important that she started working for the mentally ill, because the mentally ill were abused. Dorothea changed the way that the mentally ill were treated. Sources: [|http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/biographies/dix/][|http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/dorotheadix.html#second] Her first greatest act happened when she was only 14 years old. Girls were not allowed to go to school, and she hoped to one day become a school teacher. She found a store that she could teach in, and in 1816, she taught her first of group of young kids. She taught until she was 17. She gave many young girls an eduacation that they may never have gotten. "In a world where there is so much to be done. I felt strongly immpressed that there must be something for me to do."Dorothea Dix said.Who doesn't one day hope to do something as kind and great as that? Sources: [|http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/biographies/dix/][|http://www.famousquotessite.com/famous-quotes-3544-dorothea-dix.html] In 1841, Dorothea taught Sunday school for women prisoners in Eastern Cambridge, Massuchusetts. She saw naked, shivering, mentally ill men and women chained to the wall of a dirty, empty cell. The people who ran the jail did not feel the need to heat the cells, because they thought that the insane could not feel warmth or cold tempuratures. She new that it was not right to keep the mentally ill locked up in such terrible conditions just because they thought that there was no cure. She continued to travel around Boston and visited jails and houses where the mentally ill were kept. She took notes on all of them and continued to investigate all of Massuchusetts. She put all of her notes together and gave them to the Massachusetts legislative. The legislative agreed, and put some money aside to help improve the conditions that the mentally ill were kept in. When the conditions for the mentally ill were improved, many people started to see that mental illness was curable. "Some may say these things cannot be remedied, these furious maniacs are not to be raised from these base conditions. I know they are... I could give many examples. One such is a young woman who was for years, a "raging maniac" chained in a cage that was whipped to control her acts and words. She was helped by a husband and wife who agreed to take care of her in their home and slowly she recovered to her senses." Dorothea said. She continued to cover all of the states on the east side of the Mississippi River. She was able to get all of those states to build mental hospitals, schools for the mentally ill, a school for the blind, and libraries in prisons. She did all of this in just a few years! She wanted to rest for a while in Europe, but instead continued to inspect jails and mentally ill homes. She traveled all through England, Scotland, France, Austria, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and Germany. She did not rest much in between. Soon the people of Europe started to treat the mentally ill differently. This was an amazing amount of land to cover in such a short amount of time. Sources: [|http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/dorotheadix.html] [|http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/dorotheadix.html] Dorothea left behind the knowledge that there was hope for the mentally ill, and that they deserved better than what little they were recieving. She left behind improved jails and homes for the mentally ill. She left behind schools and hospitals for the mentally ill. She improved life for many people, including people in jail, and the blind! She worked very hard to improve everyone's outlook on the mentally ill, and now public schools admit mentally ill children. Scientists are working on finding a cure for some mental illnesses, and all because Dorothea convinced many that some illnesses are curable. She definitley improved over hundreds of mentally ill peoples lives. A current problem today with the mentally ill, is that most are bullied and stared and glared at. Dorothea would probably observe people around different parts of the world. She may go up to them and calmly ask why they were staring and try to talk to them about it. If she were to observe how the mentally ill are treated in public schools, she could observe and then bring it to the principles attention. A may not know what she would have done for sure, but I do know that she would have done her best to try and help improve the mentally ill's lives. [|?/a>] []