In 1841 Dorthea Dix started the prison and asylum reform movement. Her goal was to change the horrible way people were treated in prisons in the mid 1900s. During her time trying to reform these places she was met with many obstacles. After two years of investigating every prison in Massachusetts she wrote how badly the imprisoned and mentally ill were treated in these places. For example one way the mentally ill were treated poorley was that they were not given heated rooms because people believed they could not distinguish between hot and cold, an example on how prisoners were treated horribly is that they were beaten into submission. The people who ran these institutions denied her charges and accused her of writing lies. Soon after writing
