America during the 1800s, to put it simply, was a mess. Several reform movements took place in the 1800s and early 1900s. These reform movements sought to promote basic changes in American society, including the education reform, mentally ill reform, abolition of slavery, women's rights, and temperance. Throughout the 1800s, a woman named Dorothea Dix toured prisons throughout America and observed the conditions in which mentally handicapped were kept. She found that the then-prisoners were often living in inhumane conditions, having been extremely malnourished and chained to the walls in dank cells. Dix was quick to learn that the inmates were guilty of no crimes, but they were considered mentally ill. The general consensus for the mentally
