Difference between revisions of "Portal:Featured Article Of The Week"

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|Title= Lincoln State Hospital
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|Title= Dorothea Lynde Dix
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|Body= This institution is located at Lincoln. As early as 1865, it was found necessary to make provision for the insane in the Territory of Nebraska. Four cases were already being cared for in an Iowa hospital. The legislature authorized the governor to make some arrangement with the State of Iowa, by which they received and cared for the insane at the expense of Nebraska. Under this arrangement fifty patients were sent at various times to the hospital at Mount Pleasant. Soon after Nebraska became a State the governor, secretary of State and auditor of public accounts were appointed a board of commissioners to locate a site for a State lunatic asylum near the city of Lincoln. The first building was completed at a cost of $137,000 in the fall of 1870, and the first patient was admitted November 26th of that year. Early in the following December, seventeen patients were brought over from Mount Pleasant to the new institution, and four were admitted who had been confined in the Pawnee county jail. Dr. N. B. Larsh was the first superintendent.
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|Body= All important crises in historical movements are associated with the lives and conduct of marked individuals; persons who have advanced some original or discriminating conception as to duty or public policy, and who, through enthusiasm, strength of purpose and the force of personality, have initiated and conducted to a successful issue a notable departure in government, moral and religious convictions, social habits, or institutional methods.
  
In April, 1871, the institution was destroyed by fire. Five patients were reported missing and were never afterwards accounted for. The remaining patients were taken to Lincoln and cared for in rented houses until a temporary building was erected on the asylum grounds. As there was no appropriation available, and the citizens of Lincoln were fearful lest the institution should be removed to some rival city, they advanced the funds necessary to build a temporary frame structure, which did service as a hospital until a new stone building was erected the following year.  [[Lincoln State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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The history of insanity, in conformity with this universal law, has its conspicuous pioneers, its epoch-making masters, its heros and heroines. In this connection many American specialists are entitled to more or less prominence. But from the standpoint of personal labors to promote practical reforms in public provision for the insane, the work of Dorothea L. Dix stands pre-eminent.
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Her surroundings in childhood were humble and she had a hard struggle to obtain an education, followed by a toilsome period spent in school-teaching. But in spite of these difficulties in her early life and of the semi-invalidism which, later on, hampered her physical activity, she achieved a national and even international reputation as a practical philanthropist, her remarkable personal influence over public officials and governmental policies contributing greatly to her success. In the 40 years of her public work she was instrumental in founding or enlarging more than 30 state institutions for the proper custody and right treatment of the insane, becoming an acknowledged power in this respect not only throughout the United States, but in European countries as well. It is impossible to estimate how many men and women, suffering from mental disease, she extricated or preserved for public jails and private pens, or how many others enjoyed release or exemption from galling chains and other cruel devices for restraint as a result of her humanitarian efforts.  [[Dorothea Lynde Dix|Click here for more...]]
 
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Revision as of 04:25, 25 March 2013

Featured Article Of The Week

Dorothea Lynde Dix


dorotheadix.jpg

All important crises in historical movements are associated with the lives and conduct of marked individuals; persons who have advanced some original or discriminating conception as to duty or public policy, and who, through enthusiasm, strength of purpose and the force of personality, have initiated and conducted to a successful issue a notable departure in government, moral and religious convictions, social habits, or institutional methods.

The history of insanity, in conformity with this universal law, has its conspicuous pioneers, its epoch-making masters, its heros and heroines. In this connection many American specialists are entitled to more or less prominence. But from the standpoint of personal labors to promote practical reforms in public provision for the insane, the work of Dorothea L. Dix stands pre-eminent.

Her surroundings in childhood were humble and she had a hard struggle to obtain an education, followed by a toilsome period spent in school-teaching. But in spite of these difficulties in her early life and of the semi-invalidism which, later on, hampered her physical activity, she achieved a national and even international reputation as a practical philanthropist, her remarkable personal influence over public officials and governmental policies contributing greatly to her success. In the 40 years of her public work she was instrumental in founding or enlarging more than 30 state institutions for the proper custody and right treatment of the insane, becoming an acknowledged power in this respect not only throughout the United States, but in European countries as well. It is impossible to estimate how many men and women, suffering from mental disease, she extricated or preserved for public jails and private pens, or how many others enjoyed release or exemption from galling chains and other cruel devices for restraint as a result of her humanitarian efforts. Click here for more...