The Mental Health Revolution is a progression of laws going into effect that are slowly changing the way that mental health patients are seen and treated. Nellie Bly, an early muckraker in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was an incredibly important influence on the beginning of that revolution. She did this by spotlighting Blackwell’s Island, an asylum for the poor in New York, for its awful conditions and abuse towards the patients living there. In addition, Nellie was one of the first influential women journalists, from which she exposed many other horrors and gave substance to the early feminist movement. By exposing the mistreatment of mental health patients at Blackwell’s Island, Nellie Bly began the mental health reform …show more content…
revolution, in which the scarcity of regulations in regards to the incredibly limited institutions available became known to the public. Their outrage resulted in a change of policy to include regards for basic human rights and efforts to increase accessibility of care for all patients, regardless of socioeconomic status or level of disability. In addition, Bly also began to show the world that women were just as able to change the world as men were. As one of the first female muckrakers, Nellie Bly showed the world that women were just as powerful in print as men were.
Additionally, she exposed many of the covered-up scandals in New York and North America as a whole. Nellie was one of the first women to report on many important issues of her time. One of the most powerful milestones she passed was being the first woman to report on the Eastern front in World War One. By doing so, she shattered the restraint on women reporters and paved the way for many others to come. World War One was not Nellie’s only significant reporting endeavor, however. She also exposed a health clinic where unqualified doctors experimented on innocent patients, found immigrants that had been robbed by a crooked business claiming to be an employment agency, and wrote about the inconsistencies between classes in Mexican society. In addition, Bly went to the slums to show her readers that children starting from seven years old had to work all day just to put food on their families tables and disguised herself as a worker to show the awful working conditions and safety hazards that women had to endure. Her diligence as a muckraker also influenced others of her profession in the future, including Upton Sinclair, who wrote The Jungle. Sinclair’s book started a monumental change in the meatpacking industry to America. One of the biggest impacts of his book was the signing of the Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906. (O’Shea, 11-13) Bly’s writings were …show more content…
far-reaching not only because of the range of issues she covered, but also because of the defense for women and the kick start to early American feminism that she provided. In 1885, a not yet famous Bly wrote to the Pittsburgh Dispatch in response to their article about women having no place in the work world outside of taking care of the household and children. Her letter, which was published, defended women by saying that they were just as able to lead successful careers as men. Since women were still incredibly unequal to men in this time period, her piece back (and the fact that it was actually published) was incredibly revolutionary. (Seaman, 1) The early feminist movement, while not sparked by this piece alone, wouldn’t have been the same with this piece of Bly’s commentary. Bly also contributed to the early feminist movement several years paper when she correctly accused the male workers of her company of stealing money from her. Not only was the fact she Bly owned a company incredibly inspiring to women everywhere, the fact that she had to authority to publicly punish the men stealing from her showed a power rarely granted women at this time. (Bly, 1) One of the largest impacts of the mental health revolution sparked by Bly has been an increase of regulations regarding the quality of care that patients must receive.
First of all, the functionality of the hospitals improved dramatically. This is most largely impacted by the Kansas Mental Health Reform Act of 1991, the goal of which was to better health care services for the mentally ill in the state. This act imposed many regulations on facilities, now called Community Mental Health Centers, to 90% its historical level. Mental asylums were infamous for being incredibly overcrowded in the past, and by enacting this part of the law, the government of the state made sure that this kind of “people packing” would never happen again. In addition, this law made sure that the 27 CMHC’s were the only public place for psychiatric hospitals and community services. In addition, one of the largest factors of mental health law reform in Scotland is the requirement of all certified doctors to have working knowledge of many different mental disorders and to be able to successfully diagnose and treat patients with these sorts of diseases. Another crucial part of the increase of care for mental health patients has been the insertion of external examination of work done by doctors, nurses, and other medical administration at mental health facilities. One of the most disturbing discovery of Bly at Blackwell’s Island was that the physicians were able to abuse and taunt the patients with no
consequence whatsoever for their actions. This portion of the law intends to eliminate the possibility of that happening again. Along with mandating outside input on the CMHC’s, the law also states that is “sought to make CMHC’s clearly accountable for delivering good health care”. (Lee, 239) The Kansas Mental Health Reform Act is not the sole regulation requiring external examination, however. In Scotland, the Secretary of State is responsible for taking control of the mental health facilities when necessary, supervising the administration, and making sure all doctors are educated on moral and treatment protocol for patients under their care. There are also many agencies like the Treatment Advocacy Center in Arlington, Virginia, that constantly lobby to inform legislators of new scientific advances in the mental health field in the hopes that they will update their current treatment laws. A third large component in the increase of quality of care received by the patients is the increase of money put into programming. The Kansas Mental Health Reform Act allocated funds for each CMHC, detailing their usage to be towards children and adults with severe mental illnesses. This increase of money allows the staff to make sure that the people being kept in CMHC’s are treated with the most up-to-date care and are given support services to help them lead a successful life outside of the facility. Many organizations, both on the national and international levels, also give grants to scientists. In 2007, the National Institute of Mental Health granted two million dollars to the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research to study changes of the brain in violent schizophrenics. By giving grants like these, research is furthered on little-understood mental diseases and the quality of care of those who suffer under them can continue to improve.
The novel follows a family of immigrants from Lithuania working in a meatpacking factory, and as the novel progresses, the reader learns of the revolting conditions within the factories. Sinclair’s The Jungle illustrates the concept of Bitzer’s “Rhetorical Situation” and Emerson’s quote quite effectively. For instance, the horrendous safety and health conditions of the packing factories were the exigencies that Upton Sinclair was making clear to the reader. The rhetorical audience that Sinclair aimed to influence with his novel was Congress and the president, as both had to agree in order to establish health and safety bills to better the conditions within factories. Sinclair’s efforts did not go unnoticed as in 1906 both the Meat Inspection Act, and the Pure Food and Drug act were approved by both Congress and President Theodore Roosevelt (Cherny,
However, that was not the case. When The Jungle was presented to the public, readers were astonished by the disgusting and unsanitary state in which the meat was being processed in. The community was more concerned with the meat conditions than they were with the horrific conditions the workers were faced with. So while the popularity of Sinclair’s work was not his original intentions, it still accomplished stages of reform. It can be assumed that Roosevelts initial reluctance to accept Sinclair’s novel was in part, directly connected to his disbelief that the Federal government had become so disconnected and oblivious to American industry and the complete lack of Federal oversight. This “disconnect” did not last long as The Pure Food and Drug Act, as well as, the Meat Inspection Act were both directly set in to place mere months after Upton Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle was published. This type of reform supported progressive philosophy by preventing corporate owners from remaining above government regulation and started a trend in the way government regulators began to deal with corporate monopolies and trusts. The Jungle, along with other “muckrakers” began a series of Federal oversight reforms and regulatory guidance that soon began to take hold in other industries. Big industry would soon realize that they were not above the
Upton Sinclair, the author of The Jungle, wrote this novel to unveil the atrocious working conditions and the contaminated meat in meat-packing workhouses. It was pathos that enabled his book to horrify hundreds of people and to encourage them to take a stand against these meat-packing companies. To obtain the awareness of people, he incorporated a descriptive style to his writing. Ample amounts of imagery, including active verbs, abstract and tangible nouns, and precise adjectives compelled readers to be appalled. Durham, the leading Chicago meat packer, was illustrated, “having piles of meat... handfuls of dried dung of rats...rivers of hot blood, and carloads of moist flesh, and soap caldrons, craters of hell.” ( Sinclair 139). His description
What impact did Nellie Bly have as a muckraker and feminist in the progressive era? In order to determine the impact Nellie Bly had as a muckraker, the publicity she received from the press is going to be examined. In addition, her accomplishments in reforming mental asylums as a journalist and her strides towards feminism are going to be examined. First hand accounts of the conditions in mental asylums at the time, from Nellie Bly and other reformers, are going to be examined. State laws and funding regarding mental asylums and the treatment of the mentally ill are going to be examined in order to assess the effectiveness of her muckraking. The breadth of her fame is going to be examined, through biographies and first hand accounts of her story, in order to assess her impact around the world and on the way the people of the time viewed women professionals.
In the book “The Mad Among Us-A History of the Care of American’s Mentally Ill,” the author Gerald Grob, tells a very detailed accounting of how our mental health system in the United States has struggled to understand and treat the mentally ill population. It covers the many different approaches that leaders in the field of mental health at the time used but reading it was like trying to read a food label. It is regurgitated in a manner that while all of the facts are there, it lacks any sense humanity. While this may be more of a comment on the author or the style of the author, it also is telling of the method in which much of the policy and practice has come to be. It is hard to put together without some sense of a story to support the action.
Modern psychiatric hospitals evolved from, and eventually replaced the older lunatic asylums. The treatment of inmates in early lunatic asylums was sometimes brutal and focused on containment and restraint with successive waves of reform, and the introduction of effective evidence-based treatments, modern psychiatric hospitals provide a primary emphasis on treatment, and attempt where possible to help patients control their own lives in the outside world, with the use of a combination of psychiatric drugs and
The 1930s was a tough time for all of the mentally ill people. They were not treated the way that they do now. The mentally ill were called names like satans child, or they were not expected or very frowned upon in many religions. So because of all of the people who were mentally ill they started to create asylums. With these asylums they could hold almost all of the mentally ill people during that time. All of the asylums were overcrowded and sometimes there would be around 1 million patients. WIth all of the people in these asylums the staff and doctors became very understaffed so the patients living within the asylums were not treated how they should have been. Then doctors had found ways that they thought could cure these mentally ill people, whether it would be cruel to them or not. The treatments ran from major brain surgery to taking baths for multiple days.
In 1906, socialist Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, a book he hoped would awaken the American people to the deplorable conditions of workers in the meat packing industry. Instead, the book sent the country reeling with its description of filthy, rat infested plants, suspect meats processed and sold to consumers, and corrupt government inspectors. President Roosevelt became seriously concerned by the charges brought forth by Mr. Sinclair and determined the only way to protect consumers from unscrupulous business and unsafe food was to enforce regulation.
As medical advances are being made, it makes the treating of diseases easier and easier. Mental hospitals have changed the way the treat a patient’s illness considerably compared to the hospital described in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
“The Great Depression was a worldwide economic slump of the 1930’s” (Fetzer; p.338). The Great Depression caused a catastrophic amount of grief and distress for the citizens of the United States. Some of these citizens, however, faced more problems which caused grief and distress than others. Among those citizens were the mentally ill. During the era of the Great Depression, the mentally handicapped were treated unfairly in almost every aspect of their lives; this included how society treated them, how they were treated medically, and even how their personal lives were affected.
Mental healthcare has a long and murky past in the United States. In the early 1900s, patients could live in institutions for many years. The treatments and conditions were, at times, inhumane. Legislation in the 1980s and 1990s created programs to protect this vulnerable population from abuse and discrimination. In the last 20 years, mental health advocacy groups and legislators have made gains in bringing attention to the disparity between physical and mental health programs. However, diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses continues to be less than optimal. Mental health disparities continue to exist in all areas of the world.
Continuing budget cuts on mental health care create negative and detrimental impacts on society due to increased improper care for mentally ill, public violence, and overcrowding in jails and emergency rooms. Origins, of mental health as people know it today, began in 1908. The movement initiated was known as “mental hygiene”, which was defined as referring to all things preserving mental health, including maintaining harmonious relation with others, and to participate in constructive changes in one’s social and physical environment (Bertolote 1). As a result of the current spending cuts approaching mental health care, proper treatment has declined drastically. The expanse of improper care to mentally ill peoples has elevated harmful threats of heightened public violence to society.
In 1950s the construction of new psychiatric centres took place in order to treat people with mental disorders. Local authorities provided financial resources to sustain these establishments of psychiatry. Apparently those psychiatric centres were treating the patients in unappropriated ways and inhuman acts as well as demanding them to remain inside the psychiatric centres for the rest of
The BBC documentary, Mental: A History of the Madhouse, delves into Britain’s mental asylums and explores not only the life of the patients in these asylums, but also explains some of the treatments used on such patients (from the early 1950s to the late 1990s). The attitudes held against mental illness and those afflicted by it during the time were those of good intentions, although the vast majority of treatments and aid being carried out against the patients were anything but “good”. In 1948, mental health began to be included in the NHS (National Health Service) as an actual medical condition, this helped to bring mental disabilities under the umbrella of equality with all other medical conditions; however, asylums not only housed people
In the early 1900's life for America's new Chicago immigrant workers in the meat packing industry was explored by Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle. Originally published in 1904 as a serial piece in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason, Sinclair's novel was initially found too graphic and shocking by publishing firms and therefore was not published in its complete form until 1906. In this paper, I will focus on the challenges faced by a newly immigrated worker and on what I feel Sinclair's purpose was for this novel.