During this time, many prisons/asylums for criminals the the mentally ill were found guilty of mistreatment and overcrowding. Said prisons/asylums were replaced with experimental penitentiaries that practiced many things like solitary confinement for reflection and moral introductions or work programs. Some examples would be many penitentiaries in Pennsylvania and the Auburn system in New York. The goal of this movement was to rehabilitate inmates toward penitence and a model of discipline.
Dorothea Dix
A former school teacher from Massachusetts who dedicated her life to the reform movement of asylums. Before she started the movement, she found out how horribly mentally ill people were treated in prisons. They were locked up in unsanitary cells and were with convicted criminals. In the 1840s, she traveled around the country to educated those about the seriousness of mental illness and how the U.S. needs to build new mental hospitals and improve conditions/treatments. Due to her "crusade", mental patients began receiving professional help at state expense.
Thomas Gallaudet
A Reverend and educator from Pennsylvania who sought to help people with physical disabilities. He founded the first educational institution for the deaf.
Horace Mann
Was an educational reformer and Whig politician who sought to improve the public education system in the U.S. He was the secretary for the Massachusetts Board of Education and there he worked for improved schools, mandatory attendance, a longer school year, and higher educator quality/teacher preparation. This movement for tax-supported school officially started in Massachusetts and in the 1840s, it quickly spread to other states. Apart from this, Mann also believed that children should be educated about the principles of morality. Virtues such as hard work, punctuality, and sobriety were taught. Mann believed that these teachings were needed in the emerging industrial society.
Samuel Gridley Howe
He was a physician, abolitionist, and advocated for the blind from Massachusetts. He organized and was the first director of the Perkins Institution for the blind.
Temperance Movement
Due to high rate of alcohol consumption, reformers targeted alcohol as the reason for social issues, like domestic violence, crime, and laziness, and it became the most popular reform movement at the time. It was mostly supported by women and it is a perfect example of the shift from moral opinions to political action. The American Temperance Society was founded in 1826 by Protestant ministers and others. Soon Temperance had become a respectable course of action, especially in the middle-class and it was later supported by politicians and factory owners who had recognized its positive effects on crime, poverty, and their workers' output. This movement was also used to attack Irish and German immigrants who were opposed to it but did not have much political power to do anything.