Wake County, NC - Bicentennial

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by
Barbara Kawamoto <bakawamoto@earthlink.net>

Reprinted with permission of the News & Observer and cannot be 
reproduced without permission. 

                 School, Hospital Show Raleigh Cares

The News and Observer
December 29, 1991
Raleigh 200/The New Capital

   Fueled by unprecedented prosperity and the spiritual ardor 
of the Great Reformation in religion, the last two decades 
before the Civil War saw national campaigns to rid the country 
of illiteracy, intemperance, primitive criminal codes and a host 
of social evils.

   In the South, this ardor was tempered by the fear that reforms 
would encroach upon the institution of slavery, but the results
nevertheless were impressive.  Among them, two survive in Raleigh:  
The Dorothea Dix Hospital for the Insane and the Governor
Morehead School for the Blind.

   By 1840, North Carolinians looked at state government as more 
than a necessary evil and began to look to Raleigh for improvements 
in the conditions of the state’s handicapped citizens and the criminal 
element.

   Such humanitarian reforms had been part of Archibald D. Murphey’s 
far-sighted proposal as early as 1817.

   In 1843, Whig Gov. John Motley Morehead finally persuaded the 
state legislature to give serious consideration to establishing a
school for the deaf and blind.  A demonstration of the techniques 
for teaching the deaf was made in the Capitol by a Virginia
instructor and so impressed lawmakers that the following year they 
appropriated $5,000, to be allocated among counties agreeing to
put up $75 a year for each student.

   William D. Cooke, the Virginia schoolmaster whose pupils had 
performed in Raleigh, was retained as superintendent of the North
Carolina Institution for the Education of the Deaf, Dumb and Blind, 
that opened in May 1845 in Raleigh.  Money for buildings was
added in 1847 and the building on Caswell Square - one of the 
city’s original five - was completed in 1849.  A department for 
blind students was added in 1851.

   In 1895, deaf children were moved to Morganton and the school 
was then called the N.C. State School for the Blind.  In 1927, the
school moved to a new plant on Ashe Avenue.  It was renamed the 
Governor Morehead School for the Blind in 1964.

   Gov. Morehead had another proposal:  an institution for the 
insane, which the legislature rejected.  New England reformer
Dorothea Dix arrived in North Carolina in 1848 and looked into 
the existing care for the insane.  She found it barbaric.

   Not permitted to appear before the legislature, Miss Dix came 
to Raleigh anyway, issued a long "memorial" of her investigation
and lobbied strenuously with lawmakers.

   The Whigs were ready to establish the state institution she 
proposed, but Democrats balked.  By coincidence, Miss Dix was
staying at the same Raleigh hotel as Mrs. James C. Dobbin, wife of 
an influential Cumberland County Democrat.  The fate of the
hospital turned on their friendship, according to Elizabeth Reid 
Murray in "Wake - The Capital County."  Mrs. Dobbin suddenly took
ill.  Miss Dix nursed her in the hotel and, when the dying Mrs. 
Dobbins asked what she could do for her, Miss Dix replied that she
should ask her husband to support the hospital.  Mr. Dobbin gave 
a stirring speech, and the bill funding the hospital passed.

   The State Hospital for the Insane at "Dix Hill" opened in 1856.
It was renamed after its inspiring genius in 1959.

==============================================================

USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free
information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial
entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material.
The electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit 
or for presentation by other persons or organizations.

Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes 
other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file 
contributor, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of 
this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb 
Archives to store the file permanently for free access.

==============================================================