Julius Chambers

Julius Chambers
Julius Chambers ca. 1912
Born	1850 Bellefontaine, Ohio
Died	1920
Occupation	journalist, travel writer
Nationality	American
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Julius Chambers, F.R.G.S., (November 21, 1850 - February 12, 1920) was an American author, editor, journalist, travel writer, and activist against psychiatric abuse.

Julius Chambers was born in Bellefontaine, Ohio in 1850, the son of Joseph and Sarabella (née Walker) Chambers. When he was only eleven years old, he began working as a printer's devil in his uncles' newspaper office. He first attended Ohio Wesleyan University, and later, Cornell University, from which he graduated in 1870. At Cornell, he was a member of the Irving Literary Society. Around 1880, while working as a journalist he spent some time reading law with Attorney General Brewster in Philadelphia and studying at Columbia College Law School.

After leaving Cornell, he became a reporter on the New York Tribune.

While on sick leave on June 4, 1872, he discovered Elk Lake, adjoining Lake Itasca, in the Lake District of Northwestern Minnesota and declared it to be the source of the Mississippi River. For this he was made a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. This led to a series of newspaper articles and the book The Mississippi River and Its Wonderful Valley (1910).

Later in 1872, he returned to work and undertook a journalistic investigation of Bloomingdale Asylum, having himself committed with the help of some of his friends and the city editor. His intent was to obtain information about alleged abuse of inmates. After ten days, his collaborators on the project had him released. When articles and accounts of the experience were published in the Tribune, it led to the release of twelve patients who were not mentally ill, a reorganization of the staff and administration of the institution and, eventually, to a change in the lunacy laws. This later led to the publication of the book A Mad World and Its People (1876). From this time onward, Chambers was frequently invited to speak on the rights of the mentally ill and the need for proper facilities for their accommodation, care and treatment.