Dorothea Dix

Dorothea Dix

Dorothea Lynde Dix (April 4, 1802 – July 17, 1887) was as an activist on behalf of the indigent insane. She created the first generation of American mental asylums through her vigorous program of lobbying state legislatures and the United States Congress. She started her carrer writing children's books and starting schools, and during the Civil War was Superintendent of United States Army Nurses. She also helped bring reform for the insane and in prisons in Europe.

Life

Growing up in Worcester, born to a family in contsant distress, Dorthea Dix managed to become a woman whoose epitaph stated that the United States has not produced a more prductive or useful woman. Her father, , was an itinerant Methodist preacher who was also an alchoholic. Her mother was fourteen years her father's senior, and was constantly having headaches while struggling with depression and the families lack of finances. Dorthea took care of the other children. She never liked to talk about her childhood, and has said that she never had a childhood. She did learn to read and write from her father, howeveer, and taught her siblings also to read an write. She had found her vocation. She loved to teach.

When she was twelve, the fighting between her parents became too much, and she went to her paternal grandmother's house whom she had been named after. She had always loved that grandfather, and loved reading his books from when he was at Harvard University. Her grandmother wanted her to become a lady, and as she was rich, she gave Dorthea tennis lessons, a seamstress to make her clothes and everything a young society lady would want. She was very upset when Dorthea would be giving those clothes away to the poor who stood outside the gate. After a few years, Dorthea went to her aunt, as her grandmother felt her aunt could help her more. Dorthea wanted to return and help her siblings, and tried very hard, but it was four more years before she could return.

At one of the society events, Dorthea met XXXXX. He was fourteen years her senior, and an attorney but he really appreciated her knowledge and desire to help others. He helped her start a school in a small shop on the main street. He grew quite fond of her, and eventually proposed. He pusued her as she returned to her grandmother's house, and she agreed to marry him, but would not set a date. She eventually realized her schools were most important to her, and gave his ring back to him.

When Dix was twenty nine, she had her epiphany. She had agreed to teach Sunday School at a local prison, and was shocked by what she saw. The mentally ill, the criminals, the debt -ridden were all together in an unheated place with a stone floor for their bed. She was told that the insane do not feel heat of cold. One man was chained naked and occaisionally whipped to get him to behave better. She could not tolerate this.

From then, this was Dix's calling.

In her mid-thirties she suffered a debilitating breakdown. In hopes of a cure, in 1836 she traveled to England, where she stayed with the Rathbone family for a year at Greenbank, their ancestral mansion in Liverpool. The Rathbones were Quakers and prominent social reformers, and at Greenbank Dix met men and women who believed that government should play a direct, active role in social welfare. She was also exposed to the British lunacy reform movement, whose methods involved detailed investigations of madhouses and asylums, the results of which were published in reports to the House of Commons.

Work

After she returned to America, in 1840-41 Dix conducted a statewide investigation of how her home state of Massachusetts cared for the insane poor. She published the results in a fiery pamphlet, a Memorial, to the state legislature. "I proceed, Gentlemen, briefly to call your attention to the present state of Insane Persons confined within this Commonwealth, in cages, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience." The outcome of her lobbying was a bill to expand the state's mental hospital.

Henceforth, Dix traveled from New Hampshire to Louisiana, documenting the condition of pauper lunatics, publishing memorials to state legislatures, and devoting enormous personal energy to working with committees to draft the appropriations bills needed to build asylums. She was instrumental in the founding of the first public mental hospital in Pennsylvania, the Harrisburg State Hospital, and later in establishing its library and reading room in 1853.

As a teacher, she wrote many books and had success helping parents learn to work with their own children. Conversations on Common Things, published in 1824 and much reprinted, was designed to help parents answer their children's questions such as: "Why do we call this day Monday? Why do we call this month January? What is tin? Does cinnamon grow on trees?" The answers given demonstrated Dix's extensive knowledge of the natural world. She also published American Moral Tales for Young Persons, 1832, The Garland of Flora, 1829, and Meditations for Private Hours, 1828.

Legacy

The culmination of her work was legislation to set aside 10,000,000 acres of Federal land, with proceeds from its sale distributed to the states to build and maintain asylums. Dix's land bill passed both houses of congress, but in 1854 President Franklin Pierce vetoed it, arguing that the federal government should not involve itself in social welfare.

Stung by the defeat of her land bill, in 1854-55 Dix traveled to England and Europe, where she reconnected with the Rathbones and conducted investigations of Scotland's madhouses that precipitated the Scottish Lunacy Commission.

During the Civil War, at sixty years old, Dix was appointed Superintendent of Army Nurses. She promoted the use of female nurses, and insisted that they not be distracted by the men. She only had less attractive women over thirty serve. She would often bring in supplies from private sources when there were not enough rations, medicines, and supplies from the military. The nursing corps was undoubtedly better for her administration.

She spent her last years living in the first state hospital that she had inspired, the New Jersey State Hospital in Trenton.

Bibliography

• "Conversations on Common Things." 1824. ASIN: B0008706FE
• "American Moral Tales for Young Persons." 1832.
• "On Behalf of the Insane Poor." ISBN: 0898754518
• "The Garland of Flora." 1829.
• "Meditations for Private Hours." 1828.

Recommended Reading

• Gollaher, David: Voice for the Mad: The Life of Dorothea Dix, (The Free Press, 1995)

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Bumb, Jenn. "Dorothea Dix." Women's Intellectual Contributions to the Study of Mind and Society.

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